Spiritual Literacy Blog

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat read the "book of the world" for spiritual meanings.

We see it all the time — people walking down our city's streets talking on the phone. So where are they really? Not in the city, according to Paul Goldberger in "Disconnected Urbanism". He argues that the cell phone has changed our sense of place more than faxes, computers, and e-mail because of its ability to intrude into every moment in every possible place. "When you walk along the street and talk on a cell phone, you are not on the street sharing the communal experience of urban life. You are in some other place — someplace at the other end of your phone conversation."

No wonder the phrase we hear most often on the street is "Where are you?" Since a spirituality of place depends upon the practices of being present and connections, the cell phone's ability to transport someone out of real space into a virtual realm is both a cultural and a spiritual problem.

An annual report we look forward to (with some trepidation and sorrow, we admit) is the Worldwatch Institute's State of the World. This year's edition focuses on the habits of 1.7 billion people in the "consumer society" — what we consume, why we consume, and what impact our consumption choices have on the planet and other people. In an analysis of the report, " Shop 'Til the Earth Goes 'Pop' " Jim Lobe of the OneWorld.net, notes the dire consequences of the growth of a consumer class: "This unprecedented consumer appetite is undermining the natural systems we all depend on, and making it even harder for the world's poor to meet their basic needs." On a per capita basis, the United States leads the world in its consumption habits, but China and India alone now boast a combined consumer class larger than that in all of Western Europe.

One year ends, and another begins. Will it be the same old same old? Let's hope not. The search for meaning and purpose that characterizes so many of our spiritual journeys can get pretty muddled when we are exposed to a steady diet of hype and get little information on the stories that really matter.

Geov Parrish at WorkingforChange.com has issued his annual list of the past year's overhyped (saving Jessica Lynch, the economic recovery) and underreported (health care crisis, Taliban comeback, Israel's wall) stories. And Doctors Without Borders provides important information on the year's most underreported humanitarian stories (Chad, Chechnya, Burundi, Colombia, and elsewhere).

Paul Loeb's The Impossible Will Take a Little While is one of our choices for the Best Spiritual Books of 2004. We can't keep count of how many people have told us that this book has been a source of strength and hope for them. We urge you to get a copy and read the inspiring words of some of today's visionaries on how and why to carry on the struggle for a better world. For a sampler of quotations, see and share this e-card based on the book.

Ellen Goodman, longtime columnist for the Boston Globe, admits that in her business they prefer to avoid questions without answers. Still, contemplating the tsunami and the response to the tragedy, she finds herself asking some.

In "The Unifying Force of Catastrophe," she notes how in the wake of the disaster, we hit the pause button on manmade conflicts. But now, as we inch back to what we call "normal," as "the victims of nature make room for the victims of manmade conflict," she offers some questions for us to consider: Why do we manufacture disaster when nature provides enough of its own? Is it only from the heights of outer space or the depths of an undersea earthquake that we feel our connection on this small planet? Where on Earth is the early warning system for manmade disasters?

For the second weekend in a row, the East has experienced a snowstorm, so there may just be a White Christmas this year. If not, you can make your own! Yet another website, like Mr. Picassohead mentioned below, gives us an opportunity to engage in the spiritual practices of play, imagination, and wonder. Visit and make your own snowflakes. Happy Holidays!

"Fear is just another story with which we distract ourselves," Buddhist teachers Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield have observed. For a government to feed fear is nothing new (remember the Red Scare and the Japanese internment) but when school kids are practicing filling out a "Family Message Card" in case they are lost during a terrorism attack, when the media harp on vague and abstract threats to the transportation system, and when surveillance cameras start showing up on every corner, you have to wonder what message is being promoted by this new architecture of security.

Antonio D. Sison, a doctoral student from the Philippines studying in the Netherlands, notes that most films produced in Hollywood and elsewhere ignore a whole category of experience: "how the causal structures of inequality that impact on two-thirds of the global population square with the God who is mindful of suffering humanity."

But there is a Third Cinema that "seeks to portray a Third World vision of social and cultural emancipation." God is a hope-inspiring presence in these films, a God at the edge. In this category, he includes Romero, Bread and Roses, and Divine Intervention.

One of the first steps in the struggle for justice is getting informed about the issues. Take the issue of fair pay for American workers. A common myth about low-wage jobs is that those who hold them are mostly teenagers, illegal immigrants, or high school drop-outs. But Americans in this working category are two-thirds white, female, high school educated, and have family responsibilities. Another myth is that we can do nothing about their pay. Not so. Read more myths and realities of low-wage jobs from Beth Shulman's book The Betrayal of Work.

"The task of art is to take hold of the shining, the radiance, the manifestation, of that which as spirit weaves and lives throughout the world," Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner wrote. In other words, when we draw or paint, we are practicing a kind of spirituality — not to mention giving expression to our God-given creativity.

Now you can do this online at Mr. Picassohead. Make a self-portrait or capture the divine essence in one of your friends and co-workers. To inspire you, there's even a gallery.

Or visit Mark Harden's Artchive and see how the masters have conveyed the radiance.

Use it or lose it. That's the advice of the people behind an unusual blog with an agenda. It's a simple enough concept. When you put a sign on a freeway, people (maybe thousands) will read it until someone takes it down. In a time of media consolidation, the freeway sign may just be one of the last bastions of free speech. Follow the link for a gallery of examples.

"Hope is the scaffolding of our existence," Henryk Skolimowski has observed. In Hope Dies Last: Keeping Faith in Difficult Times, Studs Terkel charts the path of this virtue in the lives of American activists from the Great Depression to the present. One lesson: in good times, you can do nothing and still have hopes but in bad times, you have to take that first small step in order to hope.

As Terkel puts it an excerpt from his introduction: "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up." See what he means as he describes the witness of Elaine Jones, director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Eliseo Medina, a former organizer for Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers.

Inroads are being made in the business world by those who emphasize the importance of values and social responsibility with several professional organizations — Association for Spirit at Work, World Business Academy, Spirit in Business — leading the way. Trends include prayer and meditation groups, company-sponsored chaplains, conferences and training sessions on spiritual practices, and other activities that encourage spirituality in the workplace. The underlying realization: prioritizing people and values breeds success.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said it well: "True peace is more than the absence of war; it is the presence of justice." Many peace activists are tired of playing the old tapes of reaction and response to war and warmongers. They are working on positive peace-building initiatives based upon justice and reducing the disparities in wealth around the world.

One important project, endorsed by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Bread for the World, Pax Christi USA, and others, is The Global Wellness Fund Treaty, which would shift nations' resources from military expenditures to development projects. Now that's turning swords into plowshares.

The National Farmer's Union in England has sent 114 farmers a CD of birds twittering, wind chimes, and turkeys gobbling happily (presumably) to help them calm their birds during the holiday season. It seems that happy turkeys grow bigger and taste better than frightened ones.

No wonder American turkeys don't taste like they used to. In an Op-Ed in The New York Times (site registration required), Patrick Martins, director of Slow Food U.S.A., describes the horrendous life of factory farm raised turkeys. To find a humanely raised turkey for your holiday dinner, Martins says, "The key word to keep in mind is 'traceability.' If the person behind the counter where you buy your turkey can name the farm or farmer who raised it, you are taking a step in the right direction. You'll help give turkeys a better life. You'll be kinder to the environment. And you might even wind up with a turkey that tastes, well, like a turkey."