Browsing the archives for the Spirituality in America tag

24 Mar 12

Religious Freedom and Birth Control Debate: Religion’s Death Wish?

by Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

This blog first appeared on Huffington Post March 20, 2102

The Luddite approach is not a winning one for religion. Denial of access to contraception and the right of religion to freely discriminate strutting under the guise of religious liberty is no liberty at all. It is a churlish death wish competing against a more generous spirituality of freedom rooted in kindness and compassion.

Choosing to define yourself by what you hate, abhor and rail against might play well to a core group but it is not a recipe for attracting those looking for a spirituality of purpose and meaning amidst the more hued complexities of being human. Exclusionary religion may explain why the Pew Research Organization reports that twenty-five percent of those under 30 now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated.

In the age of internet access to wisdom on demand the prelates and leaders who proclaim that social norms and arrangements are immutable create a caricature of themselves similar to the nineteenth century Luddites who resisted all of the seismic changes of the Industrial Revolution.

The debate over whether religiously affiliated institutions have to provide access to contraception is presented by some as a desperate defense of religious liberty. Cardinal Dolan of New York bolsters that position by asserting that the bishops are the only ones who “speak for the truths of the faith.” Beyond questions of religious polity, his assertion attempts to silence the divergent voices of faithful lay people and Catholic institutions alike. The liberty being defended is revealed to be no liberty at all unless you agree with him.

The daily lives of ordinary people are replete with opportunities to make ethical, moral and social choices in the context of their liberty to so with good conscience. The fact that “ninety-eight percent of sexually experienced women of child bearing age and who describe themselves as Catholic” use contraceptives does not make them bad people. Most would see little value in connecting their choice and the authority of the men who “speak for the truths of the faith.” Instead their choice reveals the truth that spiritual wisdom for daily living is revealed in the competent decisions and choices of people.

In Colorado, Focus on the Family is building a coalition to put an initiative on the ballot that would allow religious organizations and individuals the right to discriminate based on their religious beliefs. Presented as a ballot in support of religious liberty it would effectively deny all protections from discrimination if approved. The denial of liberty that would result is no liberty at all.

The churlish death wish of these modern day Luddites reflects fear, lack of trust and an entitled presumption that they know best for others. It effectively defines their religious beliefs by what they are against rather than what they are for.

A spirituality of inviting generous inclusion of all can be found in the core texts of most religious groups. Its companions of kindness, compassion and love honor each human being and our liberty to make wise, informed choices. This liberty imagines living beyond fear of what we do not understand or agree with. It invites attentive listening and compassionate hearts for one another. It assumes a way of life in which we value placing trust in the inherent goodness of each person as expressed in our disagreements. It also honors the polity and structures of organizations but does not confuse them with the Holy. This liberty acknowledges the important role of leaders while honoring the unique leadership of each person.

The current debates over religious liberty reveal a fault line on one side of which some wish to build a moat to protect their deeply held positions or beliefs. On the other side of the fault line are those willing to risk a messier, less centralized way of making sense of life, meaning and spirituality. In between stand a large number of people who make a choice to silence the noise of the debate in order to go about finding their way to being the kind, good and compassionate people that they are.

The choices made reflect which path leads to being fully alive and fully human in the context of the messy, magnificent human family.

Post your comments below

Robert’s new book A New Way to be Human is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and your local Indie bookstore

This blog was first published by Huffington Post on March 20, 2012

 

 

Read or post comments Posted in Active Being, Fully Human, Fully Alive, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Polishing the World, Showing Up for Life, Spirited Conversations
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
26 Jan 12

God Pukes at Gays?

by Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

This blog appeared on Huffington Post January 27, 2012

Does God vomit at the thought of gay and lesbian people? That’s the graphic image that O’Neal Dozier, pastor of Worldwide Christian Center in Pompano Beach Florida, uses. It’s radically different from the one that many of us know of as a God of inclusion and love. Not vomiting but smiling on us – all of us!

