The Faith & Politics Institute's Weekly Reflections

For The Week of January 30, 2012

"Community cannot feed for long on itself, it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers." -- Howard Thurman, Search for a Common Ground

Just as "no man is an island" the same goes for communities as well. There is only so much that a community can do on its own. There comes a time when a community has to go outside of its self-made boundaries and collaborate with other to get things done. This communal fellowship is none other than the "Beloved Community." Here we are able to see past the differences of race, gender, and ideology to be able to come together for the greater good of all communities.

For The Week of January 23, 2012

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." -- Henry David Thoreau One single thought can be fleeting. It is not enough to say we will work together, and then forge our own paths in different directions. To make deep paths we must consistently remind ourselves that we are neighbors, and work towards outcomes together. At the heart of every challenge, there must be love, respect, and compassion.

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For The Week of January 16, 2012

In remembrance of Dr. King on MLK Day, we look at his last presidential speech given before the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC): "So, I conclude by saying again today that we have a task and let us go out with a "divine dissatisfaction." Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds. Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that seperate the outer city of wealth and comfort and the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the force of justice. Let us be dissatisfied until those that live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolitan of daily security... Let us be dissatisfied. And men [and women] will recognize that out of one blood God made all men [and women] to dwell upon the face of the earth. Let us be dissatisfied until that when nobody will shout "White Power!"--when nobody will shout "Black Power!"--but everybody will talk about God's power and human power." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., selection from "A Testament of Hope"

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For The Week of January 09, 2012

Love for Our Neighbors

"It is no non-violence if we love merely those that love us.

It is non-violence when we love those that hate us."

--Mahatma Gandhi

As pointed out by Gandhi, it is easy to have dialogue and act peacefully with those that reciprocate our love. The crux is to love those that hate us. If we are able to love our enemies or those who do not hold our views, then we are capable of resolving issues peacefully. So, before we escalate to riots, arms, fist-of-cuffs, or slanderous words we ought to reflect on the other and see them as someone we can love and work with peacefully for the greater good of all.

For The Week of January 02, 2012

Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda

"All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas

Layin' in the sun,

Talkin' 'bout the things

They woulda-coulda-shoulda done.

But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas

All ran away and hid

From one little did."

-- Shel Silverstein, Falling Up

As we transition into 2012, we ought to take account of our "woulda-coulda-shouldas" from our past.And as we reflect on them we ought to understand why we did not act upon them. Was it because we did not have the fortitude to act, or did we put off decisions for another day? No matter the excuse, the Challenge for us is to be able to act upon what is right and contribute to a good common cause for all. Move forward in 2012 and act according to what is right in your heart, leaving those "woulda-coulda-shouldas" behind.

For The Week of December 26, 2011

The Reasin for the Holiday Season

We at The Faith & Politics Institute would like to wish everyone a Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza, and we hoped that all have had a Merry Christmas. But we cannot forget the reason of the season no matter how we celebrate this time of year. We all come together to express our love for one another. What is evident is that love is at the center of all of these traditions.

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.

-- Hamilton Wright Mabie

For The Week of December 19, 2011

Love Conquers the Facade

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

-- James A. Baldwin

When we love others wholeheartedly, then we are able to be honest and forthright.

Thus by loving, we break down barriers that might have stopped us from coming together for a common cause.

As the saying goes, "love conquers all." And it is through love that we are capable to overcome differences.

Challenge yourselves to love and hopefully your mask will fall off, because we ought

not fear to be who we are called to be.

For The Week of December 12, 2011

Love in Turbulent Times

Nature dictates that whenever men and women are together there shall also be love.

Even in the shadow of the crematory the emotions could not be entirely suppressed.

-- Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys

Olga shows us that even in the face of death love was expressed amongst her and her comrades. Do we today have to wait until a similar situation comes about before we express our love for one another? It is imperative for us to display love to each other daily. Hopefully, with this love for one another we are able to work together for the common good of all. Thus, love one another and be not ashamed of it, for love is the ultimate emotion expressed to one another, because in love we do what is necessary to help others.

For The Week of December 05, 2011

The World House We Live In Today

"This is the new great problem of mankind.

We have inherited a large house, a great "world house"

in which we live together--black and white, Eastern and Western,

Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu,

[Republican and Democrat]--a family unduly separated in ideas,

culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart,

must learn somehow to live with each other in peace."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here?

This was evident in King's time and it is even more present in the 21st Century.

We have to be mindful of our world house family members. We have to be

intentional on how we live with and respect each other in this world house.

Since we are bound to each other, we have to learn to live with each other

peacefully and this can be accomplished through: love, your faith in your God,

understanding each other, and compromise.

For The Week of November 28, 2011

What We Are Called To Do

Do all the good you can

By all the means you can

In all the ways you can

In all the places you can

To all the people you can

As long as you can

-- John Wesley, Rules of Conduct

No matter what faith tradition you ascribe to, we are all called to do good in this world

while we are living. And as Wesley has pointed out, we do this good by all means. No

matter the setting or who is in need of our help. We are called to do as much good as

we can as long as we can. Let us focus upon the word do and not give way to the

word try. Are you willing to answer this call to do all the good you can?

For The Week of November 21, 2011

What I have learned So Far?

Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I

not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside,

looking into the shining world? Because, properly

attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.

Can one be passionate about the just, the ideal, the

sublime, and the holy, and yet commit to no labor

in its cause? I don't think so.

All summations have a beginning, all effect gas a

story, and kindness begins with the sown seed.

Thought buds towards radiance. The gospel of

light is the crossroads of--indolence, or action.

Be ignited, or be gone.

