This article examines the ideal of mutual respect, even appreciation among believers and people of conscience Lent is a widely practiced time of reflection, repentance and renewal. Yet some Christians believe its observance is wrong.…
The post enlightenment era fractured the sacred monolith in the Western worldview and social development. There emerged what some hold to be “purely secular” sectors of enterprise. Void of sacred roots, from where will these sectors gain their ethical and moral guidelines? This is the question we face. What are the points of interface for the sacred and the secular once the assumption of shared space is broken.
In this New York Times article, Nuns who won’t stop nudging we read of a true modern effort to guide corporate behavior by people who live under spiritual vows. The relationships seen here between profit seekers and champions of spiritual life, and social justice provides an encouraging model not just for economic behavior but for other secular enterprise as well.
Long before Occupy Wall Street, the Sisters of St. Francis were quietly staging an occupation of their own. In recent years, this Roman Catholic order of 540 or so nuns has become one of the most surprising groups of corporate activists around.
The nuns have gone toe-to-toe with Kroger, the grocery store chain, over farm worker rights; with McDonald’s, over childhood obesity; and with Wells Fargo, over lending practices. They have tried, with mixed success, to exert some moral suasion over Fortune 500 executives, a group not always known for its piety.
Currently I am involved in a project to do with with the development of a memoir. In the work I am led to research on memoir as an art form and as a literary architecture.
Of course the genre is the art of “talking about myself.” In my research among reviewers I stumbled across some helpful criticism regarding the current phenomenon of self-absorption as a current trend in society.
Here is a piece in the NYTimes that shows how far we’ve come in the social dysfunction that fails to know the the disorder of self obsessed writing. 
The Times writer sticks to the bane on literature, but it is a helpful jumping off point to ponder how much else, from the academy to politics, sport, economy and more are become socially harmful as a result of this trend:
A moment of silence, please, for the lost art of shutting up.
There was a time when you had to earn the right to draft a memoir, by accomplishing something noteworthy or having an extremely unusual experience or being such a brilliant writer that you could turn relatively ordinary occurrences into a snapshot of a broader historical moment. Anyone who didn’t fit one of those categories was obliged to keep quiet. Unremarkable lives went unremarked upon, the way God intended.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/317007
Even a tiny request designed to create greater balance in US foreign policy is not fully granted by Congress, and not in the budget signed by President Obama
Robert Gates served as United States Secretary of Defense from November, 2006 (replacing Donald Rumsfeld) until April, 2011 (replaced by Leon Panetta). At his retirement ceremony Gates was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. David L. Boren, Chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said of Gates, “He’ll be remembered for making us aware of the danger of over-reliance on military intervention as an instrument of American foreign policy.” Josh Rogin in his December 27, 2011 Foreign Policy article writes, “Gates, famously warned of the “creeping militarization” of U.S. foreign policy.” Rogin refers to Gates’ 2009 memo to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in which Gates noted that the huge increase in Pentagon funding for stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted complaints about the militarization of U.S. foreign policy.
On November 15, 2011, US president Obama signed an agreement with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard o have a Marine, air and ground task force using Australian facilities to act as a “force multiplier” in the…
BBC reports on a constructive meeting in the Maldives between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers. This is very good news for the region. from www.bbc.co.uk Pakistan’s prime minister and his Indian counterpart have met…
In recent years, good efforts have been made to advance the cause of peace through dialogue, but as time passes, the concept of bound communities talking across lines of separation is proving to be an insufficient starting point toward the outcome of a peaceful world. Wisdom in stories has proven to be the way to break the deadlock binding dialogue based peace efforts.
On Thursday, September 8, 2011, Wisdom Thinkers Network will sponsor an important conversation in New York, as part of the 92nd Street Y‘s decennial commemoration of 9/11, a series entitled: Searching For Answers In A Post-9/11 World.
Jonathan Sacks in the Times of London (July 22, 2011) posts an article inquiring into elements that create greatness.
What makes a champion? Is it down to hard work and repeated practice? There has been a splendid spate of books recently, from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers to Matthew Syed’s Bounce, on what makes great people great. What is it that some have and the rest of us don’t, whether in sport, literature, music or science?
Read his findings especially to note their implications for the growing harmonization between religion and science.
Aug 14, 2011 2:52pm by Frank Kaufmann in Business
We presently suffer from recent decades of business taught in a vacuum sans spiritual principles. Other religions should likewise follow the example of these Christian visionaries. After this, heads of such institutions should dialogue regularly regularly with a goal to forge universal principles applicable for entrepreneurs in all cultures.
This Reuters article looks at global financial structures that outstrip the capacities of governments to manage and respond. Genuine responses to the financial crisis must include observation at this level, rather than scurrying madly inside…