Thursday, March 28, 2024

Powerless



Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.

– Luke 22:42


The Wild Reed’s 2024 Holy Week series continues with a second excerpt from Joyce Rupp’s 2023 book Jesus, Companion in My Suffering: Reflections for the Lenten Journey.

__________________

How agonizing for Jesus to admit an inability to sidestep his coming Passion and death. In the past, he demonstrated so much strength as he guided his ministry and life. Now he humbly submits and acknowledges that he cannot change this dreadful situation. And so, in the last hours of his physical life, Jesus again enters fully into our human condition.

Whether we want to admit it or not, none of us has complete rule over how our lives unfold. We try everything possible to preserve our self-reliance and be in control. We do our utmost to make things turn out the way we want – only to find that at some point we, too, are unable to have our journey evolve in a way that completely satisfies us.

Author Chris Anderson reflects on this reality in Light When It Comes. He suggests that powerlessness can be a source of profound personal transformation: “Sooner or later we have to face the suffering and emptiness and apparent randomness of the world and of our powerlessness before it. And until then, we can’t be healthy. That’s the paradox. Until we admit our need, we can never be happy. And that’s what Christ did. He embraced the emptiness so completely and lovingly he transformed it forever. . . . The story of Jesus is the story of the letting go and the giving up we have to do every day of our lives.”


Vulnerable Leader,
your ability to admit to powerlessness
gives me the courage to acknowledge my own.
When it is time to release what I cannot control,
be at my faltering side. Strengthen my intention
to yield what is impossible for me to change.



Today: I unite what I cannot change with the experience of Jesus.


– Joyce Rupp
Excerpted from Jesus, Companion in My Suffering:
Reflections for the Lenten Journey

Ave Maria Press, 2023
pp. 98-99



NEXT: Feeling Abandoned



See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
In This In-Between Time . . . of Both Loss and Promise
The Two Entwined Events of the Easter Experience
“To Die and So to Grow”
The Way of the Wounded Warrior
Suffering and Redemption
A God With Whom It is Possible to Connect
Jesus and the Art of Letting Go
Within the Mystery, a Strange and Empty State of Suspension
An Expression of Human Solidarity
No Other Way

Image: BeardyRanksArt.


Tuesday, March 26, 2024

More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza


Today I share a second compilation of perspectives and voices on the ongoing crisis in Israel and Gaza. I consider all of these voices to be ones of both reason and compassion. I hope you do too. (NOTE: For the first compilation, click here.)

_____________________


I start with a link to John Oliver’s informed and helpful perspective on the ongoing conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas, the political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Oliver shared his perspective on the November 13, 2023 episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight. To watch this highly informative and insightful 30-minute segment, click here.

Next is Daniel Levy, president of the U.S./Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator at Taba under Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin during Oslo B negotiations. Levy was interviewed December 21, 2023 by Al Jazeera’s Dareen Abughaida, a Palestinian-Lebanese broadcast journalist based in Doha, Qatar.






The October 7 [2023] attack by Hamas on Israelis was horrific and brutal and a war crime. It is right to call it such. But when describing the killing and maiming of thousands of Palestinian children by the Israeli armed forces and by Israeli illegal settlers, the carpet bombing of refugees and hospitals, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, the illegal kidnapping, imprisonment and holding hostage of Palestinian children for years, the genocide in plain sight of Palestinians, then the BBC and the CBC do not call this 'brutal' or 'horrific.' They practice a racist, political double standard that oils and enables crimes against humanity. . . . Supporting genocide now, as Canada, the USA, Germany and European countries are doing, is not the answer. It does not provide safety for Israelis. It does not stop antisemitism. It fuels the cycle of violence and hatred. It endangers all humanity.

– Kathleen Ruff
Excerpted from “When Will We Stop Fueling
an Endless Cycle of Hatred and Violence?

CodePink.org
March 5, 2024



Declaring, “We are outraged, we are heartbroken,” hundreds of protesters turned out to block President Biden’s motorcade en route to his [March 7] State of the Union speech, forcing cars to take “the long way” to the Capitol. Demonstrators from Jewish Voice for Peace and other groups said they were “holding a people's state of the union” to call for an end to U.S funding for Israel’s assault on Gaza. “We know the state of the union,” they said. “It’s a state of genocide.”

Concluding a day-long series of protests across Washington DC, hundreds of people in black shirts reading “Not In Our Name” and “Biden’s Legacy = Genocide” sat and stood along Pennsylvania Avenue near the Capitol, delaying Biden’s speech by about a half hour.

