Innovate~Educate~Collaborate

Tag: Merton

  • 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…

  • For Merton, what is the Kingdom of God?

    For Thomas Merton, the Fourth & Walnut experience was about “seeing” the ‘Kingdom of God.’ The realization that the ‘kingdom of God is all about “seeing.” The See-Judge-Act methodology allows us to see the goodness in humans naturally. Kingdom = Consciousness, the understanding of the greater good, think, eudaimonia. The Kingdom of God is not…

  • Green Junction: Greenwashing by Julie Peller Ph.D.

    The term greenwashing refers to communications by companies meant to convince consumers their products or services are environmentally sound when this is not the case. Greenwashing is a deceitful or embellishing marketing gimmick directed at sustainably-minded consumers who want to buy goods and services that are not harmful to the environment. One poll found that 75% of…

  • Green Junction: Pandemic and Plastic By Julie Peller Ph.D.

    Health protection measures throughout the pandemic have involved an enormous amount of one-use plastics. These include personal protective equipment (masks, gloves, gowns), take-home food packaging, test kits, syringes, wipes, and more, which have intensified the global plastic waste problem. Billions of disposable masks, most of which are made of a plastic called polypropylene, have been…

  • The reason for book clubs and discussion groups

    “If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you or, as we have said, books that are over…

  • Green Junction: Plastic materials manufactured since 1950 is over 9 billion tons: By Julie Peller Ph.D.

    According to the World Economic Forum, the production of plastic is expected to double over the next 20 years. Half of the plastics in our world now have been made over the past two decades. The accumulated amount of plastic materials manufactured since 1950 is over 9 billion tons, which some researchers describe as over…

  • “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,…

  • hold my hand and together we innovate, educate, and collaborate

    When we look at the early period, the origins of Christianity, the reasons the desert mothers and fathers sought out the desert, a resistance to the world they saw as violent. I think we see the reasons we are called to be mystics, a voice in the desert, the wilderness of our lives, and the…

  • Green Junction: Heavy metal pollution is a problem by Julie Peller Ph.D

    Exposure to heavy metal pollution is a problem around the globe. Many heavy metals, such as lead, chromium, arsenic, and mercury, can lead to serious harm upon exposure, often in meager amounts. Heavy metals can be taken in the body through food, water, air, and commercial products, such as old paint, treated lumber, old pipes,…

  • Ecological hermeneutics of MT 25

    “I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me … Just as you…