Christmas Gift Ideas I Can Help With
For any adult who enjoys a good story, my new novel (science fiction) called The Last Voyage: https://brianmclaren.net/the-last-voyage-my-new-sci-fi-novel/
For your kids, grandkids, nephews, or nieces between 5 and 10 ... A children's book, co-authored with Gareth Higgins, called Cory and the Seventh Story: https://bit.ly/theseventhstory
For anyone struggling with faith questions:
For Nature Lovers:
The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey
For people interested in spirituality or spiritual growth:
For anyone deeply concerned about the state of the world:
Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World falling Apart
For clergy or other church leaders:
If it's the last minute and you need an e-book ...
Check out Why Don't The Get It? (on bias), Authoritarianism: Coming to a Society Near You, or The Seventh Story: Us, Them, and the End of Violence, all available here: https://brianmclaren.net/store/
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If You’re a Generous Person, and If …
If you're a generous person, and especially if my work has been of value to you, I want to ask you to join me in making a generous donation to an organization I helped start and am deeply enthusiastic about: ZOE on Campus.
ZOE is a campus ministry network, bringing together progressive Christian students, ministries, ministers, and emerging leaders across denominations. Our goal is to develop a movement of lifelong contemplative activists who will go deep in their engagement with our beloved but weeping world ...
... working for peace among all people, whatever their race, religion, nationality, culture, or gender,
... working for the poor, because Jesus taught a preferential option for the poor, and because there is no peace without economic justice,
... working for a healthy planet, because this Earth is God's sacred creation, our beloved home, and the home of our beloved fellow creatures,
... and working with purpose rooted deep in the way of Jesus, the way of faith, hope, and love, the path of justice, joy, and peace.
The older I get, the more I believe that our prime investment should be in the young, and that's why I'll be focusing more and more of my energy (along with financial giving) in that direction in the years to come.
ZOE is already doing amazing things, but we're just getting started and even more amazing things are in store. That's why I have been focusing more and more of my financial support along with my creative energy toward ZOE.
If my work has been of value to you, and if you do year-end giving or are open to an ongoing financial commitment to ZOE, would you consider this opportunity? https://donorbox.org/founder-s-fall-challenge-2025
In addition to giving generously, I hope you'll let college students, campus ministers, campus chaplains, and faculty everywhere know about ZOE. We'd love to see them get involved.
And to learn more about ZOEonCampus, please check out https://www.zoeoncampus.com/
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A taste of Thomas Berry
I'm speaking at Lake Junaluska in North Carolina this week, and yesterday shared a powerful quote from Fr. Thomas Berry:
The present human situation can be described in three sentences:
In the twentieth century
the glory of the human has become the desolation of Earth.
The desolation of Earth is becoming the destiny of the human.
All human institutions, professions, programs, and activities
must now be judged primarily by
the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster
a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship.
In the light of these statements, it is proposed that
the historical mission of our times is:
To reinvent the human
At the species level
With critical reflection
Within the community of life systems
In a time-developmental context
By means of story and
Shared dream experience.
You can read it in context here:
https://www.journeyoftheuniverse.org/news/thomas-berrys-historical-mission-of-our-times
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The dehumanization of what is happening now
What Trump/Vance/Maga are doing ... what Netenyahu and all who support him are doing ... what Putin, his oligarchs, and his war are doing ... what Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, PetroChina, Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, ConocoPhillips, Sinopec, bp, Marathon Petroleum, and their dirty energy mafia are doing ... it degrades humanity.
And somehow, we go about our daily tasks ... because what can we do?
Gradually, we feel our own humanity degraded by either knowing what is happening and not feeling able to do anything ... or by avoiding knowing what is happening.
I long for the day when all of them ... presidents, oligarchs, weapons dealers, oil companies, and their puppets ... are toppled from power and a new wave of justice, creativity, kindness, and wisdom replaces their decadence, corruption, and idiocracy.
But where will that wave of justice, creativity, kindness, and wisdom come from, if all of us have been dragged down into complacency and its moral deterioration with the perpetrators? What if the tactics of authoritarianism domesticate us, train us for preemptive, complacent obedience? (For more on these tactics, see: https://brianmclaren.net/store/)
In this agonizing time, we must do all we can to preserve and rebuild our own humanity. For some of us, "all we can" means running for political office. For some of us, it means supporting good and humanizing organizations with our money and energy and time. For some of us, it means using our citizenship and voice to vote and call and boycott and buycott and protest and post and like and subscribe and unsubscribe.
For some, it means making music and poetry and art that helps us stay human ... that invites us to feel and not turn away ... to face and not pretend.
For me, it has meant working on a novel that I hope you will find helps you stay human. It's called The Last Voyage and is available everywhere now (including audio): https://brianmclaren.net/the-last-voyage-my-new-sci-fi-novel/
Here are a three pieces of music that have been helping me uphold my humanity lately.
