Hopeful Thinking

Don’t just be thankful. Remember to thank. It means something. It completes the circuit. At this time on the wheel of the year we honor, recognize and exhibit gratitude for the concept of abundance. We point to it. We sing about it. We thank God for it. We congratulate ourselves for our ingenuity and work ethic. We are glad. We smile. We are relieved. We feel satisfaction. We feel safe, because we now know the harvest is good enough to survive the coming winter. Blessed be. We actually need this time of recognition. And we are missing something when we forget to do more than merely eat turkey. As humans made from the molecules of this planet we are not separate from it in any way. The atoms of our bodies come from nowhere else. Even if it was the stars before that. What happens to the planet, happens to us. We contract with the soil in the winter and expand with it in the summer. What sets us apart is our rituals and celebrations. They have purpose. Some are about what we give...

This is a big one. It hits us below the belt, forgiveness. It feels like giving in, sometimes even like losing. We preach forgiveness because we don’t know how to practice it. If a smoker tells you not to smoke, are they still right? We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the mechanics of forgiveness. How does it function? How is it achieved? What is its purpose? Is it a goal, or a state of being? Why are we taught about it? Much of western spiritual practice hinges around the idea of forgiveness, of letting go, being at peace. We think the act is limited to forgiving other people for things they have done to us or our loved ones. If I asked you–are you a forgiving person?–your first thought would likely be of someone who has wronged you and how you responded to it. So, are you forgiving of other people? Is that all we are expected to forgive? Others? How do we learn to do that? In Christian, Jewish and Islamic scripture we are taught that God forgives us our sins. We are...

    Why are we encouraged to pray? I know why religion says we should do it, but what’s the deeper reason? The reason that informs the doctrine. What’s the reason underneath religion’s advice? What is the intrinsic human need, or capacity, being addressed here?     Not long ago I saw someone requesting prayer on social media for the victims of a recent tragedy. I see it often of course, especially lately. But on this one occasion, several people reacted angrily. They said prayer doesn’t help, God doesn’t exist, if prayer worked so well we wouldn’t need it now, etc. I understand where they’re coming from. Prayer often feels like talking to a wall. And it’s easy to blame God, or claim It doesn’t exist, because why would a so-called loving God allow for harm or illness or tragedy in the first place? Suffering is viewed as proof that God either doesn’t care or doesn’t exist.     It’s worth noting that some of us have a very hard time with ...

            We need a new approach to protesting. The word protest comes from two Latin words meaning public witness. It originally meant to make a public declaration, a solemn vow. But over time the word eventually took on a new meaning as a label of discontent. To protest came to mean a declaration against something, rather than for. How did this happen? It would appear to be the polar opposite of its original intent. Even the prefix pro- implies to be in favor of. Some online sources say that the change occurred around the mid 1750s. But Martin Luther and others launched the protestant reformation in 1517. He was definitely protesting the Catholic Church in the way we currently define the word. Did they themselves refer to what they were doing as protesting, or did that come later? At what point in history did the word change from declaring something positive to resisting something negative? Mother Teresa is famously quot...