Practicing Deep Self-Inquiry | First in the Series: “Flourish: How To Bring Out the Best in Ourselves”

I want to thrive. I don’t want to die never having lived into who I really am. I don’t want to hide in fear or smallness. I don’t want to wear masks. I want to understand what drives me. I want to respond to what calls to me. I want to be strong and vulnerable, compassionate, boundaried, courageous, energetic, playful, determined, and focused. I want my outer life to manifest the pure gold of my soul. And I want this for those around me; I want this for everyone; I want this for all of nature. The wellbeing of everything requires it. Justice for everyone demands it. There is no wellbeing without flourishing, and there is no flourishing without justice.

Following the early fall eco-justice series (here and here), “Cooperation Not Exploitation: Finding Ourselves in the Great Web of Life,” I’m now teaching/preaching around the theme, “Flourish: How to Bring Out the Best in Ourselves.” The series is based on the New Testament text, Matthew 15.11 (Jesus said, “It’s not what’s outside you that brings trouble and ruin, but what spills out from inside you”) as well as the early Christian text, the Gospel of Thomas, saying 3 (Again Jesus said, “When you know yourselves, then you will be known. But if you do not know yourselves, then you will live in poverty”). Click here for the audio recording. Click here for the PDF of the Deep Self-Inquiry Questions.

1.

Once upon a time there was a tigress, she was pregnant and about to give birth. One day, late into her gestation, she was out hunting and came upon a herd of goats. She was ravenously hungry, and sprung upon the goats who scattered in a frightened frenzy. In her pregnant condition, she was only able to catch the weakest and smallest goat in the herd. The stress of the chase forced her into labor. She died giving birth to a single cub. 

Diversity will save us: a challenge to Tucker Carlson and other anti-immigrant ideologues

The anti-immigrant agenda runs amok in America and other parts of the world. Ideologues foment a xenophobic reimagination of the values of diversity and inclusion America has stood for, values based in our religious tradition (which itself has often been abused and misused to foster bigotry and violence against “the other.” In this sermon, I summon the biblical tradition and its influence on the American vision to challenge bigotry and urge us to reclaim the values that could make humanity great again . . . .

#ClimateEmergency: Becoming Wise and Finding Our Place in the Great Web of Life.

Just after the global #climatestrike and just before the United Nations Climate Action Summit, I preached the second in a series of sermons called, “Cooperation Not Exploitation: Finding Our Place in the Great Web of Life.” All meditations drawn from the creation poetry of Psalm 104, this sermon focused the ways God’s animal kin-dom can teach us as human beings to become wise again, participants in nature rather than exploiters of nature. The sermon began with a reading of the scripture texts while this video played in the background giving visual texture to the way the psalm imagines a human presence in and among the creatures of God’s animal kin-dom.

“Make Us Sapiens Again”

Second in the Series, “Cooperation not Exploitation:

Finding Ourselves in the Great Web of Life”

Psalm 104.24, 10-12, 17-22; Luke 12.24a

Thunberg and Monbiot: "Nature must be used to repair broken climate"

Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot testify that "the protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked.

"Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.

"Their call to protect, restore and fund natural climate solutions comes ahead of a global climate strike led by young people on Friday and a UN climate action summit of world leaders in New York on Monday.”

Spread the word. The climate emergency is real.

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW? Six Stories. Seventeen Years. The Spiritual Journeys of American Millennials.

​Here’s some information on a special interfaith screening and reception of the documentary WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW?, at the Mill Valley Festival on October 6th at 2 PM and October 9th at 7pm.

What happens to your spiritual and religious beliefs over time? Seventeen years after the 2002 documentary WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE? in which six diverse American teenagers shared their spiritual struggles and aspirations, we revisit them to reveal how their beliefs have changed. In this new “before and after” film WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW? a Catholic, Pagan, Jew, Muslim, Lakota and Buddhist offer their deeply personal faith journeys, life challenges, and evolving ideas about higher powers, life purpose, the nature of suffering, religious intolerance and death. They do so against the backdrop of a society in flux and amidst growing religious polarization and disengagement.

Designed to be a stand alone film, WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE NOW? is an invaluable addition to any discussion on religious diversity and millennial spirituality in America.

2019. Director & Producer Sarah Feinbloom. Producer Alex Regalado. 68 minutes. English.