Reflections

Success is often defined by material gains, job titles, and superficial benchmarks. However, the nurturing of our spiritual health and awareness can tend to fall by the wayside. 

As the year comes to a close, we’ve been reflecting on moments that have touched us and buoyed our spirits. “Hot Gravy,” a story of hope and healing, redemption and forgiveness, captures one such moment.

For "tracking down the sacred in the nooks and crannies of our popular culture," (as philosopher Sam Keen notes), we extend our congratulations to Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat on the 50th anniversary of their marriage and their work together!

“Justice is not an outcome; it is a perpetual effort to set things right. Freedom is not the removal of all restraints on our appetites; it is the acceptance of restraints and of a duty to participate. Equality is not about pillaging and polluting as much as the next guy; it is about acting as if you were the next guy.” Thank you, Eric Liu, for these powerful reminders you share on Civic Saturdays!

Ronald walks in the door of the downtown shop where I volunteer to show me more drawings. He’s in a surprisingly good mood. A few days ago, the police took his sister away from him and though Paula’s back with him temporarily, she’s trailing him around town, sobbing dramatically about how she doesn’t want to leave her brother. As Ronald flips through his sketchbook full of pastel colored-pencil landscapes, Paula clings to her brother’s arm and then moves toward the mirror by the jewelry to gaze at her heartbroken, red face.

The holiest thing we have to offer the world is a broken-open heart, emptied of fear and vengeance, filled with forgiveness and a willingness to take risks with love. --Parker J. Palmer

In “Breaking the Cultural Trance: Insight and Vision in America,” Robert Inchausti offers a convincing perspective that living in America can impair our deepest "seeing" and how education is the sacred medicine to restore a deeper sight, one that is more "universal, transcendent, and real." Written in 2004, his insights are as fresh and relevant today as they were then. Here is an excerpt of his essay.

In honor of Black History Month, we share this excerpt from late Civil Rights veteran, Vincent Harding’s essay, “Is America Possible?” part of our Deepening the American Dream series. In it he recalls a pilgrimage he took in 2005 to trace the roads travelled and to honor the events that shaped the Civil Rights Movement.

In this nine-minute video from our Consider Forgiveness series, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders and scholars from around the world explore whether an apology is required in order to forgive. The approaches and beliefs shared in this video provide great food for thought and discussion.

This article, a revised version of an essay from our free, downloadable Conversations About Forgiveness guide, ponders what, if anything, is unforgivable.