“Certain gardens are described as retreats when they are really attacks.”
— Ian Hamilton Finlay
I quit protesting and started a garden. It sounds absurd at first, I know. But bear with me.
Continue reading Why I Quit 350.org and Started a GardenCategory Archives: Spiritual Activism
On Sale Now: “Another End of the World is Possible” by John Halstead
I’m happy to announce that my little collection of essays, Another End of the World is Possible, is now available for sale in print and e-book. All proceeds from the sale will go to Gods & Radicals Press/A Beautiful Resistance. Continue reading On Sale Now: “Another End of the World is Possible” by John Halstead
It’s time for the spiritual people to get active and activist people to get spiritual.
The following comments were given at the closing of the April 27, 2019 Prayer for the Planet interfaith vigil sponsored by 350 Indiana-Calumet in Gary, Indiana. Represented at this Earth Week service were Buddhist, Christian, Humanist, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Pagan, and Sikh religious communities.
A friend of mind recently sent me a quote:
“There’s nothing more radically activist than a truly spiritual life. And there’s nothing more truly spiritual than a radically activist life.”– Brian McLaren, Naked Spirituality
I believe that, but I’ve struggled to live it. Continue reading It’s time for the spiritual people to get active and activist people to get spiritual.
We Are Keepers, Bearers, and Builders of the Flame
This past Sunday, my family and I led our Unitarian congregation in a community ritual intended to celebrate the different ways we live out our Unitarian Universalist Values.
As congregants came into the sanctuary, they were given one of three cards which read “Keeper of the Flame”, “Bearer of the Flame”, or “Builder of the Flame”. Each of these designated a type of ministry. The Keepers of the Flame are those focused on creating a spiritual sanctuary from a harsh world. The Bearers of the Flame are those who carry the light of UU values out into the world through social action. The Builders of the Flame are the glue that hold it all together.
Continue reading We Are Keepers, Bearers, and Builders of the Flame
Is UU Atheism a Form of White Privilege?
A recent article by Mark Morrison-Reed in UU World, the Unitarian Universalist Association magazine, about the “black hole” in UU history, got me thinking about the connection between UU worship and race. According to Morriso-Reed, for all our proclaimed progressiveness, it seems we UUs have not really ever taken the lead in the fight against racism–internally or externally. I’ve been thinking about this history a lot lately, as my own UU congregation is discussing whether to display a “Black Lives Matter” sign on the church property. One part of Morrison-Reed’s article in particular jumped out at me:
Bridging the Divide Between Politics and Spirituality, by Jason Espada
It took a Sufi poet to put into words for me what I had been feeling for some time, about the limitations, or dysfunction of religions in America. It was about seven years ago that I read this verse by Unis Emrie:
Unless you can see the whole world
in a single glance,
anything you do is wrong,
even with all your religion
Continue reading Bridging the Divide Between Politics and Spirituality, by Jason Espada
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Restory the World
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Humanity’s paralysis over the impending environmental collapse is a function of the psychological strength of the myth that things will always be the same. The sun always rises in the morning, and winter predictably (less predictably now) follows autumn which is followed by spring, and privileged people like myself go to work during the week, rest on the weekend, and go on being good consumers, largely unperturbed by war and famine and plague.
It’s easy to believe that things have always been this way and always will be … but they won’t.
It’s likely that our children or grandchildren will live to see a day when our everyday experience, living in in a developed country today at the beginning of the 21st century, will be entirely foreign to the children being born at that time. This is not apocalyptic catastrophizing. It is simply a recognition of the reality of change, specifically climate change. And that recognition is the first step toward making the system-level changes which are needed to address the environmental disaster which is already happening.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Restory the World
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Reconnect With Nature
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
“Probably no society has been so deeply alienated as ours from the community of nature, has viewed the natural world from a greater distance of mind, has lapsed into a murkier comprehension of its connections with the sustaining environment.” — Richard Nelson, “Eskimo Science”
How then do we reconnect with the earth?
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Reconnect With Nature
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Build Community
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
When we think about climate change, we have been socialized to think about individual actions, especially our choices at the market and gas pump. There are many ways we can change our individual consumption habits in response to climate change. But we need to understand that no slave was ever freed by individuals choosing to purchase products that are free from slave labor.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Build Community
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Eat Local
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
Many people may not realize that a major source of carbon emissions and pollution is the food industry—especially the transportation of food. Locavores are people who try to get all of their food within 100 miles of where they live.
21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Source What You Consume
Each day of the month of April leading up to Earth Day (April 22), I will be offering a suggestion for how we can really honor the Earth this year. This list will go beyond the usual suggestions to change your light bulbs and take shorter showers. Instead, the focus is on collective action working toward radical social change.
By virtue of living in a modern industrial society, we are largely alienated from the material conditions of our existence.
Continue reading 21 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day: Source What You Consume
“An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: Martin Luther King’s Ecological Thought
“A Single Garment of Destiny”
In his penultimate sermon, delivered on March 31, 1968, at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke of our interconnectedness:
Continue reading “An Inescapable Network of Mutuality”: Martin Luther King’s Ecological Thought
“If We Just Talk of Thoughts and Prayers”
We sang this at my Unitarian church yesterday. It was powerful! In light of the most recent school shooting, the message is very timely.
Pray Working
There are vigils being held around the country right now for the victims of the latest school shooting. I think these vigils are important: They bring home the tragedy of what has happened. Without these rituals, there is the risk that these terrible events will just sweep by us in the 24-hour news cycle, leaving us unchanged.
But vigils and prayers are not enough.
Well-Behaved Protesters Seldom Make History
Yes, I Drove My SUV To The Environmental Protest
In August 2017, my teenage daughter and I joined hundreds of protesters on the streets of Lincoln, Nebraska to protest the KXL pipeline. To get there, we took a bus from Chicago with other activists. As we rode the bus 12 hours, I was conscious of the fact that we were using fossil fuel to go to a protest of the fossil fuel industry. I chose to take the bus instead of driving (which would have been shorter and would have spared by knees) in part because it was the more environmentally responsible choice, i.e., the cumulative impact of taking the bus was less than everyone driving individually.
Continue reading Yes, I Drove My SUV To The Environmental Protest
10 Things Marching Accomplishes
In January 2017, my family—consisting of myself, my wife, my 18 year-old son, and my 14 year-old daughter—drove from Indiana to Washington, D.C. and joined a half million people for the Women’s March. An estimated 3 million people participated in 500 sister marches around the world. L.A. and New York had about a half million marchers each. Chicago had a quarter million. The turnout was historic and unexpected. All in all, one in every 100 Americans participated! That’s amazing! Continue reading 10 Things Marching Accomplishes
4 Things Every New Activist Should Know
One thing I quickly learned when I became active is that it’s easy to get discouraged. There’s four myths about activism which I think contribute to this. These myths are perpetuated by critics of activists as well as by activists themselves.
The Spirituality Of Protest
“It is time for spiritual people to get active and the activist people to get spiritual. I think we need both now. In order to build the alternatives to our collapsing system which is built on structural violence we need to have a total revolution of the human spirit. We need to combine the inner revolution with the outer revolution.” — Pancho Ramos-Stierele, age 26, arrested at Occupy Oakland while meditating.
Pray With Your Feet 