On Being Blog
As many of you know, we are contacting our listeners as well as old friends and guests of the show to ask them a fairly specific set of questions about the economic crisis that continues to rock us day to day, as we wait for a new administration in the White House, new solutions, and for the next shoe to drop. These questions are simple, but they’re also big: “Do you see this as a spiritual and moral crisis?” “Where are you looking now for leadership, for guidance?”
I spoke to Martin Marty, the acclaimed historian and Christian theologian. He’s retired, though honestly he is the busiest retired person I know. But being retired, the recent market chaos is a very real concern for him, and, in this brief conversation, he shares a good deal of his ”lived theology” — the personal, daily acts of faith that preserve sanity and restore trust even at the most uncertain times. The unpretentious wisdom he shares is such a great example of real-life, grounded piety; it gives me hope.
Stay tuned for more coverage on the radio as well. We just completed a fabulous interview with the Quaker educator Parker Palmer on the crisis and how to find our way forward, which will be broadcast in December. Check back here at SOF Observed for similar conversations with medical researcher Dr. Esther Sternberg and international business consultant Prabhu Guptara in the near future.
Also, we’re looking to our readers and listeners for fresh thinking and language about how to talk about the current economic crisis. How has this changed you, your family, your community? And not just financially, but in terms of personal conscience and values? We’d like to hear from you. Tell us your first person story about your experiences.
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One of the great figures in public radio, in my mind, is David Isay; and one of the best things on the radio is his project StoryCorps, whose mission is “to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.” This year, StoryCorps has declared November 28, the day after Thanksgiving, as the first National Day of Listening — encouraging all of us to sit down with the people we know, ask them about their lives, and record those conversations.
You’ll find detailed instructions on their Web site for how to do these interviews and why they are important. As David Isay puts it, “By listening closely to one another, we can help illuminate the true character of this nation, reminding us all just how precious each day can be and how truly great it is to be alive.” This project is very much in the spirit of what we do here at Speaking of Faith — so if you give it a try, let us know what happens.
—Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, as tweeted by Rabbi Aaron Spiegel
Today I viewed hundreds of photos looking for an image that might help convey the critical perspective of Binyavanga Wainaina in our upcoming program on the ethics of aid in Africa, and more specifically Kenya. I was left a bit heavy-hearted. And then I saw this inspiring quote from a new friend in Indianapolis. I can’t thank him enough (and, if you’re interested, he’s got a great recommendation for cigars in Indy).
Here’s a preview of video artist Bill Viola’s in-progress video game “The Night Journey.” Viola, who has been described as “a Rembrandt for the video age,” has built a career on making video art that’s contemplative, metaphysical, and sometimes spiritual — and this “game” seems to be no exception. From its description on the USC Interactive Media Web site:
Narrative inspiration for this project includes the lives and writings of great historical figures including: Rumi, the 13th century Islamic poet and mystic; Ryokan, the 18th century Zen Buddhist poet, Shankara; the 8th century Hindu mystic and commentator on the Upanishads; and St. Anthony, the 3rd century Christian desert father.
It’s an interesting project, and while it does have some game-like elements like goals and levels, his professed intention is to “explore the universal story of an individual mystic’s journey towards enlightenment.” His video work (which you can see some examples of here and here, as well on his Web site) has often been presented in an immersive, experiential environment. So maybe an interactive experience is a logical next step.
I do wonder, though, how much can this sort of technology evoke a deep metaphysical and/or spiritual experience? Can one really explore spirituality with a joystick?
Coming soon: Speaking of Faith: The Game. (Kidding, of course. I think.)
Early this morning, the BBC World Service rebroadcast this CBC documentary about the uniquely American religion of Spiritualism. Lily Dale, a small town in southwestern New York state, was founded by a socially progressive group of Spiritualists in 1879 and is the epicenter for its practitioners.
Wondering what is a Spiritualist? Here’s the town’s definition:
One who believes, as the basis of his or her religion, in the continuity of life and in individual responsibility. Some, but not all, Spiritualists are Mediums and/or Healers. Spiritualists endeavor to find the truth in all things and to live their lives in accordance therewith.
To expand on that definition, Spiritualists believe in a divine power and the afterlife. The dead can be contacted through mediums, individuals given the gift of channeling and contacting these spirits. These spirits are in a state of evolution, and by contacting them, embodied people can gain greater understanding about moral and ethical issues.
If you’ve got 30 minutes, Frank Falk’s doc is worth a listen.
(photo: srinehuls/Flickr)
Our program with the recently passed-on Studs Terkel is being rebroadcast this week. If this show doesn’t make you cry, there is just plain something wrong with you. Of course the man is the patron saint of every good thing in radio broadcasting, so we have a special love and a license for sentimentality when it comes to Studs. I actually had him autograph a baseball for me once.
In any case, at one compelling moment in this week’s show which I won’t describe here, we play a piece of the great aria from Tosca, “Vissi D’Arte,” and hearing it sent me hungrily off to YouTube to find a complete version. This one, performed by Leontyne Price in the 1960s, gave me some real joy today, and made me miss the intellect of a man who could wander so easily from Mahalia Jackson to Bertrand Russel to Puccini.
