End of 2023—SSL 290: There is no future without this main thing

Closing out 2023, I’m thinking about how we make a better future and I’m featuring insights on forgiveness from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) and the African concept of ubuntu that can make the future possible.

Once you listen, please continue to the companion page for the rest: https://sparkmymuse.substack.com/publish/post/140035932


15 fantastic teachers! Very insightful and enjoyable.

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The Curious Life of Benjamin Lay – The Quaker Comet [SSL 287]

Today a true tale. One of intrigue, outrage, and progress that’s been lost to history.

This goes back more than 340 + years. Let me tell you how the tiny but mighty Quaker, Benjamin Lay, with his moral compass intact in a time of rampant suffering through international kidnapping, human trafficking, illegal bondage, and forced labor, used outrageous acts of protest and gave momentum to the abolitionist movement long before the British colonies of America declared independence.

At the companion page you can let me know if you’ve ever heard of Benjamin Lay, and you can see images of him and learn more: https://sparkmymuse.substack.com/publish/post/139434421

(and you can be a Patron support by going here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/94127260)


As soon as you register, you get a bonus bundle with gifts from many of the speakers.


The logo of the Benedictine Order Initia Nova

The Wild Land Within makes a great gift 🎁 ❤️
Just click the book or google search the title to get one or a few.

• You can find out about my publisher Broadleaf Books  here

⭐️What is a Patron? Here are the DETAILS:

Patron supporters chip-in a bit each month to help me offset my expenses and continue creating episodes. Supporting this way ($5 +) entitles you to many perks and goodies that unlock once you begin.

Want to come along side me with support regularly?
This kind of help makes a big difference. It is with great appreciation that I create for my patrons as my “inner circle”.

• OF COURSE Patron supporters DO get ALL ACCESS to the Substack (paid) extras! Start here: https://www.patreon.com/


Listeners like you make this work possible.

Here’s how to help out:

1. Share the program with another person today.

2. Leave a Rating/ Write a Review on iTunes for the podcast.

]

Eps 101: How Racism Came to America, Guest Dr Kendi

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 Today my guest is award-winning author and historian Dr Ibram Kendi. He is the 2016 winner of the National Book Award for non fiction and the youngest winner ever in that category. At the time of this interview, he was teaching at the University of Florida, and weeks later became Professor of History and International Relations and the Founding Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University


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The Religion of Liberation

(Dura Europos - Fresco from 2nd C Synagogue Jews cross the Red Sea pursued by Pharaoh.)
(Dura Europos – Fresco from 2nd C Synagogue Jews cross the Red Sea pursued by Pharaoh.)

 

The Jewish people have a big event, a central story, that encapsulates what the Jewish (and Judeo-Christian) faith is about:

Crossing a sea: Crossing from slavery to LIBERATION

“Let my people go!”

This is the cry of (the Jewish) God, the Living God, through Moses; and it’s really the cry of freedom in every human heart.

So what do we want to be liberated from?

Oppression.

Yes, of course.

…and oppression takes many forms.

But, we tend to also want liberation from authority…and that’s not what God has in mind. That misses the mark and produces precarious results.

In fact, the best liberation we can have is one that happens internally.

Our heart is liberated from sin and death and then we receive peace and life.

This is no marginal quality of our faith tradition. Liberation is found not in fleeing something (or someone) but in returning.

A homecoming. A reception by the Father for the children he loves.
Liberation must always be about fleeing to someone
(the One).

…and that someone isn’t just another warden in a different prison, but One who wants our peace to be fully realized.

It’s about community identity and belonging.
Each brings freedom and saves us from ourselves.


 

Sometimes we suppose liberation means freedom to act autonomously and unilaterally for our own interests.
True liberation is the antithesis of that.

When I consider, in this very moment, what I hope to be liberated from in my own life, it seems to concern being free from believing lies. Lies about myself, others, and any sorts of ignoble things that imprison my future in a jailhouse of smallness.

A confined place that is missing the grandeur of what it means to be a sentient being enjoying the majesty of creation that a benevolent incomprehendable Being has fashioned.

Guest Posting on Life, Jazz, God, and Donald Miller

(screen grab of an upcoming video)

Excerpt:

 

“There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere.”
― Donald Miller

 

We’re inclined to think that life is like Jazz: Random, but somehow, making strange and beautiful music. So much of life doesn’t jive. The harmony is lacking and the beat is off. We imagine God somewhere up beyond outer space, holding the earth–and all things–in his hands, and letting the jazz of the universe play on. What are we to do with all that jazz?

(BONUS: Here is a great audio document on her majesty Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”. Her improv (scat) is pitch-perfect and sounds a lot like a clarinet.)

Check out the rest of the post I did on Ed Cyzewski’s blog today.

If you like it, you’ll LOVE Volume 5 of my ebook, God’s GRAND Story.
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