. . . Among those participating were members of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that works in Gaza and the West Bank trying to serve hot meals and find food and water for the displaced. “The Biden Administration has the power, and the responsibility, to stop the killing,” said AFSC General Secretary Joyce Ajlouny. “It is a cruel irony to drop food when at the same time the U.S. is funding the dropping of bombs.” Others argued that acts of civil disobedience are “the bare minimum” by way of response to an administration that has “lost (its) moral standing” by facilitating the slaughter of 30,000 civilians. “The State of the Union is genocide,” said one JVP member. “We will not accept a president who claims to be fighting for democracy while ignoring the majority of people he represents.”

– Abby Zimet
Excerpted from “Biden Legacy = Genocide
Common Dreams
March 8, 2024




The following is a statement written by Arundhati Roy and delivered on her behalf at the meeting of Working People Against Apartheid and Genocide in Gaza, at the Press Club, New Delhi, on Thursday March 7, 2024. The remarks were first published by Scroll, an independent media outlet in India.

The richest, most powerful countries in the Western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Gaza strip has been turned into a concentration camp. Those who have not already been killed are being starved to death. Almost the entire population of Gaza has been displaced. Their homes, hospitals, universities, museums, and infrastructure of every kind has been reduced to rubble. Their children have been murdered. Their past has been vaporized. Their future is hard to see.

Even though the highest court in the world believes that almost every indicator seems to meet the legal definition of genocide, IDF soldiers continue to put out their mocking “victory videos” celebrating what almost looks like fiendish rituals. They believe that there is no power in the world that will hold them to account. But they are wrong. They and their children’s children will be haunted by what they have done. They will have to live with the loathing and the abhorrence the world feels for them. And hopefully one day everybody – on all sides of this conflict – who has committed war crimes will be tried and punished for them, keeping in mind that there is no equivalence between crimes committed while resisting Apartheid and Occupation, and crimes committed while enforcing them.

Racism is of course the keystone of any act of genocide. The rhetoric of the highest officials of the Israeli state has, ever since Israel came into existence, dehumanized Palestinians and likened them to vermin and insects, just like the Nazis once dehumanized Jews. It is as though that evil serum never went away and is now only being recirculated. The “Never” has been excised from that powerful slogan “Never Again”. And we are left only with “Again.”

President Joe Biden, head of state of the richest, most powerful country in the world, is helpless before Israel, even though Israel would not exist without US funding. It’s as though the dependent has taken over the benefactor. The optics say so. Like a geriatric child, Joe Biden appears on camera licking an ice-cream cone and vaguely mumbling about a ceasefire, while Israeli government and military officials openly defy him and vow to finish what they have started. To try and stop the hemorrhaging of the votes of millions of young Americans who will not stand for this slaughter in their name, Kamala Harris, US vice-president, has been tasked with the job of calling for a ceasefire, while billions of US dollars continue to flow to enable the genocide.

And what of our country?

It is well known that our prime minister is an intimate friend of Benjamin Netanyahu and there is no doubt where his sympathies lie. India is no longer a friend of Palestine. When the bombing began, thousands of Modi’s supporters put up the Israeli flag as their DP on social media. They helped spread the vilest disinformation on behalf of Israel and the IDF. Even though the Indian government has now stepped back into a more neutral position – our foreign policy triumph is that we manage to be on all sides at once, we can be pro- as well as anti-genocide – the government has clearly indicated that it will act decisively against any pro-Palestine protestors.

And now, while the US exports what it has in abundant surplus – weapons and money to aid Israel’s genocide – India too is exporting what our country has in abundant surplus: the unemployed poor to replace the Palestinian workers who will no longer be given work permits to enter Israel. (I’m guessing there will be no Muslims among the new recruits.) People who are desperate enough to risk their lives in a war zone. People desperate enough to tolerate overt Israeli racism against Indians. You can see it expressed on social media, if you care to look. US money and Indian poverty combine to oil Israel’s genocidal war machine. What a terrible, unthinkable, shame.

The Palestinians, facing down the most powerful countries in the world, left virtually alone even by their allies, have suffered immeasurably. But they have won this war. They, their journalists, their doctors, their rescue teams their poets, academics, spokespeople, and even their children have conducted themselves with a courage and dignity that has inspired the rest of the world. The young generation in the Western world, particularly the new generation of young Jewish people in the US, have seen through the brainwashing and propaganda and have recognized apartheid and genocide for what it is. The governments of the most powerful countries in the Western world have lost their dignity, and any respect they might have had. Yet again. But the millions of protestors on the streets of Europe and the US are the hope for the future of the world.

Palestine will be free.

– Arundhati Roy
N̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ Again
March 7, 2024




Almost 80 years ago, the world made a pledge not to let the horrors of the Holocaust repeat. And yet, they are repeating today in Gaza.

Right: A father kisses the body of his child killed by the Israeli army, at Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 13, 2024 (Photo: Reuters/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

. . . In the 1940s, Jews across Europe were forced into ghettos and concentration camps where they faced starvation, abuse and mass death. The Nazis used hunger as a method of control and dehumanisation. The constant threat of violence, deportation, and death destroyed bodies and souls.

Tales we have heard about the ghettos and concentration camps echo today in Gaza, where 2.3 million of us are crammed into ever-dwindling areas and forced to endure unliveable conditions. When you put side by side the accounts of atrocities both of these peoples faced, you will see that history is repeating itself, only this time the entire world is watching and it is doing nothing to stop it.

The solemn vow of “never again”, birthed from the ashes of the Holocaust, was meant to prevent the repetition of its horrors. The commitment etched into the collective conscience of the world was a promise to vulnerable peoples across the world that they would be protected, that their tormentors would be stopped.

Yet, as we turn our gaze towards the ongoing Palestinian struggle, this pledge rings hollow. The shadows of past atrocities linger in the present-day experiences of the Palestinian people.

. . . In these dark times, “never again” cannot remain a mere phrase of remembrance; it must become a call to action. The world must act on its pledge to uphold the dignity and rights of all people, in every corner of the world and prevent yet another genocide from taking place.

– Afaf Al-Najjar
Excerpted from “Where Is the ‘Never Again’ for Gaza?
Al Jazeera
January 21, 2024



Following is U.K.-based Novaro Media’s March 8 report on the situation in Gaza. It features excerpts from a recent CNN report, along with commentary from Novaro Media hosts Michael Walker and Aaron Bastani.






If we condemn Hamas for its October 7 attacks in Israel, we’re not accused of anti-Arab bigotry. Nor should we be. Nothing could possibly justify the atrocities that Hamas committed against hundreds of civilians, who were the majority of the 1,200 people killed as a result of the attacks by Hamas forces. And nothing can justify the taking of civilian hostages.

But if we condemn Israel for its actions since then, we might be accused of antisemitism. Meanwhile, nothing could possibly justify the atrocities by Israel in Gaza, where the death toll is now estimated at 32,000, while uncounted thousands of other Palestinian people are buried under rubble. Seventy percent of the victims have been children and women.

. . . While Israel continues to slaughter children, women and men – no more guilty of anything than a crowd you might see at a local supermarket – the extreme misuse of the “antisemitism” charge often boils down to: Be quiet. Don’t protest. Don’t even speak up.

Of course antisemitism does exist in the United States and the rest of the world, and it should be condemned. At the same time, to cry wolf – to misuse the term to try to intimidate people into silence while Israel’s atrocities continue in Gaza – is an abuse of the word antisemitism and a disservice to everyone who wants a single standard of human rights.

– Norman Solomon
Excerpted from “The False Charges of ‘Antisemitism’
by Apologists for Israel’s Atrocities in Gaza

Common Dreams
March 21, 2024



Next is another segment from Novaro Media. This one is from March 16 and focuses on broadcaster, political commentator, and author Mehdi Hasan’s informed critique of television personality Piers Morgan’s “racist double standards” when it comes to his coverage of Gaza and Israel.






Cruelty upon cruelty: Today is Mother’s Day in Gaza, and across the Arab world. Still the slaughter, the wounding, trauma, hunger go on. Israel has killed over 12,000 Palestinian children, with many thousands more injured or orphaned ; each day, 37 more mothers are killed. Those who survive battle to keep their children alive, and mourn those they’ve lost.

“The children are always ours,” said James Baldwin. But in Gaza, says one mother, “Today, like all mothers, I feel broken.”

This year, the Mother’s Day marked each March 21 is, for Gazans, a bloody travesty. The numbers still numb: More than 31,988 people have been killed in the ongoing) Israeli assault; another 74,188 have been injured, including over 32,800 children and 25,000 women, and 25,000 children have lost one or both parents.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society estimates this Mother’s Day would have been commemorated by 37 mothers killed; it was also marked by Israeli forces denying 28 Palestinian detained mothers from seeing their children. To date, Israel's “there-are-no-innocents” air campaign has dropped over 29,000 bombs, many of them 2,000-pound munitions that maim or kill within a quarter mile – often in so-called “safe zones” or “safe corridors” where Israel has told Gazans to go. Meanwhile, their relentless blockade has left at least half the population at imminent risk of famine; in recent weeks, at least several dozen children have starved to death.

When children are present in a time of genocide, writes Palestinian pediatrician Sabreen Akhter, they are always the most afflicted. and the most in need of protection. When children are in a place that is bombed, they die more often than adults due to their smaller bodies and organs: “When you bomb a place with children in it, your primary intention is to kill all the children first.” When they’re in a place lacking sustenance, they die more quickly: “When you cut off water and food to a population with children, your primary intention is to starve all the children first.” When they're without housing and exposed to the elements, they are more traumatized, and die more rapidly.

