Pain is not a mistake

Pain is not a mistake. It doesn't mean that something has 'gone wrong' in the universe, that the body-mind is 'broken' in any way. It is only a signal, an expression of deep intelligence, a loud and clear call for kind, non-judgemental, present-moment attention. It is an invitation to break from your usual routine and plans and patterns, and meet a sacred moment with fresh and unassuming eyes.

Pain is not an enemy of awakening, but a misunderstood friend, come to shatter all your dreams, and a awaken a deep humility and respect for life.

Pain can be brutal, yes, but compassion doesn't always have to feel good.

Jeff Foster

The Countercultural Nature of Scripture

World-renowned biblical interpreter Walter Brueggemann invites readers to take a closer look at the subversive messages found within the Old Testament. Brueggemann asserts that the Bible presents a "sustained contestation" over truth, in which established institutions of power do not always prevail. But this is not always obvious at first glance. A closer look reveals that the text actually contradicts the apparent meaning of an innocent, face-value reading. Brueggemann invites the reader into this thick complexity of the textual reading, where the authority of power is undermined in cunning and compelling ways. He insists that we are--as readers and interpreters--always contestants for truth, whether we recognize ourselves as such or not.

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African and American Slavery

“African slavery is hardly to be praised. But it was far different from plantation or mining slavery in the Americas, which was lifelong, morally crippling, destructive of family ties, without hope of any future. African slavery lacked two elements that made American slavery the most cruel form of slavery in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, Black was slave”

Howard Zinn

Presence is the Key

If you truly get in touch...

"If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy."

Thich Nhat Hanh

It is just that our soul is so vast!

God has never left you.

It is just

that your soul is so vast

that just like

the earth in its innocence,

it may think,

"I do not feel my lover's warmth

against my face right

now."

But look, dear,

is not the sun reaching down its arms

and always holding a continent

in its light?

God cannot leave us.

It is just that our soul is so vast,

we do not always feel God's lips

upon the

veil.

St. Catherine of Siena