Faith & Life Inspirational Message

The title for this inspirational piece comes directly from Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical.  When I say “recent,” that would mean yesterday!  The Pope entitles this encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, which is Italian for “brothers all,” even though clearly the Pope means brothers and sisters all.  In some ways it is unfortunate that the Pope did not use a gender-neutral term to address “all of humanity.”  This has caused a little consternation even among Catholics in the time leading up to its publication.  I know many will say what’s the big deal, but as a husband and father of two daughters, I hate for them to have “to understand” they also are included.   Obviously, the Italian word, Fratelli, sounds a great deal like our English word, fraternity.  Indeed, it should because a fraternity is a social unit of brothers.  We also know about sororities and those are for the women.  Effectively, the Pope is addressing the entire world as it is both...

I got to my study at the college only find a note on my door.  That is not a normal thing during this pandemic, since people don’t casually visit other folk’s places.  I looked at the note.  The first thing I did (which is probably what I always do) was to look at the name at the bottom of the note.  I was curious who left the note and, secondarily, what the note said.  I was excited and sad to see that it was from a younger friend of mine who now lives in California.  It seemed obvious I had a visitor and I missed it.  The note confirmed that she was in town and had come by to say hello.   Rather than letting the sadness dominate and leave it at that, I called my friend and we agreed to meet for tea later in the afternoon.  She told me she had a friend with her, which meant that I had had two visitors---even better.  Afternoon came and so did the two gals---one a close friend of mine and another person whom I met for the first time....

I never thought too much about it.  Quakers have historically argued for the equality of men and women when it comes to spirituality.  Even when Quakers began in seventeenth century England, they felt like God was just as likely to speak to women as to men.  And they felt like women were given ministries to do just as men were given ministries.  Hence in my lifetime, there often has been an incongruity between my religious tradition and the culture.  I knew my religious tradition held to a radical equality of the genders.  And I also sensed that the culture in which I lived was patriarchal---that is, male dominated.   And so when the crazy 1960s spawned so many different kinds of movements, it was not surprising one of those movements was the feminist movement.  Clearly, feminism has a complex history that extends to our very day, but let me be simple and say feminism is concerned for the equality of gender.  In a certain way a feminist is so...

Recently, I read a great quotation from French-Cuban essayist, Anais Nin, who died in 1977.  I know a little about her, but not enough to sound at all like I know what I am talking about.  The quotation is simple.  She said, “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”  No doubt, I will use this in many contexts.  It certainly will be shared with students and encourage them to get on with their lives and be willing to take some risks.  I am confident the student-athletes will get it, but whether they can implement it is another matter. Rather than chasing those contexts, I want to apply it to the spiritual life.  By doing that, I also hope to implicate what organizations, like churches and some non-profits, might consider.  As I experience my own spiritual life, I do think lack of courage has been an issue.  Furthermore, in my life in many different faith communities, I believe the same problem affects them.  And yet, when w...

Yesterday I wrote a reflection on the short section on “unrequited” in David Whyte’s book, Consolations .  This is a challenging, deeply profound book and the little piece with this strange title belongs in that category.  Requited means I get back what I put out in a relationship or in the world.  For example, if I am kind, I am requited with kindness back to me.  It is probably obvious this is what many of us are looking for in relationships.   Unrequited, on the other hand, means we don’t get back in kind what we gave out.  If we are honest, much of our loving has gone unrequited.  And in my case, I am sure I have done it to others.  Naturally, it is much easier to complain about what I didn’t get, than it is to experience the guilt of having fallen short in my own efforts at loving.  This is why I read with such interest what this poet from Ireland, but living in the US, was going to tell me. Whyte puts in his own words what I just tried ...

I recognize that some folks might see this one-word title and have no idea what it means.  I am sure nearly every student in one of my classrooms has no clue.  And I also know, not one of them would bother to look it up, although with technology, it takes about one-fifth the amount of time it used to go to a dictionary and look up a word.  In my mind I did this all the time, but maybe that is another lie I am telling myself as I get older!  But I do know I realized in college how limited my vocabulary was.  I had to learn a bunch of new words. It is a good guess that unrequited is the opposite of requited.  So we can look up this word and discover that requite means offer something appropriate in return for a favor, gift or even a wrongdoing.  It means if someone is kind to me, I try to return the favor---I “requite” their kindness.  The same goes for wrongdoing.  To talk about unrequited, therefore, means that whatever is done is not met wit...

I might be a sucker for survey results and those kinds of overview of complex issues.  A recent report I have read offered the intriguing title, “How We Gather Digitally.”  The study by sociologists Robert Putnam and David Campbell looks at millennials, generally those younger folks up to their forties now.  I am aware of a number of studies that matches what all of us know: younger folks are not as interested in religions and churches as earlier generations.  Scholars and analysts have given a variety of answers why this is the case.  And so, I looked forward to what these two authors were going to say. Figures vary from study to study, but generally two-thirds of Americans don’t actively participate in organized religious life.  On the other hand, a huge proportion of these disaffiliated folks still believe in God and have, what might called, still some religious view of the world and life.  This becomes a key focus of inquiry. I like the way Putnam ...