Archive for the ‘Spirituality’ Tag
Richard Wagamese first came into my life through a book club. They read his book, Indian Horse, which was then recommended to me. The story touched my heart in the summer of 2016, and I subsequently read his books, Medicine Walk and One Story: One Song. The latter book is full of wisdom for life.
At Christmas 2016 I was blessed by receiving the gift of Richard’s profound wisdom, contained in the book, “Embers”. For example, “Embers” contains the following:
“LIFE is a series of passageways we choose largely on faith and a healthy dose of hope. We hope that the hallway of our choosing leads us to magic: the inexplicable, the sudden, the unconfined. Not so that we can capture it, hold it, make it our own – but just so that we can feel it, even for an instant. Feel it and know the truth that the universe itself is magic. Hope that by our believing, our blind trust, our inherent innocence, someday, sometime, somewhere, that magic will become us, even fleetingly, and we touch the face of God.”
Reading Richard Wagamese has helped me on this journey called life; he has helped me to know more about the tragedy of Canada’s residential school system and the harm that it did to First Nations people, and I am thankful for the wisdom that he has shared.
Changing the Rules of Engagement:
AS WE ENTER this new Trumpish world, I’ve been thinking a lot about civil disobedience. I had the honor of delivering the first lecture in honor of the late Jonathan Schell two nights after the election, and used the occasion to reflect on his masterwork Unconquerable World, with its confident belief that the era of violence was passing and that nonviolent action was the right way for the “active many” to beat the “ruthless few.”
This jibes with my own experience of the last few years. Helping to organize big protests like the ones that launched the Keystone pipeline fight, or watching in admiration as friends galvanized the country around Standing Rock, has convinced me that these techniques continue to represent our best tools for change.
On the one hand, disobedience may be harder in the Trump era—it may come at a higher price, as the zealot officials he’s appointed crack down.
But civil disobedience may also be more important than ever, especially the civil part. Because what we are battling now is not just corporate power and shabby oligarchy. It’s also a galloping incivility, the verbal violence and crudity that marked Trump’s campaign and his days of preparing for the presidency. It’s the “alt-right” ugliness of Breitbart’s white nationalism; it’s the constant barrage of nasty tweets. None of it looks like anything we’ve seen before from a president, and all of it, whether by design or not, hacks at the bonds that hold us together as a nation.
If we respond to that in kind—with the same sort of anger and snarl—then we play into the hands of the Steve Bannons of the world. They’re always going to be better at it, just as they’re always going to have more weapons.
Jesus the Homeless
Rev. Jim Wallis has written an excellent piece about how Christians in America, as opposed to American Christians, will view an Executive Order from the new President of the U.S.A.
“For Christians, in the 25th chapter of Matthew, Jesus makes clear that how we treat “the stranger” is how we treat him. That’s what the Gospel text says. And the “stranger” means immigrants and refugees — the citizens of other nations living and traveling among us. Therefore, this is a faith issue for us as Christians. Donald Trump’s executive order on “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States” is in conflict with our Christian faith, and we will oppose it as a matter of faith.”
Wallis concludes that:
“The good news is that intense but nonviolent protests at airports and public squares broke out all over the country this past weekend in opposition to the executive order — including tens of thousands of people outside the White House, in Boston, and in New York City’s Battery Park overlooking the Statue of Liberty. Exercising the right to peacefully assemble will be asked of us many times in the weeks, months, and years ahead, and we must rise to the occasion, remain engaged, and keep witnessing to our faith and values when they are targeted by this government.”
Read the full commentary by Rev. Jim Wallis at:
By Jim Taylor – January 1, 2017
Another year end, another statutory holiday, and so I’m under no obligation to deliver a column of 750 words focussed on current events to the local newspaper.
Like most of us, I find myself thinking back over the last year.
Certainly, if you lived in Syria, Yemen, Gaza, or either of the Sudans, it would not have been a good year. And perhaps not in the U.K. and the U.S.A, depending on your political alignment. In the news, too, famous people toppled like ten-pins.
But that’s the macro level. At the micro level, most people I know have had a pretty good year. Stock markets have soared to record levels. Employment has risen, if fractionally. Mortgage rates have stayed low. Even without autopilot features, cars have been getting better and better – economy models now have safety features you couldn’t get on luxury cars 20 years ago.
Here in Canada, we have a federal government that at least seems to operate from an ethical base. Some things move too fast for some, too slow for others. But it seems that we are going to have more humane legislation governing marijuana use; removal of bureaucratic blockage of safe injection sites; maybe even a more equitable system for voting. We already have something closer to satisfactory laws allowing the terminally and hopelessly ill to get medical assistance in dying.
Medical care and treatment have improved. My wife Joan currently benefits from chemotherapy that didn’t exist just 5 years ago.
And over the last year, we have given almost 40,000 desperate refugees a new home. Media reports claim they have integrated about as well as could be expected. It’s not easy, giving up everything you have known to start all over again.
The challenge for the coming year, it seems to me, is to reduce the disparity between the macro and micro perspectives.
On that theme, I think of an article distributed by CounterCurrents, an alternative news source out of India.
“Do not lose heart,” wrote Clarissa Pinkola Estés, a certified Jungian analyst with a doctorate in ethno-clinical psychology. (No, I don’t know what that means either, but I like what she says.)
“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. It is not given to us to know which acts, or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
“What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up…”
If you’re interested, Ms. Estes best-known book is Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of The Wild Woman Archetype, which was on The New York Times’ best seller list for 145 weeks. And if you’re interested in CounterCurrents, you can check it out at www.countercurrents.or, or write to editor Binu Matthew at editor@countercurrents.org
Happy New Year!
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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Courtesy of Walter Brueggemann
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann was recently engaged with The United Church Observer in a conversation. Here’s an example:
Q I understand that one of your favourite texts is Isaiah 43:19, in which the prophet describes his vision of the “new thing” God is doing. What is your own new vision for our world?
A My vision would include a neighbourly economy in which all are given access to what is needed for a life of dignity, security and well-being. It includes a new humanism in which we value our own faith confession but make room to take seriously the faith confessions of others. It is open to a new internationalism in which nobody, including the United States, is permitted to be a bully. It means the re-characterization of all of our social relationships in ways that are healthy, generative and restorative. This is obviously a huge leap, but I think that’s what Martin Luther King, Jr. was talking about when he said, “I have a dream.”
This is the mere opening of that incredible apostle of the nonviolent Jesus, Emmanuel Charles McCarthy Dear Pope Francis, Christ is in our midst. He is now and ever shall be. I am aware that several hundred Catholics and Americans of goodwill have appealed to you by letter, petitioning you regarding your upcoming visit […]
via Chas McCarthy to Pope Francis — Theology in the Vineyard
When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:33-34 NRSV Anglicized
As we live through these “interesting times”, I found inspiration in the words of The Rev. Desmond Jagger-Parsons. Desmond is concluding his service as Chair of the ecumenical coalition known as KAIROS. His concluding paragraph in his recent post on the KAIROS website reads:
“Like many of you, as an individual, I have a partisan opinion about what has happened in the US election and I have them in Canada as well. Some in KAIROS have the same opinion, some different. It doesn’t matter. Our common work is the work of Love – let us profess it boldly, with conviction, employing our rights as citizens and demanding the same for all. And although the times may be times of fear, let us remember proclamation of the angels in both testaments: Do not be afraid.”
The full reflection on “Citizens in God’s Commonwealth” is at:
