On Healing the World

(Originally posted on euphratesinstitute.org/warriors-for-peace/)

As the sun began to set today, the wind whistled through the greening trees, the birds sang their songs of spring, and twenty or more students gathered to pray and to heal. I arrived at this impromptu outdoor church service just as the prepared readings were ending. The topic was healing, and what followed were the voices of almost everyone there, sharing gratitude, inspiration, and accounts of healing. Most people who shared expressed their gratitude for this meeting and the irrepressible sense of love and healing power in the air. I felt it too, this overwhelming sense of infinite goodness. And I know that it reaches beyond that one beautiful spot where we were sitting.

It is that same spirit of infinite possibility that is present for all the universe, and I know it’s what can heal the world. It is the wealth of ideas that anyone, anywhere, can access at anytime.

From Scriptures to Scruples

(Adapted in-class essay from my Women in the Bible course)
       I consider myself Christian because I hope, as a spiritual freedom fighter, to follow Jesus’ example in healing the world. But I have mixed feelings about including the Bible in my personal practice of faith--even a spiritual interpretation of it--because of the rampant chauvinism portrayed in it and perpetuated by its societies. That said, I find it useless to read the Bible selectively, as some feminist Christians have. I do find valuable lessons and principles in the scriptures, and those I strive to embody, but the sexism is there, and instead of being ignored or omitted, it should be considered as we solve the same issues engrained in society today. While we look to parts of the Bible for inspiration and guidance, we should look to other parts in our self-examination, as we work out our own principles and give the long-overdue justice to those marginalized groups that have endured our selfishness and prejudice since, it seems, the beginning of human history.