What makes Dozier’s view so prominent is that he is the Honorary Chair of Rick Santorum’s Florida campaign. Although Dozier believes that homosexuality is the “paramount of sins” he is an equal opportunity exclusionist. Mother Jones reveals that his Islamaphobia and local crusade against Muslims are fueled by his belief that Muslims have an agenda for taking over America. Dozier, who claims to know the mind of God on election results, has used his position on the Florida judicial nominating committee to seek “God-fearing” judges. The test for him is whether those nominees support anti-sodomy laws.

Dozier believes America should be taken over by those who share his exclusionist views and create a fundamentalist theocracy. The constitution in his view was created only for those who are a “moral and religious people.” God-fearing in his view translates into a projectile God who throws up on those who do not share his religious vision. Thankfully there are other more spacious religious and spiritual paths.

Like millions of other LGBT people I feared God as a young person because of the religious messages I received that God had disdainful disgust for us. Like millions of other young LGBT people I considered suicide. That is one of the reasons that Dozier’s imagery and words are destructive not life-giving.

If the arc of spirituality bends towards inclusion Dozier’s views are not part of that moral trajectory. Pew Research polls reveal approximately 65% of Catholics and Protestants have positive views of gays, while only 29% of Evangelicals do. Among Post-Moderns 91% have favorable views of LGBT people while 80% of them support same-sex marriage.

The moral arc towards inclusion has a foundation of spiritual wisdom from many traditions. Christian wisdom settles largely on a message of generous expansive love matched by acts of mercy, kindness and justice. The notion of repairing the world is a central underpinning in most branches of Judaism. While Buddhist philosophy is rooted in seeking the happiness or well-being of all Buddhist practice points to the inter-connectedness of all sentient beings.

Religious leaders can be found in most traditions that, like Dozier, use their position and authority to tear apart, diminish and demean others at any cost. The climate they create is quite different than that of those who beg to differ but who seek a world in which none are harmed or excluded. The bullies who cloak themselves with the mantle of the Divine are no different than schoolyard bullies who are stopped only when their behavior is challenged.  That choice is in our hands.

We participate in the movement of the moral arc of inclusion when we actively engage in creating a world which acknowledges the goodness and compassion inherent in every person. A world in which imagery of a puking God is replaced with a spiritual path of generous inclusion in which there are no outcasts. That is a life-giving journey acknowledging and celebrating difference.

Post your comments below

Read or post comments Posted in Active Being, Everyday Goodness & Kindness, Fully Human, Fully Alive, Love with Abandonment, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Oneness with Self & Creation, Polishing the World, Spirited Conversations
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
16 Jan 12

Is Good News Underrated?

by Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

Watching the news is often an exercise in testing your endurance about crises, disasters and heart-breaking stories.  The tsunami of bad news buries the abundance of good news stories that exist. If we are what we surround ourselves with then paying attention to the good news stories alters our experience of being alive.

A man I know was determined to stop watching or reading the news because he said it made him feel helpless and despondent. A friend of his challenged him – “There’s an invitation in the news inviting you to respond to an issue and become a participant in repairing the world.” It was a transformative challenge for him.

Finding himself repeatedly drawn to stories about the lack of access to education plaguing young girls around the world he began to educate himself on the issue and ultimately give of his time to work with others to build schools aimed at educating girls in Africa and Asia. His life has been changed by the work he has become passionate about. He says, “I’ve become a proselytizer seizing every opportunity to talk with anyone I can about the need to educate girls. I tell stories of the amazing work people are doing!”

His proactive response to the challenge of the bad news that had overwhelmed him is a story of good news. Some media platforms are responding to the yearning for good news.  With its CNN Heroes awards and features CNN has tipped its hat to highlighting positive transformative stories of ordinary people putting compassion and hope to work.

Huffington Post has taken a bold step in launching their Good News platform to counter the cynicism that much of the news invites. Arianna Huffington says that, “Those of us in the news media have provided too many autopsies of what went wrong and not enough biopsies.” She has raised the bar and that is worth cheering!

With every act of compassion, with every idea implemented to improve the lot of others, with each word of kindness the experience of being human and being alive is transformed. The courage, imagination and voice of each of us have a cumulative energy and power to polish the world.

