Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee explores the simple but essential truth: that the mystical journey which takes us deep within the heart is always for the sake of the Beloved, never for our sake. In this present time, when so much is distorted, it is vital that we remember this, no matter our faith tradition.
Read MoreSustainability is often referred to as “deep ecology” and it considers the ecosystem as a living whole of which humanity is only one part. In this complex web of interrelationships all species are dependent upon each other, and it is this dynamic pattern of inter-relationship that needs to be sustained. No one part can be considered as separate from the whole.
Read MoreBayo Akomolafe, is the chief curator of The Emergence Network, a research inquirey in the otherwise. It asks the questions: What if the way we respond to the crisis is part of the crisis. Here is his poetic offering: In the morning, you won’t find me here, A Meditation on Blackness.
Read MoreIn the age of the Anthropocene - the time humans have adversely affected the earth - and entrenched politics of whiteness, Bayo Akomolafe brings us face-to-face with our own unresolved ancestry, as it becomes more and more apparent that we are completely entwined with each other and the natural world.
Read MoreAs rampant urbanization increasingly severs humanity from the living world, naturalist Michael McCarthy explores the ways in which the “anthropause,” ushered in by the coronavirus, has—on an unprecedented scale—made nature visible again.
Read MoreAs Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange?
Read MorePoetry, Audre Lorde tells us, names “the nameless so it can be thought.” On Being features poets across our media and public life offerings because poetry, for all its craft, is more than a craft. It is a necessary art. Poetry speaks to the way we could be. Poetry doesn’t have a single purpose, but it might help us live with purpose.
Read MoreSlavery existed across British colonies, but often white Canadians, both in and outside the church, talk about enslavement by fixating on the Underground Railroad. Alydia Smith through her own experience in church culture, addresses this misconcpetion.
Read MorePresident and founder of Sojourners, Rev. Jim Wallis welcomes best-selling author Margaret Atwood for a conversation on the effect that debt — monetary, spiritual, and ecological — are having on people and the planet. Together, they explore why Margaret’s groundbreaking novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” is even more prescient today, and why loving your neighbor means loving your neighbor’s oxygen, too.
Read MoreRev. Teresa 'Terri' Hord Owens, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), offers a sermon on becoming the church that Jesus has called us to be - fully committed to anti-racism. The Diciples of Christ are in full communion with The United Church of Canada.
Read MoreAward-winning author and preacher, Diana Butler Bass speaks with Rev. Jim Wallis about her latest book Freeing Jesus. Diana shares how her experience of Jesus has changed over the years and how the Christian that is she is today is much different than she was before.
Read MoreDaniel Berrigan was one of the best-known American peace activists of the 20th century. But there’s a lesser-known aspect of his Christian commitment worth noting: his work on behalf of the material and spiritual needs of New York City’s “discarded souls,” in particular those suffering the ravages of cancer and HIV/AIDS.
Read MoreIn Rainer Maria Rilke’s seminal collection of poetry, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, the great twentieth-century poet explores the nature of—and his relationship to—God through divinely “received” prayers.
Read MoreThis visual essay features tintype photographs of the remaining speakers of endangered languages in North America, highlighting the critical state of Indigenous language loss and celebrating the Native speakers whose voices embody resilience and revitalization.
Read MoreThe coming stage of evolution, Teilhard de Chardin said, won’t be driven by physical adaptation but by human consciousness, creativity, and spirit. On Being visits with his biographer Ursula King, and we experience his ideas energizing New York Times Dot Earth blogger Andrew Revkin and evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson.
Read MoreAsh Wednesday has traditionally been an important gathering in the Catholic church, and less so in the Protestant tradition. There is much to learn from its observance, for it is a thoughtful beginning to the Lenten season of repentance and contemplation.
Read MoreIn written word, and simple video, here is a poem that draws together the ecological and the spiritual, reminding us, as we seem to have forgotten, that all the universe and everything in it, is sacred. This is What was Bequeathed Us, from Gregory Orr’s How Beautiful the Beloved.
Read MorePádraig Ó Tuama is the delightful host the Poetry Unbound podcast. He asks people to stop for 12 minutes every day and simply be still and listen to a poem, and some thoughts about it. This is art and spirituality all in one. Stillness and creativity woven together.
Read MoreLorraine Johnson is an environmentalist, passionate gardener and activist. In 2002, she released her seminal work, The Gardener’s Manifesto. This call to action has inspired a generation of gardeners to embrace their work with an ecological and social purpose - and to plant native plants on their properties.
Read MoreHere is a wonderful conversation about climate change and moral imagination with a leading environmentalist and writer who has been ahead of the curve on this issue since he wrote The End of Nature in 1989. It explores his evolving perspective on human responsibility in a changing natural world.
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