This is a plea for Christians to realize the significance of Isaiah 53 for their understanding of who Jesus was and what he did. I believe that he was motivated by love to take on the role of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53.
The RBC’s meeting wasn’t, apparently, about the conversations that could be had at the TCC. To avoid any unexpected conversations, in fact, the bank blocked access to the meeting to any but shareholders, a practice that, I’ve been told, is relatively new.
Christian nationalism that had led to the first world war, was now leading to the second. Almost all of the 60 million Germans in 1933 were Christians. The country was suffering in the aftermath of WWI, and it was ready for a new “Leader” who would restore the economy and national pride.
The fact is that civil-minded folk outnumber the forces on the other side. There are just more of us than there are of them. The problem is that we have not recognized the current existential threat. We slide along the path we are on, pretending as though next year will be the same as this year. It will not.
Fifty years ago, in 1974, the Combahee River Collective was founded in Boston by several lesbian and feminist women of African descent. As a sisterhood, they understood that their acts of protest were shouldered by and because of their ancestors—known and unknown—who came before them.
What I know is that I need to not beat myself up for having a hard time when I’m having a hard time.
Will American politicians stand up to Putin? Will they learn anything from the sacrifice of Navalny?
One of the most challenging things in life is to stay engaged in a conversation when there are clearly very different ideologies at play.
Vigils are being held regionally and all over the world to protest the horrific war in Israel. Pro-Israeli and Pro-Palestinian advocates are demanding their people’s plights be heard.
Fierce love pursues peace through nonviolence
If we want peace, it has to start with us. We must uproot violence from our language, in the ways we relate to one another.
We recently celebrated the life, faith and non-violence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The moment triggers within us a host of emotions-thankfulness for heroes such as he, distress about the state of our country, anxiety about the future, and fear for the present.
Decades ago, I wrote a blessing prayer for this season that began with a reference to nothing but a flicker of hope in “the fading glory of these autumn days, when night creeps early on to darkness; and leaves us, bound in shadows, longing for the light.” And yet, it remains that flicker of hope that I want to write about.
O come, O come Wisdom from on high – Send your wisdom and cast aside the myopic stupidity that comes from thinking only of ourselves, only of our own species, only of our own wellbeing, only of our own country, only of our own religion, only of our own historical moment.
If we want peace, it has to start with us. We must uproot violence from our language, in the ways we relate to one another.
At the heart of the Christian tradition, we say there is “faith (πίστις, ‘pistis’ Gr. - trust), hope (ἐλπίς, Gr. elpis = meaning expectation, in a positive sense), and love ( ἀγάπη Gr. ‘agapé’ ‘love’ or φιλανθρωπία Gr. ‘caritas’ = charity).
You have to live with hope for the possibilities of the future
Let's assume that a chance for peace still exists on the other side of the current Israeli/ Hamas war. By no means a sure thing, but we have to hope.
on AI, religion, and
What I am saying is that if we are not looking at the whole reality of being human, the good the bad and the embarrassing, then we simply will not have the wisdom to know how to make use of, them in, or regulate AI.
It has been so hard to watch the events unfolding in Gaza and not fall into the ease of a hardline
Today, the NAACP has an LGBTQIA Committee Chairperson, Demar Roberts from S. C., who works to protect and advance the rights of the LGBTQ+ community.
Global warming is the latest proof that we have crossed a boundary into a truly apocalyptic age, for we now live in a period when anthropogenic change is overpowering nature and life itself.
The bodhisattva has one pair of hands at rest. One pair of hands is praying. 500 pairs of hands are acting in
Money, wealth, financial power, economic power, call it what you will, extreme wealth disparity destroys societies from within, eating away at the bond between people and the fabric of society.
We are considering how Courage, like Joy, is one of the signs of holiness in our time. In yesterday’s meditation, Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that we “must love something more than the fear of death” if we are to live.
The week between Palm Sunday and Easter
How are we supposed to cope with the despair that sets in when our known world is stolen and an invading, oppressive regime steps in?
The Easter experience is about the birth of a new consciousness. It is a consciousness that burst upon the followers of Jesus
When I look at the writers who examine the relation between religion and politics, most take their cues from the Bible. There are two problems with this approach.
Poetry for International Women's Day
As International Women’s Day rolled around, that simmering sense of anger came to the surface. It flowed out, however, not in the murky waters of a pity pool, but in a torrent of stories of women all around the world and the challenges they face on a regular, often daily, basis. I set my own concerns aside and wrote for them, my own difficulties of little consequence in the face of what it is other women do every single day. In the light of their strength, our own can be renewed.