The real crisis and heart-breaking stories invite us in, reminding us of our common humanity and our need for one another. The mantra of media executives is that the titillating, the scandalous and the invented crises are what the public responds to or craves. That presumption and the life-draining news that results from it can only be changed by you and me.

In neighborhoods, offices, community groups, families and towns across the country the stories of the good abound. When you intentionally tell those stories you create a different energy. When you interject a conversation about gloom and doom news with positive stories you shift the narrative of what is possible, of what it means to be human.

The negative news is highly overrated. The way to change those ratings is to engage with the positive stories. Not to avoid the awful realities or crises that exists for many, but to invite ourselves and others into a fuller narrative. Good News will become more highly rated, more sought after when we make our need for it known. Social media reminds us that it lies in our hands to do that!

Post and share your responses below

Read or post comments Posted in Active Being, Connecting with Your Imagination, Everyday Goodness & Kindness, Fully Human, Fully Alive, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Polishing the World, Showing Up for Life, Spirited Conversations, Trusting Your Voice
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,
31 Dec 11

Steps to New Year Peace?

by Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

Is it possible to imagine peace in the New Year? It is if you claim your voice and imagination. The world needs that from each of us. Every intention and act of yours shapes what it means to be human and create a culture of peace as you take steps in that direction.

Peace sounds too big, too overwhelming to many.  Instead of being debilitated by what you can do to bring peace about back up and approach it from two other vantage points. Peace emerges when conflicts are resolved and ended. Peace in the tradition of the Hebrews is all about actions that promote the well-being of all. Not too different than the Buddhist intention of happiness for all beings.

When you think of ending a conflict, or seeking the well-being of another, or desiring happiness for others the possibility of peace is reimagined.

Your own choices and awareness will invite you to make a difference in the year ahead. These steps might add to your intentions:

Be Intentional. Peace is only possible when your hope becomes an active virtue. A specific intention to make peace will ground and make you accountable. Perhaps you will actively work with the children in your life to model attentive listening that transforms misunderstandings and makes reconciliation possible.

End a Conflict. Choose to end a conflict in your community, at work or in your family. When the happiness or well-being of all is a goal it becomes possible to imagine a resolution that moves those involved beyond entrenched positions.

Choose Compassion. We are made for compassion. Your intention to live a life of compassion creates a ripple effect among all whom you engage with. Every compassionate action of yours invites others into the circle of compassion. Learn from organizations like the Charter for Compassion or the Compassionate Action Network.

Say Yes to Peace by saying No to violence or bigotry. Join others in breaking the silences that give permission to violence or threats against people who are perceived as different.  Show up to a rally against school bullying; participate in a school board or legislative meeting to provide protections against discrimination.

Engage with the world and Universe to remember that we need one another.  Learn about an issue affecting the well-being of the planet or about a religion or culture you do not understand. Share your learning’s with those in your orbit; write, blog and speak about them. Your voice will mitigate fears of the unknown, illuminate others and point to our oneness.

With these and other choices you may already have made your voice and imagination is engaged in shaping a world where a culture of peace is possible. The happiness and well-being of yourself and others is all bundled together. Ending conflicts wherever you encounter them opens the path to a happy life of well-being for all.

Peace in the New Year depends on your active engagement!

Post your comments and steps to peace below

Read or post comments Posted in Active Being, Connecting with Your Imagination, Fully Human, Fully Alive, Oneness with Self & Creation, Polishing the World, Showing Up for Life, Spirited Conversations, Trusting Your Voice
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2 May 11

Cheering Bin Laden’s Death

by Robert V. Taylor
Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

Have you cheered the death of Osama Bin Laden?  His death is a singularly cathartic time for Americans.  Is a more profound human cheering at play?

I joined the cheering as I sat riveted by the TV images of crowds spontaneously gathering at the White House and Ground Zero when Bin Laden’s death was announced.  I too wanted to wave my American flag.

Was I doing the unimaginable and rejoicing in the death of another human being? I am at the very least thankful to know that he is dead. I have gratitude for the calm precision and leadership of President Obama and those Navy Seals. Some may be choosing triumphalist cheering. My own desire to cheer is born out of relief. But relief to what end?

