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We live in an increasingly polarizing time. In politics and church life, many people are on hair-trigger alert, ready to retaliate at the slightest provocation. Disagreements lead to division and governmental and congregational gridlock. Even proponents of diversity often launch attacks on those who hold more conservative positions on immigration, global climate change, and marriage equality. It is clear that our times call for prophetic action. We need to present imaginative alternatives to injustice, environmental destruction, and prejudice. But, in our quest for social and political justice, we need to find ways to nurture Shalom practices that include our opponents as well as those for whom we advocate. If we are to be true to our progressive and prophetic ideals, we need to treat the opposition with the same care that we treat the oppressed.

Deeper Love is a web resource, updated regularly with input from its users, offering faith-based language for progressive political and social action. It provides activists, lay and clergy people, politicians, campaigners, and organizers with inspiring rhetoric to advance social change. Deeper Love is edited by Rev. Jim Burklo, Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California, with the Theological Reflection Committee of Progressive Christians Uniting. Deeper Love is a project of Progressive Christians Uniting – pcu-la.org – a social justice activist organization based in Los Angeles, California, a Partner Organization of ours.

How can I not be part of the problem: I often ask myself this question. As a white, straight, cis-gendered, male, able-bodied, economically-advantaged, mainline Protestant, American citizen, there is not a lot in terms of classic diversity that I bring to the table. This can be a challenge when one is committed to God’s preferential option for those experiencing oppression. What’s my role in the divine commonwealth, other than to get out of the way? Is my presence with another an act of solidarity or of benevolent paternalism?

For me and for the many who no longer hold those stories as sacred, the cost is simply too high. The potential for posthumous reward or damnation has too often drained life of its beauty, wealth, diversity, and joy and the norms of civil society that are reinforced are often not in the best interests of humanity or, at least, significant swaths of it. So we need a way forward.

We must treat the earth with the same kind of compassion that you would want from creation; the same kind of compassion you would want from the divine. As we travel this road to Emmaus, it becomes less and less important for us to believe in a certain way and vital that we behave with compassion. God is not dead. God is alive and well. God walks with us on the road. God is our companion on the road.

We eat and drink these fruits of earth that love may grow

between us all, between us all.

Check out this Inclusive, Spiritual, Progressive and Diverse Faith Community!

Loving kindness is the cultivation of benevolence toward all living beings, love without clinging, and a strong wish for the happiness of others. It is the kind of love that often bubbles up freely in the heart of a mother for her child. It is a love that is independent of expecting or needing anything in return.

Keep your focus on your emotions or on your heart-center, and wish everyone well. You can imagine that you have a sun in your heart, and that you are radiating warmth and light in every direction as you walk. Or you can repeat the phrase “May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, may all beings be free from suffering.”

Loving kindness is the cultivation of benevolence toward all living beings, love without clinging, and a strong wish for the happiness of others. It is the kind of love that often bubbles up freely in the heart of a mother for her child. It is a love that is independent of expecting or needing anything in return.

I know of no spiritual path which does not presume some kind of significant personal transformation will occur if followed and practiced. By transformation, I mean to experience a change in our understanding of what is real and discovering who and what we really are as humans in this universe. The language may be different, the steps in a different order, the emphasis slightly unique. But I have found there are far more similarities than there are differences between most of the well-known traditions. Their common goal is to learn how to live with a wide awake mind, an open heart and an absence of suffering. For many it also means cultivating the experience of joy.

Reba Riley’s twenty-ninth birthday was a terrible time to undertake a spiritual quest. For one, she was sick. For two, her chronic illness was untreatable, and it was slowly dismantling life as she knew it. But when her incurable physical condition forced her to focus on the spiritual injury she could fix–a whopping case of Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome — Reba undertook the challenge anyway: Visit thirty religions before her thirtieth birthday. This was to be transformation by spiritual shock therapy. She planned to find peace and healing … if it didn’t kill her first.

Deep peace to you, deep peace to you. Deep peace of the running wave to you. Deep peace of the quiet earth to you. Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

The word God evokes highest aspirations. It suggests the whole, and what makes me whole. It delivers me into the rich darkness of mystery, the allure of the unknown. It provokes possibility. It aims beyond what I can explain. The word God invites me beyond what I can imagine. The word God hints at the personality of the universe. It touches me with all-surpassing Love. The word God invokes curiosity, creativity. My uncertainty about what the word God means spins me into a healthy, humbling disequilibrium. It leaves me giddy.

Gifted with a broad, soaring vocal range and crystalline tone Peia’s voice pierces the heart with bell like clarity. She sings with depth and beauty, moving audiences to tears and inviting listeners to reconnect with one’s own purpose and the heart of the Earth.

Rainn Wilson talks about the coming spiritual revolution that must happen in order for us to move forward as a human race.

Radical religious extremists with a distorted view of Islam commit horrific acts of terror, executing the staff of a small satirical French publication. The satirists had dared to depict the Prophet Mohammed in cartoon caricature; all the while lampooning those misbegotten adherents who in turn regard such irreverent acts as blasphemous.

The Western world reacts with outrage and defiance to such an affront. World leaders join a million person protest and unity march through the streets of Paris, chanting “Je Suis Charlie,” in defense of freedom of speech, and on behalf of the publication’s name.

While a clear distinction might be drawn between the use of words and the vehement reactions they may incite, more profound underlying questions remain. While anti-blasphemy laws are common in Muslim countries, countless other “secular” countries have laws against the defamation of religion, as well. Once the dust settles and more thoughtful discussion ensues, one might ask what constitutes the differences between hate speech and freedom of expression?

This commentary consider s esus’ use of what was deemed blasphemous satire, it’s intended purpose, and well-known consequences.

Our prayers igniting, cast out into the shire
and the song of our struggle
came straight from the fire,
it goes:
holy holy grandmother, we sing
wash us clean of our pain and suffering
give us strength for our new beginnings
From my deepest grace I sing
wash away, it will wash away