“Learning entails more than the gathering of information. Learning changes the learner. Like dwarf pines whose form develop with winter’s design, the learner is shaped by what he learns.”
Learning from Nature: A Personal Reflection on Charlie Russell
Naturalist Charlie Russell never went to college. Instead he spent his youth backpacking through the Canadian wilderness with his family. Nature was his mentor and home.
Melissa Harris-Perry created a media flurry when she stated that if we as a society considered “all children” to be “our children,” we would spend more money on childhood education. Critics at Fox News and other pundits called Melissa Harris-Perry a communist socialist Marxist, accusing her of wanting the state to take children away from their parents.
Some commentators framed their critique of Harris-Perry using the model of “ownership,” insisting that parents own their children, not the state. To this charge Harris-Perry responded by quoting Kalil Gibran’s poem which rejects the idea that parents and by extension anyone else can “own” children:
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
The poem continues:
You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.
This week’s Torah portion is Naso (Numbers 4:21-7:89). The portion discusses who, among the Israelites, carries the components of the Miskan (Tenting of Meeting) while wandering through the desert. It also entails a census of the tribe of Levi, describes various offerings that were brought to the Tent of Meeting in general and for its twelve days of dedication, decrees keeping the ill and ‘contaminated’ out of Israelite settlements, details the Nazirite vow, gives us the priestly blessing, and proscribes the process through which women are acquitted or found guilty of affairs. There are many components of this parshah that offer food for thought when it comes to a feminist analysis, but for today, I am going to focus on where there is equality between men and women within the text and where there isn’t.
Quite a number of years ago I had a conversation with one of my professors, a feminist theologian, who posed the question “Why do I need a man to purify my baby with the waters of baptism? Is there something wrong or impure about the blood and water from a mother’s womb – my womb?” Before you jump and shout the words Sacrament or removal of original sin, this question bears merit in exploring, especially in today’s world where women are taking a serious beating religiously, politically, and socially. In today’s world, violations and rants are causing women to stand up and say STOP! This is MY Body. This outcry was provoked by chants of ethical slurs against women– Slut! Prostitute! Whore! The cry got even louder when the issue of religion and government was raised in the fight of healthcare coverage of contraception. The cry got even louder with the enactment of the laws in Virginia and Texas (and many other states to follow suit) that forces women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds in early stage abortions. The mandatory insertion of a wand into a woman’s vagina (mandated by the government, mind you), is a violation and has women crying RAPE!
Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy and spiritual tradition that offers a unique perspective on life, existence, and human experience. Where many religious practices aim to transcend and sometimes even punish the body, Taoism cultivates a deep connection with our physical self in ongoing relationship with nature around us.
This resonates with my own experience, in which I see the body as starting point and place of return for everything we do in life. Leaving the body in order to meet spirit or the divine has never made any sense to me.
In this article I’ll highlight a few elements of Taoism as an embodied philosophy, specifically zooming in on principles and practices that promote holistic wellbeing and inner peace.
Photo by Chris Pinkham. (I recently shaved by head again – I’ll get an updated photo soon!)
I was recently invited to give the Castañeda-Jennings lecture via Zoom at the Chicago Theological Seminary. The lecture was yesterday and it was founded to celebrate the the awarding of the Castañeda-Jennings Scholarships, which go to students whose work helps transform Christian congregations from places of hostility to places of support and empowerment for the LGBTQ community. It really was an honor to get to participate and share through a lecture. And, it was an opportunity to do what I don’t often get to do, which is to be fully theological – to present my critical reflection on Christian praxis in light of the scripture, which is considered the word of God by Christians, and in this case, I was specifically reflecting on the gospel according to Mark.
This lecture is a snapshot of the larger book project on ecclesiology that I am working on – a feminist, queer, anti-racist, decolonial theology of church. So here I’ll share some of the highlights of the talk…
Emerald and lime chartreuse lemon burgundy burnt umber leafy green breath transformer palms and needles raining light magic bean spirals skyward star gazing ferns feather paths pearls at my feet wild lilies woodland valley brook scarlet roots hug weeping fruit trees conversing underground pollinated rose petals nourish moist earth each tear slips away bowed deep gratitude, a grieving moment a thousand bees hum as One. This cycle ends even as another has begun.
In a gift economy inequalities are balanced out by the cultural practice of gift-giving. If you have more, then you give more, if you have little, you still feel it is better to give than to receive. A person who hoards wealth is not viewed positively.
The worldview of a gift-giving economy is so far from our own that we can barely comprehend it.
In Skoteino, Crete, eighty-seven year old Marika awaits eagerly for the arrival of our group. She does not come empty-handed to join us after we have finished a meal lovingly prepared by Christina. Marika brings a bottle of raki and urges us all to join her in downing a small glass of her homemade moonshine. Often she offers us nuts she has cracked or raisins she has prepared as well . She has almost nothing and lives without many modern conveniences, but she would not consider joining us without bringing a gift.
The Fibonacci series has been called the fingerprint of god. That is because they are a sequence of numbers found ubiquitously in nature. I’ve been thinking up new names for it. It is a progression created by adding each number to its previous number after starting with the number one. It looks like this:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55 and so on to infinity.
The Fibonacci Sequence was first described in the 12th century by Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, an Italian mathematician. His nickname was Fibonacci, which translates to “son of Bonacci.” He has been called the Leonardo of Pisa, the city of his birth. The series is unique. When you take the ratio of any two successive numbers in the series (after the three), the resultant numbers have a pattern. They fall into an increasingly narrow range with the sequence revolving around a ratio called the Golden Mean, the golden ratio, or the golden number. It is 1.618. Below is an example of how the number sequence works:
Feminism and Religion 