Spirituality & Practice

The civil rights movement stands out as one of the most remarkable and meaningful in American history as African-Americans rallied for social, legal, political, and cultural changes putting an end to segregation and prohibiting discrimination. Although committed white believers marched with their black brothers and sisters, many had no involvement in the movement. And today, many of its successes are under attack.

According to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights . . .

Tim Wu's excellent opinion piece last fall in The New York Times, "In Praise of Mediocrity," has stuck with me because he talks about why people don't have a hobby — and I am one of those people. (Of course, I do for a living what a lot of people do in their leisure time: go to movies and read books.) Wu is a law professor and the author of The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.

Whereas in the past people enriched their lives with hobbies, many today are working long hours . . .

This article in Psychology Today by Susan Krauss Whitbourne caught my attention because in 2018 I found myself using the word "toxic" more than usual. It seems that this has been true for many people around the globe. That is the reason why the highly regarded Oxford English Dictionary (OED) chose "toxic" as its number one word of 2018.

Instead of just referring to a life-threatening chemical or environmental situation, the word has expanded to modify more abstract ideas such as masculinity, relationship, and culture. The Oxford English Dictionary saw a 45 percent increase in the number of times that "toxic" was looked up on its website last year. According to those behind this selection the word reflected "the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year."

Looking back over the negativity of public discourse, the widespread incivility on all levels of society, and the seeming refusal of citizens to treat one another with mutual respect, we are not surprised that toxic was singled out as a descriptor of the year.

So what is the challenge embedded in this choice? In many ways, it reflects our shadow side – those parts of ourselves we find to be despicable, unworthy, and embarrassing on both an individual and a cultural level. It's clearly time for us to do shadow work which involves both bringing those realities into the light (which choosing toxic as the word of the year clearly does) and taking responsibility for our part in perpetuating them. Ask yourself, what is toxic in my life? And how can I correct that?

Marion Woodman, a psychoanalyst, best-selling author, and popular explorer of the varied stages of female identity and growth, died on July 9 in London, Ontario. She was 89.

In the early 1970s, after a career as a high school English and drama teacher, Woodman changed directions by attending the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. She ended her training in 1979 and set up her own practice in London, Ontario.

She discovered many uses and applications for Jung's mythical archetypes as she worked with clients squaring off with patriarchal thinking, addiction, depression, eating disorders, and perfectionism.
In a series of books and audio tapes (Leaving My Father's House: A Journey to Conscious Femininity, Sitting by The Well) Woodman excelled in her learned and liberating teachings on wholeness and the depths of feminine identity.

In 1998, she and Robert Bly put together a book ...

James H. Cone, The Bill and Judith Moyers Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Seminary in New York, died April 28 in Manhattan at the age of 79. Here is his obituary in The New York Times. He was widely respected as the founder of black liberation theology. Cone wrote: "Black theology is an understanding of the Gospel which sees justice for the poor as the very heart of what the Christian Gospel is about and the very heart of what God is doing in this world."

During his decades at Union, this theologian, teacher, and author focused on black liberation theology and liberation theologies of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. His most recent book The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2011) won the Grawemeyer Award in Religion. With prophetic edge, he offers an incisive critique of this form of terrorism against blacks and the appalling silence of Christian communities. All his books reveal the flinty and profound prophetic edge to Cone's theology.

Dr. Cone's funeral will be at Riverside Church in New York City at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 7, 2018. It will be livestreamed for those unable to attend.

Many of Dr. Cone's students have paid tribute to him on social media. This one is from Micah Bucey, now a minister at Judson Memorial Church in New York City:

"Your legacy will live on in the continuing work ...

In Buddhism, trees have long been appreciated as spiritual teachers and companions. After all, Gautama Siddhartha was enlightened while sitting under a Bodhi tree. In Thailand, forest monks perform tree ordination ceremonies as a way to declare trees sacred and to preserve forests. They hang signs on their vast trunks to remind others that "to harm the forest is to harm life."

In Quartz, Ephrat Livini describes the spiritual practice of "forest bathing."

There used to be a time when information junkies like us could read a book, watch a movie, or a TV show and the next day share all about the storyline with family, friends, or colleagues. In a fascinating article in The Atlantic by Julie Beck, "Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read and the Movies and TV Shows We Watch," we learn from Faria Sana, an assistant professor of psychology at Athabasca University in Canada: "Memory generally has a very intrinsic limitation. It's essentially a bottleneck."

We are living in a complicated media world. It doesn't matter whether you read a book quickly or slowly, watch TV series over time or binge watch them in one night, we are going to forget most of what they are about. All of us have a "forgetting curve" which is steepest after the first 24 hours following our experience of a media event or our learning of something new. In Beck's clever explanation: "For many, the experience of consuming culture is like filling up a bathtub, soaking in it, and then watching the water run down the drain. It might leave a film in the tub, but the rest is gone."

In this age of smart phones and fast Internet connections

Writer Ursula Le Guin died on January 22, 2018; she was 88. She believed that the imagination is "the single most useful tool humankind possesses." She certainly proved that to be true, turning the free exercise of her imagination into a spiritual practice.

Immensely creative and prolific, Le Guin wrote ...

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has received a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and will use the money to create The Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts, or CEVA for short.

Can art penetrate the walls that separate us and make us kinder? The Institute is teaming up with science-of-emotions pundit Dacher Keltner and his research team at the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory in a five-year project that will convene philosophers, writers, artists, thought leaders, and others to research ways that museums can foster empathy, compassion, and awe. For example, museum visitors can have their empathy levels measured upon entering and leaving exhibits to see how experiencing art has affected them.

Kaywin Feldman, Director of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, said the goal of CEVA is "to spark and nurture empathy through the visual arts so museums can contribute even more toward building a just and harmonious society." The project will explore the use of art spaces as portals to provoking empathy, compassion, and emotional literacy.

We've long noticed how art can change our feelings about others and open up new horizons. When looking at a painting or a drawing, we make it a spiritual practice to step into a picture to see how we might feel in that setting. Reflecting on art, we know, is a good empathy practice, and we look forward to hearing how Keltner and company's research encourages that approach.

In its December 22 - December 29, 2017 print issue, The Week sums up the odd mixture of trends, events, and cultural phenomena of the last year as seen through a potpourri of polls. Here are some of the findings:

• 59% of Americans say we're at the lowest point in our country's history that they can remember. (American Psychological Association)
• 63% say concerns about the nation's future are a major source of stress in their lives. (American Psychological Association)
• 70% say the nation's political divide is at least as big as during the Vietnam war. (Washington Post/University of Maryland)
• 39% think this lack of unity is the new normal. (Washington Post/University of Maryland)
• 79% think that if the Founding Fathers were alive today, they'd be disappointed with the U.S. (Fox News)
• 73% are concerned that North Korea will launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. or its allies. (Investor's Business Daily/TIPP)
• 76% are worried the U.S. will become involved in a major war in the next three years. (NBC News/Survey Monkey)
• 38% are less likely to attend events that draw large crowds because of their fear of terrorism. (Gallup)
• 46% are afraid to travel overseas for the same reason. (Gallup)

Here are some of the ways Americans seek to relax:

• 55% snack two to three times a day and 24% admit they reach for the cookies when they need to de-stress. (Mintel)
• 73% engage in epic binge-watching sessions, staying glued to the screen for three hours or more. (Deloitte)

Our modest suggestion: Use spiritual practices to deal with difficult times and your fears.