The origins of the word surrender come from the French roots for “to give back,” and “over.” And that is exactly what surrender is. It is not laying down our arms, it is not choosing peace over justice, it is not breathing deeply and meditating our way out of our pain. True surrender speaks to our relationship with our common mother, the Earth. It means to give back to her, over and over again, above and beyond what we think we are capable of giving.
Last night I returned from a conference in Jamaica about Men and Masculinity—they are dealing with a veritable epidemic of violence among young men and killings of men by men. Not unlike El Salvador and many other places around the globe.
Here at home we have our own violence, much of it also spawned by reptilian brain action/reaction responses, efforts of striving to be “number one” at all costs, buttressed by sins of greed and denial and of patriarchy gone berserk.
Most of the portraits of the mother of Jesus that hang in the great museums of the world are dependent first on the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and …
Defining the human experience that we call God is not just a modern activity, human beings have engaged in this task since the dawn of civilization. The factor driving …