STORY SHARING -- 1

+ It has to happen. You can be a Christian but you’ve got to be a Buddhist too … and a Hindu … and a Jew …and a Muslim … and a Shaman … and a Taoist … and a Wicca … and a Sikh … and an agnostic … and an atheist … and a scientist … and (add your own possibilities).  I call this mutual conversion. 

+ Humanity is at a crossroads.  We have come a long, long way in our million years since we evolved from something pre-human.  But we have a long way to go if we are going to stop killing each other and killing far too many animals and plants. 

+ How are we going to do that?  I don’t know but I want to urge us on somehow.  I have a few ideas … well maybe even a lot of ideas that I want to share.  They are not original ideas.  Maybe one or 2 are, I don’t know. They are ideas I have discovered over the years as I have sought wisdom and guidance from many sources. I don’t pretend to speak to the whole human race. But I have your attention and maybe I can keep your attention long enough to influence you in a positive way so that you can contribute even more effectively to a future of compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance. I believe we can create such a future if we can learn how to radically embrace and own the stories of others, one story at a time.

+ It is urgent that we begin to affirm the stories of others as much as we affirm our own stories. So urgent.

+ I have a story.  It’s a good one.  It is not better than your story.  But my story is a good story and I want you to embrace it, to own it, yes, to make it your own.  You don’t have to claim all of the details but I want you, I need you, to embrace and own my story as much as you possibly can.  And my promise to you is that I will embrace and own your story as much as I possibly can. 

+ Some of my story may be easy for you to embrace and own because you and I surely share some common themes.  I am going to call these themes “gifts.”  As you look over the contents of this book I hope you can identify some gifts you have received with the same titles that I use. But, on the other hand, there may be some gifts in my story which you will not find easy to embrace and own.  That’s the challenge I put before you and me. I need to move out of my comfort zone and radically embrace some gifts which are not familiar to me, which threaten me, which scare me, which confuse me.  I believe we all need to do that. I believe our journey will become more and more amazing, fantastic, wonderful as we discover, explore, experiment, create a new and greater story by giving and receiving new and different gifts.  What do you think?

LEONARDO BOFF SPEAKS AT WFLT ON URGENT NEED TO CHANGE OUR RELATIONSHIP TO ENVIRONMENT

Here is the ENI report:

Belem - January 23. Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff, once a thorn in the side of the Vatican, is now on a mission to convince humanity of the desperate need to change its relationship to the environment. "We cannot go on. We have to change," Boff, a 70 year-old former Roman Catholic priest, said in a keynote address on 22 January to the 3rd World Forum on Liberation and Theology, meeting on the theme "Water, Earth, Theology - for another possible world", in Belem, northeast Brazil.

WORLD FORUM ON THEOLOGY & LIBERATION IS MEETING IN BRAZIL

A World Forum on Theology & Liberation is happening now in Belem, Brazil.

Here are 2 reports from Ecumenical News International:

Belem, Brazil - January 21. Theologians from around the world are converging on Belém, near the mouth of the Amazon River in northeast Brazil, to develop a theology for the "sustainability of life on Earth". Their meeting comes in advance of the World Social Forum, a global gathering addressing exploitative globalisation. "The social and political reality in the Amazonian context promotes a direct relationship with the earth, water and biodiversity and reveals the limits and alternatives of the relation of human beings with their immediate environment," noted a statement posted on the Web site (www.wftl.org) of the 21 to 25 January World Forum on Theology and Liberation.Belem,

Brazil - January 22. Christian theology needs to seek forgiveness for theecological damage resulting from the misinterpretation of the creation stories in the Bible, a global gathering of theologians meeting in northeastern Brazil has been told. Sergio Torres, a Chilean Roman Catholic theologian, told the 21 to 25 January World Forum on Theology and Liberation in Belem that an "incomplete and unexplained interpretation of Genesis", the first book in the Bible, had led Christianity to promote an "excessive" concentration on human beings.

FAITH LEADERS SAY THAT ANTI-POVERTY PLANS MUST NOT BE CURTAILED

From Ecumenical News International:

The global financial crisis should not derail progress that has been made on fighting poverty worldwide, religious leaders have said, adding that the current financial market turmoil makes attempts to tackle deprivation all the more urgent. "When the powers that be declare there is an emergency, there is mobilisation," said the Rev. David Beckmann, president of the Washington-based anti-hunger group Bread for the World. In an interview with Ecumenical News International, Beckmann noted that as he spoke the U.S. Congress was debating a financial bailout for Wall Street financial institutions of nearly US$700 billion, while "religious communities have been working with pennies for decades" against hunger and poverty.