A U.N panel said Thursday Israel appears “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinian children.” At least, urges Al-Jazeera, “Know their names.” Last month, they compiled perhaps half the names of the young dead known to them when the total was 11,500; even then, it takes over seven minutes to scroll through.

For mothers who survive, their daily mission is to keep alive the children who remain to them. A 29-year-old mother of three whose husband was killed in a recent “flour massacre” – while trying to feed his children – struggles to feed her five-month-old, because her breasts have almost no milk from lack of food and “deep sadness”: “The baby keeps crying all day and night.

A 49-year-old mother hasn’t seen her only son, Ahmed, 16, since he rushed to the nearby scene of an Israeli air strike in October; she believes he was killed but has been unable to find or retrieve his body from the rubble.

Nada Abu Aita, a 32-year-old “mother missing her mother” – who fled to Rafah – gave birth to her first son a month before the war and is fighting to “keep him alive, or stay alive for him.” “I sometimes look into (his) eyes and I want to apologize for bringing him into this life,” she says. “I am afraid I will lose him, and I am afraid I will be killed because he would be left alone.”

And Alaa el-Qatrawi, a 33-year-old, PhD-educated poet and teacher, lost all four of her children in December. Separated from her husband, she saw them only part-time and last heard from them trapped amidst fighting when they called to beg, “Mama, get us out of here” – which she tried, but failed to do. Much later, her brother-in-law found their bodies. Lovingly, she names them: “Yamen, eight years old. The twins Orchid and Kanan, six years old. And Carmel, three years old.” She speaks of them in the present tense: “They’re beautiful . . . They’re so smart and funny . . . Kenan loves fruit . . . I would put some next to him when he sleeps (for) when he wakes up.” She had been trying to arrange to move her children to Dubai “for a better future”; she'd bought Orchid “a princess dress” for summer, “and now summer will come and Orchid isn't here to wear it.” In earlier wars, she’d written prose or poetry; in this one, she can’t.

“What can a grieving mother say about her children?” she asks. No words.

– Abby Zimet
On the Blood
of the Murdered Mothers and Children

Common Dreams
March 22, 2024



And finally, here is Al Jazeera’s Dareen Abughaida’s December 29, 2023 interview with Dr. Omar Suleiman, an American Muslim scholar, civil rights leader, writer, public speaker, and founder of Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. In this interview, Dr. Suleiman talks about the oppression of pro-Palestinian voices in the west, and the growing Islamophobia and how it lends itself to racism.






Related Off-site Links:
“A Step Forward and a Step Back”: Trita Parsi on the U.S.’s “Abstain” Vote in U.N. Ceasefire ResolutionRising (March 26, 2024).
Ex-U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber: Israel Must Be Held Accountable for Violating Ceasefire ResolutionDemocracy Now! (March 26, 2024).
U.N. Security Council’s Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Is Not Enough – But It’s a Start – Phyllis Bennis (Common Dreams, March 25, 2024).
Sen. Bernie Sanders Rips “Absurd” U.S. Claim That Israel Is Not Violating International Law – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, March 26, 2024).
New York Times’ Hamas Systematic Rape Story Debunked in New Video Evidence; Newspaper Stands By Story – Briahna Joy Gray (Rising, March 26, 2024).
Draft U.N, Report Finds Israel Has Met Threshold for Genocide – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, March 25, 2024).
As Israel Blocks More U.N. Aid, Gaza Is on the Brink of “Most Intense Famine” Since WW2Democracy Now! (March 25, 2024).
“Children Are Dying”: Doctor Just Back from Gaza Describes Severe Malnutrition and Preventable InfectionsDemocracy Now! (March 22, 2024).
UN Chief Says It’s Time to “Truly Flood” Gaza with Aid and Calls Starvation There an Outrage – Samy Magdy, Amr Nabil and Sam Metz (AP News, March 22, 2023).
Sen. Bernie Sanders: “The Netanyahu Government Should Not Receive Another Penny from the U.S.”Common Dreams, March 23, 2024).
U.N. Panel Says IDF Appears Set on “Physical Destruction of Palestinian Children” – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, March 22, 2024).
Former U.S. Diplomat Says “Collaboration” in Gaza Genocide Could Make Biden “Target of Prosecution” – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, March 21, 2024).
“Everyone in the World Needs to See This”: Footage Shows IDF Drone Killing Gazans – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, March 21, 2024).
British Surgeon Describes Children Suffering “Appalling Injuries” in Gaza, Demands Immediate CeasefireDemocracy Now! (March 21, 2024).
Aching Rafah: Gaza, 21 Years After the Killing of Rachel Corrie – Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan (Democracy Now!, March 21, 2024). In Netanyahu’s Israel, the Gaza War Is Wrecking What Remains of Democratic Values – Dahlia Scheindlin (Haaretz, March 20, 2024).
Biden Told “Gaza Bombing Must Stop” By Ireland’s Leo Varadkar – Novara Media (March 19, 2024).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
“Nothing About Today is ‘Unprovoked’”
“The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014


