+ This post includes entries from October 28, 2015 until Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 11:48am EST. This is the last Joyful Wandering post on this blog but not the last JW post. Beginning with JOYFUL WANDERING -- 59, these posts will be found at the John A Wilde Blog. On The Abundancetrek Blog, only Spiritual Explorations posts will be posted beginning on November 21, 2015. You can begin at Spiritual Explorations -- 1 or you can find any one of the posts by going to http://abundancetrek.com/sepostsaccess.html
+ As I ponder the latest attacks on civilians in Paris and Beirut and elsewhere, I believe what I wrote below becomes even more important. We need a new conversation on this planet which can eventually take us beyond the prejudice, suspicion, hostility and violence which threatens all of us. People who focus on a more open and innovative approach to spirituality need to lead this conversation ASAP.
The people of the Middle East and other areas once colonized or dominated by Europeans and Americans HAVE LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES. We need to hear them and give them some hope that corrections can and will be made. I hear Americans complain because they believe religious and secular leaders in the Muslim world could speak out more than they have. The truth is that many do speak out but we seldom listen to what they are saying. Others who don't speak out enough are fearful for reasons which should be obvious. How many clergy and others spoke out in Europe in the 30s and early 40s? Very few. Most people don't want to die by saying offensive things in an atmosphere of repression and violence.
We need to find ways to create safe places where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists and people of other wisdom traditions can get to know each other and increasingly respect each other.
Getting behind initiatives such as The Charter for Compassion is really important.
+ The New Faith for the New Earth is absolutely necessary. It is the movement which is closely connected to what's happening on the planet, the Great Evolutionary Leap Forward. Why is this absolutely necessary? Because humanity is in crisis and the old religions are far more a part of the problem than a part of the solution.
On the Abundancetrek.com homepage, I suggest some of the characteristics of this new faith for the new earth. One of the most important characteristics and one very difficult to achieve but not impossible is that this movement is completely non-hierarchical. This means that authority and power are totally shared among all who identify with the movement, all who recognize that what's happening now is indeed a Great Evolutionary Leap Forward and have a strong sense of what the new earth looks like.
This is happening, folks. It's fantastic, fascinating, wonderful and extremely challenging and often discomforting. But avoiding it is even more discomforting because it could mean catastrophe for humanity within a few generations.
+ Spirituality & Practice offers a very important book excerpt from Living Beyond War: A Citizen's Guide by Winslow Myers. Here is an excerpt from the excerpt: “Much as we are tempted to preserve a unique level of outrage for the nineteen men (fifteen from Saudi Arabia, one from Egypt, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one from Lebanon) who perpetrated the horrors of September 11, 2001, it may turn out to be more useful in the long run to have remained with a definition of such people as violent criminals.”
Read it all for an excellent analysis AND powerful advocacy for a different path than the ineffective one we have been on.
+ Spirituality & Practice offers the following Spiritual Practice of the Day for October 28: “[This is] what the Sioux Chief said when the tribe was watching the white men takes riches out of the Black Hills. "The whites think they are getting rich by digging in the hills, but the Sioux are rich from looking at the hills.” — Joyce Sequichie Hifler in When the Night Bird Sings by Joyce Sequichie Hifler + To Practice This Thought: Do something to protect the richness of nature.
+ As I ponder the latest attacks on civilians in Paris and Beirut and elsewhere, I believe what I wrote below becomes even more important. We need a new conversation on this planet which can eventually take us beyond the prejudice, suspicion, hostility and violence which threatens all of us. People who focus on a more open and innovative approach to spirituality need to lead this conversation ASAP.
The people of the Middle East and other areas once colonized or dominated by Europeans and Americans HAVE LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES. We need to hear them and give them some hope that corrections can and will be made. I hear Americans complain because they believe religious and secular leaders in the Muslim world could speak out more than they have. The truth is that many do speak out but we seldom listen to what they are saying. Others who don't speak out enough are fearful for reasons which should be obvious. How many clergy and others spoke out in Europe in the 30s and early 40s? Very few. Most people don't want to die by saying offensive things in an atmosphere of repression and violence.
We need to find ways to create safe places where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, Atheists and people of other wisdom traditions can get to know each other and increasingly respect each other.
Getting behind initiatives such as The Charter for Compassion is really important.
+ The New Faith for the New Earth is absolutely necessary. It is the movement which is closely connected to what's happening on the planet, the Great Evolutionary Leap Forward. Why is this absolutely necessary? Because humanity is in crisis and the old religions are far more a part of the problem than a part of the solution.
On the Abundancetrek.com homepage, I suggest some of the characteristics of this new faith for the new earth. One of the most important characteristics and one very difficult to achieve but not impossible is that this movement is completely non-hierarchical. This means that authority and power are totally shared among all who identify with the movement, all who recognize that what's happening now is indeed a Great Evolutionary Leap Forward and have a strong sense of what the new earth looks like.
This is happening, folks. It's fantastic, fascinating, wonderful and extremely challenging and often discomforting. But avoiding it is even more discomforting because it could mean catastrophe for humanity within a few generations.
+ Spirituality & Practice offers a very important book excerpt from Living Beyond War: A Citizen's Guide by Winslow Myers. Here is an excerpt from the excerpt: “Much as we are tempted to preserve a unique level of outrage for the nineteen men (fifteen from Saudi Arabia, one from Egypt, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one from Lebanon) who perpetrated the horrors of September 11, 2001, it may turn out to be more useful in the long run to have remained with a definition of such people as violent criminals.”
Read it all for an excellent analysis AND powerful advocacy for a different path than the ineffective one we have been on.
+ Spirituality & Practice offers the following Spiritual Practice of the Day for October 28: “[This is] what the Sioux Chief said when the tribe was watching the white men takes riches out of the Black Hills. "The whites think they are getting rich by digging in the hills, but the Sioux are rich from looking at the hills.” — Joyce Sequichie Hifler in When the Night Bird Sings by Joyce Sequichie Hifler + To Practice This Thought: Do something to protect the richness of nature.
