Fire & Water Pattern Art by Pikrepo.com

Taoism – Let it Be

My dad loved to cook. And he loved Asian food. So, when I read of the Taoist philosopher Zuanghi’s analogy of wu wei, the condition of inaction or “not forcing things,” as that of a butcher finding the spaces within the meat’s sinews and bones to be cut (thinking of a chicken here), I, of […]

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Colorful hands holding a heart

What is Enough?

What is “enough”? Is there ever “enough”? Can there be? I’ve been thinking about this word and these questions quite a bit lately and it seems to me, when applied to most (if not all) situations, the answers, respectively, are “nothing” and “no.” There appears to be, deep within the human psyche, a constant unsettled […]

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round multicolored peace sign wall art

Envisioning Bold Solutions for Ending War

This piece is a revised version of “Envisioning bold solutions for ending war” originally published in the La Crosse Tribune on January 12, 2020. What if there was a way, or several, to envision ending the war mentality that costs us so many lives, so much suffering and so much money? Many will say ending […]

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flowers

When the Drosera Blooms – A Call to Living the Change

Elders of many First Nations still maintain their lineage of understanding the ebbs and flows of the natural world and the interconnected web of all living creatures. This time of climate urgency calls us to respect and relearn the deep rhythms that hold all life in balance. Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis O’Brien shares a saying: […]

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flowers

EDITOR’S CHOICE

There was a lot of great content that Religica highlighted in 2019. The Religica Podcast and Blog Editors wanted to highlight two of their favorites for 2019. Podcasts: EDITOR’S CHOICE/ Dr. Mack Wilberg, PhD Conductor of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir The Power of Music will Transform our World Music inspires us in ways that we […]

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Cleopatre Thelus

The Violence of Silence in American Catholic Churches

As a Catholic, I think two of the seven themes in Catholic Social Teaching, the Life and Dignity of the Human Person and Solidarity, are particularly important when it comes to the way Catholics live out their faith. People will likely characterize the meaning of these themes through their experiences and worldview. This is understandable, […]

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Robert P. Sellers

Looking around today, it’s hard to imagine any ‘Stranger Things’

Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian portrayal of a not-so-future America that has become an “authoritarian, patriarchal, and theocratic regime” called Gilead. More recently, the Netflix series Stranger Things has plot parallels to our current American political and cultural ethos that are both familiar and foreboding. For many of us old enough to remember how things in our […]

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Bullus Gago

Forgiveness in a Shared Identity

Standing underneath a tree in 1994, Yobe state, Nigeria, I watched as Christians ran. I saw cars set ablaze. A short distance from me I witnessed women slow the advance of Islamic fundamentalists by throwing sticks and stones. Men were standing on rubbles guiding people to safety, yet around me was a small puddle of […]

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James Perkinson

Of Fire and Water

The Episcopal Lectionary for this week resounds in syncopated side-step with emergency events. California again burns—as 250,000 flee and millions lose electricity. In contrast, the scripture for the last Sunday of October celebrates the return—over summer-drought-desiccated Canaan—of “early rains” (Joel 2:23-32; Ps 65; 84). The theme in common is water. California longs for such in […]

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Sarah Oliver

How do we live together?

We sat nervously around the table. Having never met before, we started by introducing ourselves with our name and where we were from. In the context of Cape Town, South Africa, saying where you’re from says a lot about your outlook on life, as the spatial geography of the land is tied up with race, […]

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