Monday, March 25, 2024

Marianne Williamson in Arizona – 3/17/24

Says Eric Raldiris of the following hour-long address by Marianne Williamson, the Cassandra of U.S. politics, delivered a week ago yesterday in Tempe, Arizona.

I’m proud of this American woman! If corporate media gave her one percent of the air time they lavished on Trump she would smash the competition and they know it. That’s why she’s been blacklisted and banned from the airwaves. Please spread her words amongst friends and family, for the good of our children and for the good of our country!





Related Off-site Links:
Why I Keep Going – Marianne Williamson (Transform, March 16, 2024).
In Hopes of a Future Harvest – Marianne Williamson (Transform, March 13, 2024).
How Marianne Williamson’s Name Became the Placeholder for “Uncommitted” Protesters in Arizona – Alex Tabet (NBC News, March 19, 2024).
Primary Purpose and Power – Marianne Williamson (Transform, March 12, 2024).
Marianne Williamson Surprises by Coming In Second in Multiple States, Leapfrogging Dean Phillips – Timothy H.J. Nerozzi (Fox News, March 6, 2024).
I Remain in the Race – Marianne Williamson (Transform, March 6, 2024).
Marianne Williamson Returns to Presidential Race, Saying Biden Is Vulnerable Against Trump – Anders Hagstrom (Fox News, February 28, 2024).
Biden and Other Centrist Democrats Keep Bragging About the Economy. But Here’s the Problem – Perry Bacon Jr. (The Washington Post, February 20, 2024).



See also: Marianne 2024 Official Site | About | Issues | News | Events | Donate


For The Wild Reed’s coverage of Marianne Williamson’s 2024 presidential campaign, see the following chronologically-ordered posts:
Marianne 2024
Marianne Williamson Launches 2024 Presidential Campaign
Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
More Progressive Perspectives on Marianne Williamson’s Presidential Run
Ben Burgis: Quote of the Day – March 10, 2023
Despite the Undemocratic Antics of the DNC, Marianne Williamson Plans on “Winning the Nomination”
The Biblical Roots of “From Each According to Ability; To Each According to Need”
Marianne Williamson on The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton – 05/30/23
Marianne Williamson’s Economic Bill of Rights
Three Progressive Voices on the War in Ukraine
Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 27, 2023
Marianne Williamson on The Issue Is with Elex Michaelson – 07/20/23
Voters, Not the DNC, Should Choose the Nominee
Marianne Williamson in New Hampshire
Marianne Williamson: “Repairing Our Hearts Is Essential to Repairing Our Country”
Marianne Williamson on Trump’s Day in Court
Marianne Williamson on NewsNation – 08/25/23
Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson Joins NYC’s March to End Fossil Fuels
Marianne Williamson on Your World – 10/6/23
Marianne Williamson’s “Radical Idea” of Putting People First
Marianne Williamson: “We Need to Disrupt the Corrupt”
“We Are Surging”
“Let the People Decide”: Marianne Williamson on the DNC’s Efforts to Deny and Suppress the Democratic Process
Democratic Presidential Debate: Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips – 1/8/24
The Democrats Challenging Biden
Bannering for Marianne
Campaigning for Marianne Williamson in New Hampshire – Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Marianne Williamson: “I Have Decided to Continue”
Marianne Williamson in Nevada – 2/4/24
Forever Grateful
What Marianne Williamson Learned from Running for President
Marianne Williamson: Playing It Big
Minnesotans Launch Super Tuesday Push for “Suspended But Not Ended” Candidate Marianne Williamson
A Welcome Return
This Super Tuesday, Don’t Be “Uncommitted” . . .
Super Tuesday in Minnesota
Marianne Williamson, the Cassandra of U.S. Politics, on the “True State of the Union”

See also:
Marianne Williamson: “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
Marianne Williamson on the Current Condition of the U.S.
Marianne Williamson’s Politics of Love: The Rich Roll Interview
Now Here’s a Voice I’d Like to Hear Regularly on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows
A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
Marianne Williamson on the Tenth Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street
Marianne Williamson on How Centrist Democrats Abuse Voters with False Promises
“Two of the Most Dedicated and Enlightened Heroes of Present Day America”
Deep Gratitude
“A Beautiful Message, So Full of Greatness”
Marianne Williamson: “Anything That Will Help People Thrive, I’m Interested In”
Caitlin Johnstone: “Status Quo Politicians Are Infinitely ‘Weirder’ Than Marianne Williamson”