The face of fear represented by Bin Laden is gone. It is like knowing that a mass murderer on the loose in your city has been apprehended or that the sexual predator who has abused you is behind bars. Fear of imminent abusive assault diminishes when the threat is removed.

Does our national cheering reveal more about the fears that have lurked in our collective psyche since 9/11 than a desire for blood sports? As relief settles in questions about what we are relieved about will present themselves.  Is there common ground to be appreciated in the human yearning for well-being and security?

In places like Spain, Britain, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East Bin Laden’s disciples have inflicted terror on tens of thousands. In the aftermath of 9/11 every person in the world was an American in the empathy directed toward us as we reeled from the attacks in DC, Pennsylvania and New York. That empathy had dissipated by the time we declared war on Iraq.

The Bin Laden franchise operators will attempt to wreak havoc wherever and whenever they can.  A new opportunity presents itself in the collective global relief of knowing that the face of fear represented by Bin Laden is gone. It is an opportunity to rebuild the common human bonds among those who make no peace with terror by pursuing security and well-being for all. The empathy that existed after 9/11 is an empathy that lingers within people of good will.

The bridge to this new opportunity exists when our cheering is not for ourselves alone, but a cheering for the human family.

The cynical will say that political and military leaders cannot deliver on such a hope or promise. Such a response creates a new face of paralyzing fears. We have learned from the people of Middle Eastern countries over the last few months that the human yearning to be free of fear and violence can never be squashed.

Deftly mobilizing the power of social media they have taught us that the human yearnings which unite us are in our hands. Bin Laden’s acts of terror and sowing of fear were designed to alienate the human family from one another. If we embrace the opportunity that his death as unleashed it will the human family rejecting fear and insecurity through proactively seeking the well-being and security of one another.

Our American cheering is a visceral reaction – it is real and freeing. Its lasting value will be in our connecting it to the cheering on of the human family’s yearning for freedom from fear.

Post your reactions, thoughts and comments below

Read or post comments Posted in Everyday Goodness & Kindness, Fully Human, Fully Alive, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Polishing the World, Showing Up for Life
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
22 Apr 11

Is Gay Spirituality Better…?

by Robert V. Taylor
Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

“Gay spirituality is better than any other” – the reporter desperately wanted me to endorse his belief.  I wasn’t going there. Righteous spiritual segregation is antithetical to the idea of a spiritual journey. So where does spirituality
for LGBTQ people connect with the human family and the Holy?

Our normative story usually includes experiencing bullying, fear of coming out, rejection by family when we do, the Holy used by religion to condemn.  We
might even be the victims of violence or discrimination. Our journey also
contains another story line. It is about courage and love birthed in us.

A more spacious invitation than the reporter’s belief invites us in. Spirituality in not about a theory, it is discovered in the reality of who we are. I’ve discovered that in the spiritual journey of immigrants, women, people of color and other minorities my own journey is inspired. Many of us fall into several self identifying categories.

The question is not whether your spirituality or mine is “better.”  It’s how does your journey create empathy with others?  How does your spirituality get fed by the
wisdom of those who are different from you? How does it connect you to oneness
with others?

Unlike the belief of that reporter my spirituality is not celebrated as a “better” treasure. I discover a much richer inclusive path in three pathways to celebrate and share the gift that is my life.

Whoever and whatever tries to define you wants to confine you. It creates an enclosure keeping you from the Holy discovered in your life. In accepting an enclosure you become cut-off from the unique gifts that only you have to offer.
You deprive yourself and the world of them. Allowing yourself to be enclosed can happen subtly over time. The good news is that we have a choice to break out of the enclosure.

When we discover our voice and claim it as an LGBTQ person we are on sacred ground. Instead of listening to the bad advice of those who do not want you to claim your voice, you discover that in the Holy is present in it. Not outside “there” somewhere, but in you.  You begin to be free of a narrow consciousness. Claiming your voice is a spiritual practice taking you to a field of feasting with others.