“The main creed that I like to refer to when I think of Vedanta is as Swami Vivekananda said: ‘If you’re a Christian, be a good Christian. If you’re a Muslim, be a good Muslim. If you’re a Hindu, be a good Hindu.’”
This is the comment of 17 year-old Akhil, a young man interviewed as part of a new study released by the Search Institute’s Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. The study is the first report from an ambitious project reaching across cultures, languages, and traditions to understand how today’s global youth experience and think about their spiritual growth. Focused on advancing the scientific study of this area of human development, the guiding philosophy of the endeavor is that good science is the key to good practice in fostering the formation and growth of spiritual identity.
I attended a presentation of the study results this week, and walked away with increased curiosity about how young people around the world are shaping their spiritual sense of self and the overall importance of that dimension in their lives. The exploratory findings in the report include data from focus groups, interviews, and surveys with youth ages 12–25 across 17 countries from Cameroon to Syria to the United States. Some intriguing points include:
- When asked “what does it mean to be spiritual?,” the most common response among youth in all countries was a belief in God. In Cameroon, 4 percent responded that they don’t know or don’t think there is a spiritual dimension to life compared to 28 percent in Australia and 10 percent in the U.S.
- Thirty-four percent of youth surveyed indicated they are both religious and spiritual. In focus groups, they talked about the relationships between these two ideas, but their descriptions revealed little consensus. “Spirituality is the search for answers and religion provides the answers” (15-year old female from the UK). “You don’t have to be religious to be spiritual, but you have to be spiritual to be religious” (15-year old Canadian male). In Thailand, this question was not included in the survey because there is no distinction between the two words in the language or culture.
- In response to the question “What makes spiritual development easier or harder?” the top response for making it easier was spending time outside or in nature (87%) while the top response for making it harder was experiencing grief, pain, or loss (44%).
- Youth surveyed most often nurture spiritual development alone or by helping others. Top-rated activities include reading books, praying or meditating by oneself, and regularly helping people who are in need. Across all countries, family was the most common source of support for young people in their spiritual growth, followed by friends.
A panel of international advisors followed the presentation, providing additional context to the findings. Lori Noguchi of the Chinese-based Badi Foundation commented that there is a remarkable desire among youth in China to explore questions of spirituality when given the opportunity. In Chinese education, there is a strong moral component, but it is often scripted and doesn’t match with young people’s reality — and that creates a crisis for many around spiritual development.
Kelly Dean Schwartz, a Canadian social psychologist, remarked that areas of spiritual development that need much more attention include the role of doubt in adolescent spirituality, the role of arts, media, and technology, and the role of sexuality. He oversaw a focus group of Canadian youth for the study. When he stopped filming the group and tried to take their discussion to a deeper level, that’s when participants opened up more and expressed a connection between sexuality and spiritual development in their lives.
A program on this topic is on our long list. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please share.
Three hundred students in the general education program at American University participated in a course in which they read Krista’s book Speaking of Faith. In a live video conference with Krista in St. Paul and the students in Washington DC, they ask questions that arose out of their reading. And Krista answers them.
This is part of our continuing effort to reach out to different groups and also share with our audience all the activities Krista participates in. We’re blogging it here for the sake of experimentation and also for the benefit of those of you who don’t have bandwidth or like to read with some producer commentary. If you prefer, you can watch a video version here. Let us know what you think.
Three hundred students in the general education program at American University participated in a course in which they read Krista’s book Speaking of Faith. In a live video conference with Krista in St. Paul and the students in Washington DC, they ask questions that arose out of their reading. And Krista answers them.
This is part of our continuing effort to reach out to different groups and also share with our audience all the activities Krista participates in. For those of you who would rather read a running producer commentary of the event, check out our live blog version. Let us know what you think.
This past weekend, I kept mulling over the content of our recent show, “Getting Revenge and Forgiveness” — especially what Michael McCullough said about how easily parents forgive their children.
I forgive my seven-year-old son every day. … Because he’s an active, inquisitive seven-year-old who sometimes accidentally elbows me in the mouth when we’re cuddling and sometimes puts Crayons on the walls. And yet it seems demeaning to call it forgiveness. … It’s just what you do with your children. You know, you accept their limitations and you move on.
As a father of two toddlers, the thing that amazes me is not how easily parents forgive their children, but how easily children forgive their parents. Every parent I know has had moments of utter exasperation and impatience with their kids that they later regretted. But when our children are little, they have an extraordinary capacity to forgive our mistakes. Krista once wrote about a Hebrew proverb that says “just before a child is born, the angel Gabriel tells her everything — all the secrets of God and the universe. Then he kisses her on the forehead, and she begins to forget it all.” So it seems that, though our children will forget it by adolescence, they are apparently born knowing the secret of forgiveness.
The poet Robyn Sarah sums it up perfectly for me in her poem Nursery, 11:00 p.m. The speaker of the poem describes coming to the end of a day when she’s been a terrible parent, wishing she could apologize for how she behaved, standing over her children as they sleep in their cribs. She likens the forgiving sound of their breathing to a shawl being knitted in the darkness.
How warm it is, I think,
how much softer
than my deserving.
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