Innovate~Educate~Collaborate

Tag: Faith

  • Green Junction: “It is our collective and individual responsibility: By Julie Peller Ph.D.

    Younger generations tend to express greater concern about the state of the earth. Their futures are challenged by the rising human population that generates greenhouse gases, pollution, and extorts natural resources, among other stressors. Societal messaging continues to promote materialism, which distresses nature. Unprecedented weather events are among the earth’s messages. Young people who recognize […]

  • Merton: a ‘mystical experience.’

    In 1966, Merton wrote about a ‘mystical experience’ in a Louisville, Ky., shopping district, commonly known as the 4th & Walnut experience. Merton famously wrote: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even […]

  • There’s no better time for a movement to stand up. By Julie Peller, Ph.D.

    “Morality, at its core, is about putting ourselves in others’ shoes and treating their interests as we do our own.” Oxford University Professor of Philosophy William MacAskill is the author of “What We Owe the Future.” In this writing, he imagines “living the life of every human being who has ever existed — in order […]

  • “The root of war is fear”

    “Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or ‘fight for.’ It is indeed ‘fighting for peace’ that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but ‘fighting for peace?’ Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace, […]

  • Two Quotes from Thomas Merton: Do we understand violence?

    These two quotes from Thomas Merton are key to understanding and discovering the root cause of violence in our society. Violence is a symptom. A symptom generated by the root cause. If we only treat the symptom it will never end, we must as a society treat the root cause. Treating the root cause of […]

  • Secret Revelation of John

    There are hundreds of gospels and related texts about the movement of the early followers of Jesus in the first three centuries. We have given them many names, such as gnostic gospels and Apocrypha writings. Given our modern-day political environment, we find similar situations exist in churches & the political world of the early followers of Jesus […]

  • Green Junction: Masks are becoming vogue again By Julie Peller Ph.D.

    Health protection measures throughout the pandemic have involved an enormous amount of one-use plastics. These have included personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, gowns), take-home food packaging, test kits, syringes, wipes, and more, unfortunately intensifying the global plastic waste problem. Billions of disposable masks, mostly made of a plastic called polypropylene, have been used and thrown […]

  • 56 years ago Thomas Merton warned…

    56 years ago, Thomas Merton warned that the failure to enact the Gospel’s social implications would result in an “Earthly Hell.” “Social Implications” is about the Great Good. Merton’s role as a mystic voice of awareness, soul searching, compassion, and peace is even more remarkable considering the ways conflict, confusion, doubt touched his personal life. […]

  • Thinking about Christmas

    I wonder how many pastors or parishioners understand the history of Christmas. From the time of Jesus’ death, the birth never had the same significance as Easter until the 1400s. It didn’t become a liturgical celebration until around 333 because the Holy Roman Empire needed to deal with the pagan solstice. What better way than […]

  • The Widow’s Mite

    For example, assuming Both Richard Rohr and Bishop Strickland of Tyler TX preached today on the Gospel, (Mk 12:38-44 or 12:41-44) I can just imagine, maybe they would be as different as night and day. The widow had no plan B, no savings to fall back on, no tomorrow. How many of our hierarchy would […]