Sunday, March 24, 2024

Northern Lights


Related Off-site Links:
Heavy Snow Sunday Evening, Warnings Continue Monday in Northern Minnesota – Ron Trenda (MPR News, March 24, 2024).
Winter Storm Warning Expands to Twin Cities; Timings for Sunday-Tuesday Megastorm – Adam Uren (Bring Me the News, March 23, 2024).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
The Spring Blizzard of 2018
Spring’s Snowy Start
A Snowy Spring Day
To Be Still
Spring Snow
Dreaming of Spring

Image: Michael J. Bayly.


Recognizing the Truth



Then Jesus said . . . “You will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free.”

– John 8:31-32


This year for Holy Week I’ll be sharing a series of excerpts from Joyce Rupp’s 2023 book Jesus, Companion in My Suffering: Reflections for the Lenten Journey.

______________

Jesus speaks about inner freedom to his disciples. When we know ourselves well enough to live from our center of goodness, that truth will liberate us to love as our most authentic self. Do we act out of the truth of our inherent virtues, or do we react in a way that adds to the suffering of self and others? I often find it both challenging and painful to confront what I’ve managed to avoid.

. . . [Yet] seeing the truth about ourselves does not always mean uncovering something negative or undesirable. We may have disallowed or been unaware of our virtuous qualities, so that “finding the truth about ourselves” can refer to discovering and claiming the constructive qualities that lie dormant within us. This revelation is what rests at the heart of Macrina Wiederkehr’s wonderful prayer: “Help me to believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.”


Bearer of Truth,
guide me to a clearer and fuller perception
of the unknown parts of who I truly am.
I desire to set aside any fear of what I might find.
I will gladly proceed in discovering and claiming
whatever will lead to a closer union with you.



Today: I ponder a truth about myself that asks for greater acceptance.


– Joyce Rupp
Excerpted from Jesus, Companion in My Suffering:
Reflections for the Lenten Journey

Ave Maria Press, 2023
pp. 88-89



NEXT: Powerless





For The Wild Reed’s 2023 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Marianne Williamson’s book, The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life), see:
From Spiritual Death to Rebirth
A Vortex of the Miraculous
Tomb Time
He Is Risen, and So Are You






The Wild Reed’s 2022 Holy Week posts:
“The Most Authentic Statement of Created Life”
Good Friday Reflections
“This Spring, May We Renew the World”
Easter for Mystics



The Wild Reed’s 2021 Holy Week post:
The Final Say



The Wild Reed’s 2020 Holy Week posts:
Holy Week, 2020
God’s Good Gift



The Wild Reed’s 2019 Holy Week post:
In This In-Between Time . . . of Both Loss and Promise



For The Wild Reed’s 2018 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Druid author and speaker John Michael Greer’s essay “The God from the House of Bread” in the 2012 anthology, Jesus Through Pagan Eyes: Bridging Neopagan Perspectives with a Progressive Vision of Christ), see:
The God from the House of Bread: A Bridge Between Christianity and Paganism (Part 1)
The God from the House of Bread (Part 2)
The God from the House of Bread (Part 3)
The God from the House of Bread (Part 4)




For The Wild Reed’s 2017 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from a 1999 interview with scholar and teacher Andrew Harvey, accompanied by images that depict Jesus as the embodiment of the Cosmic Christ), see:
Jesus Our Guide to Mystical Love (Part 1)
Jesus Our Guide to Mystical Love (Part 2)
Jesus Our Guide to Mystical Love (Part 3)





For The Wild Reed’s 2016 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Richard Horsley’s 1993 book Jesus and the Spiral of Violence, accompanied by images of Juan Pablo Di Pace as Jesus in the 2015 NBC mini-series A.D.: The Bible Continues), see:
Jesus and Social Revolution (Part 1)
Jesus and Social Revolution (Part 2)
Jesus and Social Revolution (Part 3)







For The Wild Reed’s 2015 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Cletus Wessels’ book Jesus in the New Universe Story), see:
The Two Entwined Events of the Easter Experience
Resurrection in an Emerging Universe
Resurrection: A New Depth of Consciousness



For The Wild Reed’s 2014 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from John Neafsey’s book A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience), see:
“To Die and So to Grow”
The Way of the Wounded Warrior
Suffering and Redemption
A God With Whom It is Possible to Connect
A Discerning Balance Between Holiness and Wholeness: A Hallmark of the Resurrected Life




For The Wild Reed’s 2013 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Albert Nolan’s book Jesus Before Christianity, accompanied by images of Jesus that some might call "unconventional"), see:
Jesus: The Upside-down Messiah
Jesus: Mystic and Prophet
Jesus and the Art of Letting Go
Within the Mystery, a Strange and Empty State of Suspension
Jesus: The Revelation of Oneness




For The Wild Reed’s 2012 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Cynthia Bourgeault’s book The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind – A New Perspective on Christ and His Message), see:
The Passion: “A Sacred Path of Liberation”
Beyond Anger and Guilt
Judas and Peter
No Deeper Darkness
When Love Entered Hell
The Resurrected Jesus . . .