The Universe needs your story as much as that of anyone else. As you tell your story you discover self-compassion. In the telling you become awake to the sacred in you as an LGBTQ person. As you settle in and celebrate your voice you begin to listen to the stories and voices of others with new attentiveness. They become connecting stories. Through them your appreciation and love for yourself and others deepens. You discover a new way of being alive.

These three pathways of moving beyond enclosures, discovering and trusting your voice and connecting stories are markers of your authentic experience of being gay.

Love is the only thing that matters on our spiritual quest. Everything else pales in comparison. I am loved by the Holy for all of who I am. It’s a struggle for many to know and believe it every day. When I love myself and know that I am loved life becomes more radiant. I become more fully human, more alive as I am.

It takes courage to journey through the three pathways. The root word for courage means love. To be grounded in love we cannot avoid being courageous about who we are. Not the lonely isolated warrior courage, but the courage discovered in trusted people to call on along the journey. It’s all part of our spiritual positioning system.

When I’m grounded in these three pathways my encounters with others become sacred ground. Like the Hindu greeting Namaste the light me honors the light in you.

The three pathways are not just for GLBTQ people. Love and courage are not confined to GLBTQ spirituality. They’re each part of our common journey to become fully human –  as we are. We bring to the journey the only gift we can – ourselves.

So what are the markers of your spirituality?

Share your comments below

Read or post comments Posted in Fully Human, Fully Alive, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Oneness with Self & Creation, Showing Up for Life, Spirited Conversations, Trusting Your Voice, Uncategorized
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
18 Apr 11

Passover – Free for New Consciousness?

by Robert V. Taylor
Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

To be free of a narrow consciousness is the invitation of Passover. I’m not Jewish but the rituals and journey of Passover restore my balance and also disrupt my spiritual positioning system. It’s about freedom from those things that constrain us being human.

For many Jews, Christians and others, the story of the people of Israel fleeing oppression in Egypt is a touchstone of the narrative in the arc of human freedom.  It was a unifying metaphor in the Civil Rights movement, giving sustenance to those on the ground. The Exodus narrative shaped the movement in claiming the higher moral ground of inclusion.

In recent months commentators seeking to explain the movements for freedom in the Middle East have attempted to connect those aspirations to the arc of the Passover story. It is too early to tell whether the higher moral ground of inclusion will shape the new Egyptian and other Middle Eastern steps toward freedom. The Passover story led to decades of being in a literal and figurative wilderness. A new consciousness is slowly birthed.

Sustainable freedom engages the questions of what we want to be freed from and what we seek freedom for. The twentieth century is replete with triumphant liberation movements resulting in one form of tyranny or repression being replaced by another. Clarity about “freedom from” without imagining “freedom for” is not freedom.  It is often an abusive rearrangement of privilege and power. The Civil Rights movement was liberation from Jim Crow laws toward a promised land of freedom in which to realize equality. It was an invitation to a new consciousness.

The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mitzrayim meaning a narrow or constrained place. The mystics teach that the liberation of the Hebrew people is a metaphor for freedom from a narrow consciousness, becoming free of a small vision of you. The destination of that vision is not we alone. The purpose is to recognize the sacred in others. In this view Passover is about the Exodus in the particularity of becoming awake to those things that keep us from oneness with others.  

This is the consciousness that leads many Jews to speak of repairing the world – tikkun olam. It is the practice of connecting the dots between your personal spiritual grounding and living it out with actions. The Hebrew prophet Micah describes these actions as doing justice, loving mercy and walking lightly or humbly on your journey. I call it polishing the world.

Preparing for my own observance of Passover I’m aware of my frustration and indignation about a few things. I’m appalled by suggested Medicare reform jettisoning vulnerable elderly Americans to a world of wolves in which medical care will be a distant memory. I have a visceral physical response to the stories of young girls, boys, men and women purchased to be slaves in the sex industry. The scale of this human trafficking, abroad and in the USA, makes my mind reel with questions about law enforcement and ending the violence and abuse of this new slavery.

I could choose to remain constrained by stewing or muttering about those two issues. My Passover practice is to choose to be informed and then act to make my voice heard about human trafficking and supporting access to health care for the elderly. Every action will join with those of others in collectively polishing the world. It is about freedom from devaluing the lives of some and freedom for oneness expressed in honoring the humanity of those deemed disposable.

