I find that the perseverating mind commences before the fifth breath is even drawn. With a bullet train of thoughts underway, the nervous system is stimulated and sometimes already pumping your body with cortisol.
Ever since the first mind countenanced an unknown source of benevolence, religion has held us together as powerfully as it has driven us apart.
What deeply concerns me about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza is “what’s it all going to look like/ feel like on the other side”–when the violence has stopped?
We who get to be alive right now are living in the sixth great age of extinctions. We passed planetary overshoot a while ago and the ecological and societal effects are irreversible. This is the doom some speak of.
In the majority of Christian churches every Easter and frequently around Christmas, we hear scripture reading proclaiming, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them, light has shined,” and I have to say, it really bothers me.
It is essential for progressive Christians to remember that the Bible emerged from the voices of an oppressed and marginalized people, intended to empower and uplift those facing adversity.
I write this essay at the start of the most recent round of intense violence in a location on the planet that many Christians refer to as “The Holy Land.” At least during this week, that land is anything but holy. I visited Israel and the Palestinian-controlled reservations within it in November 1995.
Granted, some denominations have published “supplements” with more modern music, but way too many have also bent to internal denominational pressure and included a plethora of hopelessly counter-productive praise choruses.
While many political operatives are trying to inch away from Trump, his everlasting white Evangelical base- churchgoers and voters- loves him, comprising approximately 60 percent of the Republican presidential primary electorate.
I have spent my life working on the inside of organized religion, even though my love/hate relationship with most God-talkers makes me an outsider.