For The Wild Reed’s 2011 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Albert Nolan’s book Jesus Before Christianity, accompanied by images of various cinematic depictions of Jesus), see:
“Who Is This Man?”
A Uniquely Liberated Man
An Expression of Human Solidarity
No Other Way
Two Betrayals
And What of Resurrection?
Jesus: The Breakthrough in the History of Humanity
To Believe in Jesus



For The Wild Reed’s 2010 Holy Week series (featuring excerpts from Andrew Harvey’s book Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ), see:
Jesus: Path-Blazer of Radical Transformation
The Essential Christ
One Symbolic Iconoclastic Act
One Overwhelming Fire of Love
The Most Dangerous Kind of Rebel
Resurrection: Beyond Words, Dogmas and All Possible Theological Formulations
The Cosmic Christ: Brother, Lover, Friend, Divine and Tender Guide




For The Wild Reed’s 2009 Holy Week series (featuring the artwork of Doug Blanchard and the writings of Marcus Borg, James and Evelyn Whitehead, John Dominic Crossan, Andrew Harvey, Francis Webb, Dianna Ortiz, Uta Ranke-Heinemann and Paula Fredriksen), see:
The Passion of Christ (Part 1) – Jesus Enters the City
The Passion of Christ (Part 2) – Jesus Drives Out the Money Changers
The Passion of Christ (Part 3) – Last Supper
The Passion of Christ (Part 4) – Jesus Prays Alone
The Passion of Christ (Part 5) – Jesus Before the People
The Passion of Christ (Part 6) – Jesus Before the Soldiers
The Passion of Christ (Part 7) – Jesus Goes to His Execution
The Passion of Christ (Part 8) – Jesus is Nailed the Cross
The Passion of Christ (Part 9) – Jesus Dies
The Passion of Christ (Part 10) – Jesus Among the Dead
The Passion of Christ (Part 11) – Jesus Appears to Mary
The Passion of Christ (Part 12) – Jesus Appears to His Friends

Opening image: milky-herring1


Friday, March 22, 2024

To Be Still


My “season of listening” continues. . . . And for a while this afternoon it continued in nature – at the Prayer Tree by Minnehaha Creek in south Minneapolis to be specific.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one writer whose words I’m using as a guide throughout this “season of listening” is Eckhart Tolle. It seems appropriate, then, to accompany my photos of today with excerpts from that part of Tolle’s book Stillness Speaks in which he talks about nature.

We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating – lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems.

We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be – to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now.

Whenever you bring your attention to anything natural, anything that has come into existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized thinking and, to some extent, participate in the state of connectedness with Being in which everything natural exists.

To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness.

Something of its essence then transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is, and in doing so the same stillness arises within you. You sense how deeply it rests in Being – completely at one with what it is and where it is. In realizing this, you too come to a place of rest deep within yourself.

When walking or resting in nature, honor that realm by being there fully. Be still. Look. Listen. . . . All things in nature are not only themselves but also one with the totality. They haven’t removed themselves from the fabric of the whole by claiming a separate existence: “me” and the rest of the universe.

The contemplation of nature can free you of that “me,” the great troublemaker.

Eckhart Tolle
Excerpted from Stillness Speaks
Hodder & Stoughton, 2003
pp. 77-78



See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
A Season of Listening
Eckhart Tolle on Silence and Stillness
Eckhart Tolle on Going Beyond the Thinking Mind
Time to Go Inwards
A Prayer of Anchoring
Today I Will Be Still
Cultivating Stillness
Inner Peace
A Sacred Pause
Aligning With the Living Light
Mystical Participation
I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind
In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
Cosmic Connection
The Mysticism of Trees
Holy Encounters Where Two Worlds Meet
The Landscape Is a Mirror
To Dream, to Feel, to Listen
The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
The Source is Within You
Forever Oneness
In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
In This In-Between Time
Waiting in Repose for Spring’s Awakening Kiss

Images: Michael J. Bayly.


Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Eckhart Tolle on Being “Conscious Without Thought”


My “season of listening” continues.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one writer whose words I’m using as a guide throughout this season is Eckhart Tolle who in his book Stillness Speaks, writes the following.

