Advertisement
The direction everything is drifting
Adam Dyer warns that current political priorities will result in almost all of us becoming commodities.
It is a free country. People can vote for who they want. . . . Yet, we all must remember that if we continue to prioritize transactions over relationships, all of us (academic elites, farmers, day laborers, corporate CEOs) will be reduced to only the value that can be extracted from us, which is the very same formula that drove plantations.
If this is a free country, why would we actively vote to be slaves? (spirituwellness, February 5)
Doug Muder’s sober assessment of the Trump Administration’s so-called Middle East peace plan is that it most likely will lead to “one Jewish ethno-state, from which Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed.”
It will be a traumatic thing for the Israeli people to see themselves do, which is why it will take another couple decades for them to work up a sufficient self-justification. But the extreme right wing of Israeli politics is there already, and that seems to me to be the direction everything is drifting. (The Weekly Sift, February 3)
There is plenty to fight for
Acknowledging that she may be “screaming into the void” of shell-shocked apathy, Catharine Clarenbach urges us to brace ourselves, pay attention, and get to work.
Let it sink in. Just take a breath, put your feet on the floor, ground yourself in your own body and your own safety, and take it in. . . .
Bring your words, friends. Bring your bodies. Bring your voices. Bring your hearts.
There may or may not be hope, but there is plenty to fight for, and we are obliged, not to finish the work of justice, but to continue its tasks, nonetheless. (The Way of the River, February 6)
Hearing that the president had asked American clergy to keep their congregations informed of what his administration is doing, David MIller Kohlmeier said, “Far be it from me to ignore a call from the President!” (Facebook, February 6)
Jordinn Nelson Long reminds us that a free press is an independent press—not one that costs nothing.
What First-Amendment free press organizations are you supporting this year? How are your dollars upholding the inquiry, information, and robust critique that journalism performs on behalf of a free republic?
News and news organizations are changing, and we all still live within and under capitalism. How will you support the covering and distribution of our collective stories—including those that power would prefer not be told? (Facebook, February 5)
Turn your face to the sun
Vanessa Southern posted photographs from the celebration of life for spiritual teacher Ram Dass, held at the First UU Society of San Francisco. Calling it a “love and laughter fest,” she noted the participation of Larry and Dirija Brilliant, Jai Uttal and Krishna Das, Joan Baez and David Weir, Wavy Gravy, Jack Kornfield and many others. (Facebook, February 1)
CB Beal responds to white women who complain that the performers in the Super Bowl half-time show were too sexualized, and too scantily clad.
[What] if it’s not they who are wrong,
but rather we who were injured and
manipulated into smallering ourselves and
dis associating ourselves from our bodies
then telling ourselves it was for morality
not safety.
But what if. . . . our experience of having been locked in and
shut down in our embodiment
was not protection,
but a denial of our own liberation? (Facebook, February 3)
Expecting a battle, Helen Rose is surprised by the kind way another parent asks about her child’s gender.
This person did not ask the perfect question in the perfect way, they were not perfectly woke or an expert, they were simply kind, nonjudgmental, and willing to try to understand.
The best any of us can do is be kind, nonjudgmental, and willing to try to understand. (The Journey So Far, February 3)
Will Darcangelo encourages us to find ways to “remind ourselves that winter will end and spring will come.”
In the 21st century, we have not shed our humanity. We have not evolved beyond the point of feeling reflexive discomfort as the winter grinds on. Add to that the complications of our modern world, and perhaps we need rituals of comfort and renewal even more now than in ancient times.
The advice here is to actively seek that comfort, even if you don’t consciously feel you need it. If you are human, this time of year will affect you in one way or another. . . .
Turn your face to the light whenever you can. . . . You need it more than you know. (Lowell Sun, February 3)