First, a song by my saongwriter daughter, Jodi McLaren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khbjUv6ZI-I&list=OLAK5uy_k_tJROlEqLF4Nlj9A7IoOO5yH0Z06_46w
A song by Khalid Abdalla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ag8pIeTgvk
And another by Jodi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvnpPw1XWvk
And I need to add one more, just discovered: https://youtu.be/qxMF6KlXqdQ?si=AYlAoR08iLB1d3L1
I hope you'll join me in sharing (everywhere you can) music and art and podcasts and organizations that are helping you stay human in a time our global civilization is self-dehumanizing in a hundred ways.
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A cry from the heart for compassion, justice, peace, and equality in Gaza and Israel
Years ago I met The Rev Canon Dr Richard K. Toll. when I spoke at a conference of Friends of Sabeel - https://www.fosna.org/.
He recently wrote this open letter to bishops, priests, deacons, and lay leaders in the Episcopal Church. (It's worth reading if you are not Episcopal, of course.)
I asked his permission to post it here, which he granted. Please read with an open heart.
Thank you, Rev. Canon Dr. Toll, for sharing from your heart. Our hearts are one.
+++++
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BISHOPS, PRIESTS, DEACONS, AND LAY
LEADERSHIP OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
A CRY FROM THE HEART
I write this letter having been ordained to the Episcopal
Church priesthood in the Diocese of Oregon in 1968. When I retired
from my parish at St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukie, Oregon in 2003,
I was asked to be the Chair of Friends of Sabeel North America by
retired Episcopal Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning. (Sabeel is an
ecumenical liberation theology center in Jerusalem founded by a
seminary classmate of mine at CDSP by the name of Naim Ateek.) I
served in this position as a volunteer for 10 years. After Bishop
Browning died in 2016 I became the honorary President of the Board.
Bishop Browning had served as President of the Board in his
retirement.
Before I became the Chair of FOSNA (Friends of Sabeel North America),
I thought I knew what was happening in Palestine and Israel. I found
my ignorance to be profound. I went over to the region over 30 times
since my first visit in 1983. Each time I learned lessons I cannot forget.
While Chair of FOSNA and afterwards. I went to 9 international
conferences hosted by Sabeel in East Jerusalem. 250 to 500 people
were in attendance at the conferences and many Christians from as
many as 40 countries attended the conferences. Thus began an
international Sabeel moment. I found that putting conferences
together in the United States was important. FOSNA hosted 34
conferences in the United Stated in 23 states during the period 2002 –
2012. Over 10,000 people attended these conferences. Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, from South Africa, became the Patron of Sabeel in
Jerusalem and he spoke at a number of our conferences.
I have been aware of the lack of leadership of our ordained clergy,
including bishops, and laypeople in our church and many other
American churches regarding justice for Palestinians. In our church and
other churches the silence is deafening on the genocide taking place in
Gaza. As people of faith, we are asked to take stands that are often
unpopular. It is clear that the killing of over 1200 Israelis on October
7th of 2023 was unacceptable. But the killing of Palestinians after that
in the tens of thousands including women and children is not
acceptable. Military planes, bombs, and equipment given to the State
of Israel by the U.S. government is not acceptable. The Anglican
Diocese of Jerusalem needs more of our support in its many programs
that mitigate the ongoing issues of the unlawful occupation of the West
Bank and the war in Gaza.
As much as I abhor what happened in October 2023, the war in Gaza is
deeply rooted in what has been happening to Palestinians since 1948
when over 750,000 Palestinians became refugees. Over 500 of their
villages were destroyed. Gaza in 1948 had 80,000 people living within
the Gaza strip and over 2,000,000 live there today. Over 70% of the
people in Gaza today are direct descendants of the 1948 refugees.
They were never allowed to return to their homes and villages so close
from where they lived in Gaza.
Since I made my first trip to the region in 1983, I have found that
walking in the footsteps of Jesus has allowed me to open my eyes to
not only the needs of Jewish people after the Holocaust but to have my
eyes opened to the needs of Palestinians who have been and are being
continuously displaced from their land.
I have found the Episcopal Church lacking in addressing justice issues
for Palestinian issues while often supporting the State of Israel
uncritically. The 1991 General Convention said it distinguishes "between legitimate criticisms
of the Israeli government and anti-Jewish prejudice, and denounces expressions of anti-Semitism."
We have supported our government in giving billions of dollars to provide
planes, tanks, and war machinery all in the name of the State of Israel's
self-defense while meanwhile it takes more and more of Palestinians
land.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
In the name of God, stand up for an end to the war in Gaza.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
Repair whatever your own issues are in regard to justice and human
rights regarding Palestinians. I hope many will join in the work of
Friends of Sabeel North America to hear and respond to the voices of
Palestinian Christians.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
Support the people of the state of Israel. Let them know that what has
happened through their government's oppressive Palestinian policies,
since 1948 has not helped them in defining the state they and the
world envisioned in 1948.
My prayer is for the people who live in present day Palestine and Israel
come to terms with a common goal to live together in a true
Democracy with equal rights for all the people in the Holy Land.
The Rev Canon Dr Richard K. Toll
Former Chair and President of Friends of Sabeel of North America
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