Dogmas – religious, political, scientific – arise out of the erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or the truth. Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of “I know.”

Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas. It is true that every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reality will eventually disclose its falseness, however, unless the basic delusion of it is seen for what it is, it will be replaced by others.

What is this basic delusion? Identification with thought.

~

Spiritual awakening is awakening from the dream of thought.

~

The realm of consciousness is much vaster than thought can grasp. When you no longer believe everything you think, you step out of thought and see clearly that the thinker is not who you are.

~

The mind exists in a state of “not enough” and so is always greedy for more. When you are identified with mind, you get bored and restless very easily. Boredom means the mind is hungry for more stimulus, more food for thought, and its humger is not being satisfied.

When you feel bored, you can satisfy the mind’s humger by picking up a magazine, making a phone call, switching on the TV, surfing the web, going shopping, or – and this is not uncommon – transferring the mental sense of lack and its need for more to the body and satisfy it briefly by ingesting food.

Or you can stay bored and restless and observe what it feels like to be bored and restless. As you bring awareness to the feeling, there is suddenly some space and stillness around it, as it were. A little at first, but as the sense of inner space grows, the feeling of boredom will begin to diminish in intensity and significance. So even boredom can teach you who you are and who you are not.

You discover that a “bored person” is not who you are. Boredom is simply a conditioned energy movement within you. Neither are you an angry, sad, or fearful person. Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not “yours,” not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go.

Nothing that comes and goes is you.

“I am bored.” Who knows this?

“I am angry, sad, afraid.” Who knows this?

You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.

~

Prejudice of any kind implies that you are identified with the thinking mind. It means you don’t see the other human being anymore, but only your own concept of that human being. To reduce the aliveness of another human being to a concept is already a form of violence.

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Thinking that is not rooted in awareness becomes self-serving and dysfunctional. Cleverness devoid of wisdom is extremely dangerous and destructive. That is the current state of most of humanity. The amplification of thought as science and technology, although intrinsically neither good nor bad, has also become destructive because so often the thinking out of which it comes has no roots in awareness.

The next step in human evolution is to transcend thought. This is now our urgent task. It doesn’t mean not to think anymore, but simply not to be completely identified with thought, possessed by thought.

~

Feel the energy of your inner body. Immediately mental noise slows down or ceases. Feel it in your hands, your feet, your abdomen, your chest. Feel the life that you are, the life that animates the body.

The body then becomes a doorway, so to speak, into a deeper sense of aliveness underneath the fluctuating emotions and underneath your thinking.

~

There is an aliveness in you that you can feel with your entire Being, not just in your head. Every cell is alive in that presence in which you don’t need to think. Yet, in that state, if thought is required for some practical purpose, it is there. The mind can still operate, and it operates beautifully when the greater intelligence that you are uses it and expresses itelf through it.

~

You may have overlooked that brief periods in which you are “conscious without thought” are already occuring naturally and spontaneously in your life. You may be engaged in some manual activity, or walking across the room, or waiting at the airline counter, and be so completely present that the usual mental static of thought subsides and is replaced by an aware presence. Or you may find yourself looking at the sky or listening to someone without any iner mental commentary. Your perceptions become crystal clear, unclouded by thought.

To the mind, all this is not significant, because it has “more important” things to think about. It is also not memorable, and that’s why you may have overlooked that it is already happening.

The truth is that it is the most significant thing that can happen to you. It is the beginning of a shift from thinking to aware presence.

~

Become at ease with the state of “not knowing.” This takes you beyond mind because the mind is always trying to conclude and interpret. It is afraid of not knowing. So, when you can be at ease with not knowing, you have already gone beyond the mind. A deeper knowing that is non-conceptual then arises out of that state.

Eckhart Tolle
Excerpted from Stillness Speaks
Hodder & Stoughton, 2003
pp. 17-23




NEXT:
To Be Still


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
A Season of Listening
Eckhart Tolle on Silence and Stillness
Eckhart Tolle on Going Beyond the Thinking Mind
Time to Go Inwards
A Prayer of Anchoring
Today I Will Be Still
Cultivating Stillness
Inner Peace
A Sacred Pause
Aligning With the Living Light
Mystical Participation
I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
Stepping Out of Time and Resting Your Mind
In the Stillness and Silence of This Present Moment
The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
Resting in the Presence of the Beloved
Active Waiting: A Radical Attitude Toward Life
Threshold Musings
To Dream, to Feel, to Listen
The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
The Source is Within You
Forever Oneness
In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything is Possible

Image 1: The Center for Reflection and Renewal at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, MN. (Photo: Michael J. Bayly)
Image 2: Matt Allen.