Why do I tell this story in light of the abuse and murder of autistic children? And why do I tell it using only the barest outline of facts? Because I was lost and now I’m found. Things started out hard. And things turned out mostly okay. My life as an undiagnosed autistic kid was …
In this episode, Kirsten Powers joins Pete and Jared to discuss toxic public discourse, non-dualistic thinking, and a look at how grace might hold a different meaning than we previously imagined. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bible-for-normal-people/id1215420422?i=1000541891138
In decade after decade, threats of job competition – between men and women, immigrants and native born. Black and white – have perennially revived the fear of loss at another’s gain. The people setting up the competition and spreading these fears were never the needy job seekers, but the elite. (Consider the New York Herald’s …
The zero sum is a story by wealthy interests for their own profit Read More »
I begin by laying the groundwork for our shared labor with definitions, as defined by Merriam-Webster and me. holy exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness having a divine quality, venerated as or as if sacred My definition: the connection to that which is beyond. The sense that something …
By Jennie McLaurin Humanitarian workers are crucial to our collective survival… but they are not okay. https://www.christianitytoday.com/better-samaritan/2021/october/is-anyone-taking-care-of-wounded-healers.html
Researchers say that negative emotions—fear, envy, greed, entitlement, resentment, anger, and regret—block gratitude, causing “self-alienation,” broken relationships, and profound unhappiness, thus resulting in a worldview that is “deeply false to human nature and the nature of the universe, a distortion of reality.” Indeed, it hardly takes a doctorate in psychology to know that what Christians …
Perhaps the single most important lesson we can hope to gain from this analysis is that in the past America has experienced a storm of unbridled individualism in our culture, our communities, our politics, and our economics, and it produced then, as it has today, a national situation that few Americans found appealing. But we …
We successfully weathered that storm once, and we can do it again Read More »
The pattern of “competition” is an excellent case in point. Every economics textbook will tell you that competition between rival firms leads to innovation in their products and services. But when you look at innovation from the long-zoom perspective, competition turns out to be less central to the history of good ideas than we generally …
Openness and connectivity may, in the end, be more valuable Read More »
Now when it comes to intellectual doubt, you’re dealing primarily with your meaning module, the part of your brain committee that thinks critically and analytically. But your meaning module’s independent thought processes are constantly being monitored and even censored by your belonging and survival modules. They constantly whisper their respective warnings: “If you think or …
Muslim Americans gave more to charity in 2020 than non-Muslims, a new study found. They are also more likely to volunteer, we learned. https://theconversation.com/us-muslims-gave-more-to-charity-than-other-americans-in-2020-170689
If we want to understand racism in the U.S., as uncomfortable as it might be for us, we have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully, and to become more receptive to what it is like to be black in the U.S. Here are some astonishing statistics that may …
We have the moral responsibility to open our eyes and see our society more truthfully Read More »
Our response is framed by seven core convictions that we believe are foundational to a constructive engagement with the work of reparations. The first regards the nature of racism itself. Before proceeding, we should briefly state that racism, as used in this book, has three elements to it. First, classifying human beings into distinct “races” …
The new American Values Survey from PRRI also shows that 60% of white evangelicals believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. No other religious group comes close. https://religionnews.com/2021/11/01/study-most-white-evangelicals-dont-want-to-live-in-a-religiously-diverse-country/
Long marginalized and misrepresented in U.S. history, the Wampanoags are bracing for the 400th anniversary of the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621 https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/04/thanksgiving-anniversary-wampanoag-indians-pilgrims/
If you aren’t sure that a pathology paradigm is so bad, I want to simply place the language of pathology side by side with the words of a neurodiversity paradigm, and let you put yourself in the shoes of someone on the receiving end of each. In an October 2020 article for the ADDitude Magazine, …
The Pathology Model vs. the Neurodiversity Paradigm Read More »
Most Euro-Americans were not, and would likely never be, the wealthy aristocrat who had every social and economic privilege in Europe. Eternal slavery provided a new caste that even the poorest white-skinned person could hover above and define himself against. Just imagine the psychic benefit of being elevated from the bottom of a rigid class …
from The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/montana-extreme-trump/2021/10/22/0f82afbc-0037-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html
Dayton, Ohio August 7, 1865 To My Old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee Sir: I got your letter, and was glad that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back, and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have …
It is hard for me to believe I finished high school in the year 2000 touting so many racist ideas. A racist culture had handed me the ammunition to shoot Black people, to shoot myself, and I took and used it. Internalized racism is the real Black on Black crime. I was a dupe, a …
As wildfires consume the American west, economic uncertainty plagues those tasked with containing them https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/21/wildland-firefighters-struggle-homelessness