My own vision of my self becomes more fulsome in discovering I am one with you, with others. In the Passover story Yahweh did not talk in the abstract about freedom. It was freedom yearned for in the pickle that was Egypt; liberation from injustice was the presenting cry; moving beyond the physical constraints was about freedom to create a new narrative of what it meant to be a people.

Passover invites me to pay attention to my place within the narrative of spiritual consciousness. My own liberation from the narrow places in my life shifts my spiritual positioning system.  Every Passover that attentiveness shift invites me to polish the world in unexpected ways that disrupt my life.

Freedom, liberation and exodus from Egypt did not come without courage, disruption and surprises. Our own liberation and freedom is discovered in the disruption and surprises of oneness with others.

Post your reactions or experiences below

Join Robert’s YouTube conversation Repairing the World

 

Read or post comments Posted in Active Being, Everyday Goodness & Kindness, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Polishing the World, Showing Up for Life
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
12 Apr 11

Freedom Beyond Your Enclosures

by Robert V. Taylor

      

Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

 Our journey is a dance between freedom and what encloses us. When we are active participants on our spiritual journey we assume responsibility for being willing to be transformed and free to grow into our magnificence.  Paul offers tools for this journey in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians. How will you use those tools?

     What is an enclosure? Enclosures are self-fulfilling actions and beliefs that keep you from being who you are meant to be. When we allow ourselves to be confined by unacceptable expectations and boundaries drawn by others – such as family, culture, religion and politics – we accept an enclosure, and so define a limited us.

     When hiding behind your own particular enclosure you choose to live with a cramped heart, a squelched voice, and often, a lack of compassion for yourself—and others. While the choice to be enclosed can happen subtly over time, enclosure is no small thing. Your life is at stake! Enclosures lock you away from the fullness of joy intended for you by the Holy, and deprive the world of the gifts that only you can give—shielding you from the people who most need your influence.

     The good news is this—since we choose our way into an enclosure, we can choose to break out. Life presents us with such invitations each day.

     In a workshop I led on the pathways to becoming enlivened one of the participants raised her hand towards the end of the day and said to the group, “I’ve had an unexpected epiphany that I’d like to share.” Martha said, “I’ve spent years engaged in contemplative prayer practices. They’ve been a gift to me.  But today I’ve felt like a bird breaking out of my shell learning to sing for the first time.” The other participants leaned in listening to someone who was clearly not used to speaking in public. 

     Martha went on to talk about her practices saying, “I’ve always listened for the voice of the Holy somewhere out there” as she gestured with her arms to the space around her. “I’d never imagined what I was missing is the Holy in here” pointing to herself. Smiling broadly she added, “I feel as though I’m beginning to learn a new song. The notes and the lyrics have always been there but I’ve never paid them any attention.”

     Our own song, once recovered in us, is a gift of freedom opening a pathway to a more richly layered life.  In the months that followed I heard from Martha who kept testing her own newly reclaimed voice. She wrote saying, “I used to believe that my voice was insignificant and that it would be a selfish thing to pay attention to it. This was normal for me. As I trust my voice I’m discovering that I listen to the voices of others with new ears. And I can discern which voices to ignore. My life has been like breaking out of a thousand egg shells since that moment of epiphany with you.”

     “I’ve begun to remember the voices from my childhood” said Martha. “Voices of those who loved me but who repeatedly asked me ‘Who do you think you are?’ or ‘Why do you think such thoughts?’ I’m realizing that the voice I’m appreciating as an adult is not a new voice. It’s my voice unearthed after years of storage.” The truth being revealed was the inverse of those questions that had resulted in putting her voice into a holding pen for decades.

     We serve no one’s happiness or life by trying to fix or mend. Detaching from those whose voices insist we fix or mend their lives is an exercise in affirming the humanity of all and the Holy present in each person. Each of us can only save the life we are responsible for—our own. By detaching emotionally and spiritually we say to another person “I love you; I want your happiness; I will be actively hoping for you to recover and claim your own voice and passion. Someday I pray we will celebrate our voices finding a new harmony.”