-- Mary Oliver

Meditating on things in our lives leads to insight and a call to action.

As described above, there has to be a level of commitment for a just,

holy, or ideal causes. And when it comes time to act, which will you do?

Will you have the courage to act, or will you be corralled by fear, by

indecision, or by business as usual.

For The Week of November 14, 2011

The Two Voices Fron Within

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.

-- Leo Tolstoy, from War and Peace

Which voice will you adhere to in the face of danger? Will you have the fortitude to maker the choice that benefits others and not yourselves? Would you stand idely by or would you carry out the appropriate act?

For The Week of November 07, 2011

Seeing With the Eyes of the Heart

Dear Child Of God, I am sorry to say that suffering is not optional. It seems part and parcel of the human condition, but suffering can either embitter or ennoble. Our suffering can become a spirituality of transformation when we understand that we have a role in God's transfiguration of the world. And if we are to be true partners with God, we must learn to see with the eyes of God-- that is, to see with the eyes of the heart and not just the eyes of the head. The eyes of the heart are not concerned with appearances but with essences, and as we cultivate these eyes we are able to learn from our suffering and to see the world more loving, forgiving, humble, generous eyes.

From Bishop Desmond Tutu's book, God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time.

As Bishop Tutu infers, suffering is ever present in the world. But he suggest that to mediate this suffering is by looking with the "eyes of the heart and not just the eyes of the head" which will lead to a more conducive relationship with our neighbor. Thus we have to be ever mindful of the suffering of others and how to remedy or lessen their suffering by any means possible. Have you cultivated the eyes of your heart?

For The Week of October 31, 2011

For this week's reflection we turn to Rufus Jones (1861-1948) who was an American Quaker, Historian, and Professor. He posits the possibility of a sustainable and intentional way for us to be in community with one another. The question that should be asked next: Is whether or not we have the courage to follow through on his suggestions?

IF WE BELIEVE in a real kingdom of God -- an organic fellowship of interrelated lives-- prayer should be as effective force in this interrelated social world of ours as gravitation is in the world of matter. Personal spirits experience spiritual gravitation, soul reaches after soul, hearts draw towards one another. We are no longer in the net of blind fate, in the realm of impersonal force -- we are in a love system where the aspiration of one member heightens the entire group, and the need of one -- even the least -- draws upon the resources of the whole -- even the Infinite. We are in actual Divine-Human fellowship.

For The Week of October 24, 2011

This week we are privileged and honored to hear a lecture from the venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. Today's reflection is from his book, Peace Is Every Step: The Path Of Mindfulness In Everyday Life. After reading this life lesson we need to ask ourselves: Do we take care of our own lettuce as laid out by Thich Nhat Hanh, or do we bypass understanding and go directly to blame?

Blaming Never Helps

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer or more water or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just undertsanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.

One day in Paris, I gave a lecture about not blaming the lettuce. After the talk, I was doing walking meditation by myself, and when I turned the corner of a building, I overheard an eight-year old girl telling her mother, "Mommy, remember to water me. I am your lettuce." I was so pleased that she had understood my point completely. Then I heard her mother reply, "Yes, my daughter, and I am your lettuce also. So please don't forget to water me too." Mother and daughter practicing together, it was very beautiful.

For The Week of October 17, 2011

In the wake of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial dedication, let us reflect and meditate on how these words from Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech on December 10, 1964 resonate today. Do these words ring true 50 years later? I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal "oughtness" that forever confronts him. I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsom and jetsom in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

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For The Week of September 26, 2011

This week's reflection is from Leading From Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead.

A Vision

If we will have the wisdom to survive, to stand like slow-growing trees on a ruined place, renewing, enriching it, if we will make our season welcome here, asking not too much of earth or heaven, then a long time after we are dead the lives our lives prepare will live here, their houses strongly placed upon the valley sides, fields and gardens rich in the windows. The River will run clear, as we will never know it, and over it, birdsong like a canopy.

On the levels of the hills will be green meadows, stock bells in noon shade. On the steeps where greed and ignorance cut down the old forest, an old forest will stand, its rich leaf-fall drifting on its roots.

The veins of forgotten springs will have opened.

Families will be singing in the fields. In their voices they will hear music risen out of the ground. They will take nothing from the ground they will not return, whatever the grief at parting. Memory, native to this valley, will spread over it like a grove, and memory will grow into legend, legend into song, song into sacrament. The abundance of this place, the songs of its people and its birds, will be health and wisdom and indwelling light.

This is no paradisal dream. Its hardship is its possibility.

-- Wendell Berry

For The Week of September 19, 2011

On September 19, 1796, George Washington's farewell address was first published. In the address, Washington warned Americans against groups that stood in the way of the execution of the business of the nation.
Read the following excerpt from Washington's address. How do these words and thoughts resonate in our contemporary political system?
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations under whatever plausible character with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.

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For The Week of September 12, 2011

Yesterday marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. A total of 3,047 people died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Flight 93 crash site. On that day we as a people, united as Americans. Shortly thereafter, President George W. Bush said the following:
We have seen [the state of the union] in the courage of passengers, who rushed terrorists to save others on the ground ... We have seen the state of our Union in the endurance of rescuers, working past exhaustion. We've seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers -- in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. We have seen the decency of a loving and giving people who have made the grief of strangers their own. My fellow citizens, for the last nine days, the entire world has seen for itself the state of our Union -- and it is strong.
How can we use the memory of the September 11, 2001 to make America a more united nation?

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For The Week of September 05, 2011

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was often time filled with your tears... When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. -Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-American poet, writer, and artist)

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