Protecting Ourselves Sharon Salzberg, a Buddhist teacher who specializes in loving-kindness, tells of riding with a friend in a rickshaw in Calcutta when man grabbed her and tried to pull her out of the carriage. Her friend pushed the man off her, and they got away safely. When Sharon told her teacher about the incident, he said, “Here’s what you should have done. Using great loving-kindness, you should have hit him on the head with your umbrella.”1 This is freedom, and it is rebellion. Some of us learn that we have to get back at anyone who hurts us or our families. We learn that we need to protect our…

The Healing Power of Beauty Recovery is a lifelong process.  We heal one layer of sorrow, resentment, and fear, then a deeper layer begs for attention.  At times, it feels exhausting. What keeps us going when our longing overwhelm us? There is no one answer, of course.  We need many tools, but one of those tools is the experience and the creation of beauty. Our souls crave beauty.  The waving of a vine in the wind, the cerulean blue of the sky just as the sun sets, music, poetry, the softness of a baby’s cheek, the caress of the breeze.  Beauty throbs in all moments, if we can only see…

Life can be tough when we don’t think there’s a point to it all. As a teenager, I was fond of Existentialism and its dreary view of human nature. I read Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit multiple times and used it, and Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” as inspirations for somber plays of my own. Unfortunately, I lacked the sense of humor that saved their writing. At the time, I considered myself to be a suffering artist, and I didn’t have the perspective that would let me laugh at myself. That was forty years ago. Now the memory of Sartre and Beckett is dim. Life no longer seems pointless, nor do…

As a gift to myself, I sat, for almost two hours, at a picnic table on Mt. Tabor, doing nothing. Douglas fir trees encircled me; dappled shade fell on the path and the field where small, white daisies bloomed amid the grass. The air was soft and warm, smelling of trees, and the lilt of birdsong spread across the canopy. I watched in awe, relished the breeze on my skin, and listened with gratitude. Because I sat still, birds came close. I could see the flick of color around the robin’s eye and the grey shading on the junco’s neck. “Click, click,” said the junco, and flew off, but the…

I take the title of this column from the song by U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love).” About Martin Luther King, Jr., he sings: “In the name of love. One more in the name of love.” One more crying; one more speaking out; one more reaching out; one more marching; one more dying. Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the first to insist on justice, equity, and compassionate treatment for all human beings. He has not been the last. Nor has he been the first to die for resisting those who hate, who condemn, who use their power and money to enslave and imprison others. Unfortunately, he has not…

One of my main sources of insight for this month’s topic of acceptance is the book Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach.  In her book, she describes how our country’s culture of shame instills in us self-hatred, overweening egos, addictions, and an inability to face the reality of life.  Brach offers a way of healing, a way to forgive and learn to love ourselves.  This way of healing is important, and in my sermon on Sunday, I’ll talk more about this. In this column, however, I want to explore the possibility that this idea of forgiveness, self-love, and acceptance can allow us to avoid.  We can avoid taking responsibility for our…