     As Martha’s enclosures opened, she began to listen and engage with other people in a new way, unafraid of what their voices might reveal. On another occasion Martha wrote to say, “For the first time I’m appreciating the Universe and the Holy in the voice of all kinds of people. My every encounter seems different. I’m appreciative, I’m learning and I’m filled with anticipation about what I will hear.”

     Paul’s Damascus experience was an opening of an enclosure. His own life and experience of the Holy was experienced through new lenses because he chose to break out of his particular enclosure. Is this why he writes with such fervent, urgent passion about being “called to freedom”?  Is this why he offers the “fruit of the Spirit” as guideposts for the journey?

     Like my friend Martha your life and mine presents us with invitations each day to live into the freedom that the spiritual quest invites. A freedom to be fully alive, fully human. Is this part of your spiritual positioning system for the journey?

This blog was posted originally on Darkwood Brew where Robert is a guest blogger for their online discussion on Galatians

Post you comments below

Read or post comments Posted in Fully Human, Fully Alive, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Showing Up for Life, Spirited Conversations, Trusting Your Voice
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
25 Mar 11

Pimp’s Ho’s and Other Paradigm Shifters!

by Robert V. Taylor
Robert V. Taylor

Robert V. Taylor

“Are you a Pimp or Ho?” It is an arresting question. But you instantly get the message. It is the question of the movie Ghetto Physics: Will the Real Pimps and Ho’s Please Stand Up! It is an invitation to a paradigm shift about the lenses we experience life through.

Up front the movie declares that we’ll be looking at our own face in the mirror, viewing our own role in the power plays of life. Cornel West says, “You’ll get pimped if you’re naïve” about life’s realities. In the world of this movie the world is our ghetto? Or is it?

Audiences jump into the conversation. Will Arntz – director of the movie along with E. Raymond Brown – and I recently spoke with an audience about their reactions to Ghetto Physics. Mostly they resonated with the question of whether we are each a pimp or ho – in the worldview of the movie we are each both, because there is one in every relationship. That is, if you are stuck in the paradigm of pimps who want the ho’s to believe that he or she cannot change their circumstance. Or if your relationships are all about who is pimping or ho’ing. I get the point but that’s not always the way it is.

I was unprepared for so many in the audience zeroing in on the spiritual questions raised by Ghetto Physics. Probably not surprising given that Will Arntz is the acclaimed director of What the Bleep Do You Know?  -  a remarkable movie exploring the spiritual connection between quantum physics and consciousness.

Ghetto Physics

The audience was hungry to explore whether there is a new way of being that reflects the values of Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” or what Ishmael Tetteh calls, “the reality within you.” I believe there is a new way to be human, to become fully alive. There are pathways that help us to navigate that big truth. They each invite transformation. 

Ghetto Physics only touches on this being a “time of transformation” because it is a “time of crisis” brought on by the pimping which it claims is found in academia, religious institutions, government and corporate life. E. Raymond Brown tells a student that “there are always options” but that it a copout for what transformation means. Ghetto Physics does not engage in the spiritual pathways of discovering a new way to be human. It only alludes to them but then takes a pass. But that is not the purpose of the movie.

It does use powerful imagery, humor and the hip-hop language of pimps and ho’s to suggest two things.  First, If you’re going to live in the global ghetto of pimp’s and ho’s know that you are not just a ho but that you can pimp as well.  Second, this is not the only game in town; it is not the only paradigm. There is another option – to rise to the spiritual journey. This is the sequel to Ghetto Physics that I’m waiting for!

In our conversation with the audience Will Arntz and I discovered a deep hunger for meaning, purpose and living a life of value. The film will likewise engage you. At the very least you’ll come away asking about the paradigm and lenses through which you choose to live.

Share you comments below

Subscribe to the RSS Feed to receive notification of new blog postings from Wake Up For Life! – click here

Read or post comments Posted in Active Being, Fully Human, Fully Alive, Making Sense, Finding Purpose, Polishing the World, Showing Up for Life, Spirited Conversations
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

« Older Posts