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No matter the absence of stars
that leaves the night in darkness;
no matter the empty bowls
when the children are not fed;
no matter criminal words
are spoken without recrimination;

If you look into a chrysalis, what you discover is an empty tomb. The caterpillar is gone; not resuscitated, but resurrected. Now lives a butterfly.

We are an Easter people! We believe that faith can move mountains, and that caterpillars can be transformed into butterflies.

While the petition caravan the First Nations Study Group undertook in 2013 may be a singular highlight of the work we do, it certainly was not a flash in the pan. Last year hundreds of people came to West Hill to hear the celebrated author Joseph Boyden read from his prize-winning historical novel “The Orenda”. Proceeds from the ticket sales were donated, on Mr. Boyden’s request, to Camp Onakawana, a place on the Abitibi River where native youth, who have lost their way, can rediscover the traditions and beliefs of their peoples.

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.

(Excerpt from Theology From Exile Vol. III, The Year of Mark by Sea Raven, D.Min.) Acts 10:34-43; Isaiah 25:6-9; Psalm 118:14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Mark 16:1-8 For Christians who follow the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B’s readings …

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?

Moving further into the Inspired by Hollywood series, we went to see the movie Selma. What a powerful film and so timely. That black men are still twenty-one times more likely to be killed by police than white men* in America is staggering and the media’s attention, drawn to this truth by the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, has drawn our attention, too. Watching Selma brought home the shameful truth that in far too many places, racism still rules the streets.

Loving-kindness is a wonderful word, perhaps the best. The concept that it connotes is found in a variety of source material. In Buddhism, that concept is called metta, and is variously translated as benevolence, amity, friendliness. In fact, a whole type of meditation is based on metta, wherein one begins by meditating upon loving oneself, and, as one gains in this exercise, the field of loving-kindness then proceeds outward, encompassing next a person close to you, then others, gradually, until finally the whole sentient world is loved.

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.

When someone shares in our suffering, somehow the knowledge that we are not alone, that there is someone out there who knows the pain that we are going through, the knowledge that we are cared for by someone who truly knows our pain comforts us and gives us the strength we need to endure our suffering.

To be alone in our suffering is the most terrible thing that we can imagine. The Good News that God is LOVE means that LOVE will not let us suffer alone because LOVE is determined to suffer with us. Working in, with, and through those who have experienced our pain LOVE is able to enfold us and say, “I know, my child, I know.”

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.

A Thai life insurance company with a history of producing powerful, tearjerking ads has done it again. Its latest, a three-minute spot titled “Unsung Hero,” follows a good Samaritan whose daily deeds (watering a dying sidewalk potted plant, helping an elderly street vendor get her cart over a high curb, feeding a stray hungry dog, leaving bananas for an elderly neighbor, giving money to a poor young girl) go largely unnoticed — mainly because he’s not looking to be recognized. “He gets nothing,” an English translation of the ad’s voice-over reads. “He won’t be richer. Won’t appear on TV. Still anonymous. And not a bit more famous.” Eventually, though, the man’s kindness is rewarded when he sees the power of his actions

I’ve spent a certain amount of my life with my head stuck in a jug, convinced that the whole world is dark. For me, mindfulness meditation practice has been the means by which the jug gets pulled off and I’m able to wake to the light.

The mythical stories of Jesus’ transfiguration remind me of old-fashioned love songs. You know the kind of songs that were playing on the radio when you first met, and when you hear them, you are instantly taken …

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.