The Sacred Community

The Sacred Community
Author: David Jasper
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Aesthetics
ISBN: 9781602585584
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Liturgical, sacramental, and historical, The Sacred Community is a masterful work of theological aesthetics. David Jasper draws upon a rich variety of texts and images from literature, art, and religious tradition to explore the liturgical community gathered around--and most fully constituted by--the moment of the Sanctus in the Eucharistic liturgy. From art and architecture to pilgrimage and politics Jasper places this community in the midst of the contemporary world.

Evening Thoughts

Evening Thoughts
Author: Thomas Berry
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2010-07-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 157805186X
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Essays on our spiritual role in the fate of the planet from “the most provocative figure among the new breed of eco–theologians” (Newsweek). Among the contemporary voices for the Earth, none resonates like that of cultural historian Thomas Berry. His teaching and writings have inspired a generation’s thinking about humankind’s place in the Earth community and the universe, engendering widespread critical acclaim and a documentary film on his life and work. This new collection of essays, from various years and occasions, expands and deepens ideas articulated in his earlier writings and also breaks new ground. Berry opens our eyes to the full dimensions of the ecological crisis, framing it as a crisis of spiritual vision. Applying his formidable erudition in cultural history, science, and comparative religions, he forges a compelling narrative of creation and communion that reconciles modern evolutionary thinking and traditional religious insights concerning our integral role in Earth’s society. While sounding an urgent alarm at our current dilemma, Berry inspires us to reclaim our role as the consciousness of the universe and thereby begin to create a true partnership with the Earth community. With Evening Thoughts, this wise elder has lit another beacon to lead us home. “Thomas Berry is an exemplar in a tradition that includes a diverse group of spiritually radiant individuals (Gandhi, the monk Thomas Merton, the Lakota elder Black Elk), visionaries (Jacques Ellul, Terry Tempest Williams, Rachel Carson), and writers (Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Rebecca Solnit, Loren Eiseley).” —Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams

The Sacred Universe

The Sacred Universe
Author: Thomas Berry
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2009
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780231149525
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A leading scholar, cultural historian, and Catholic priest who spent more than fifty years writing about our engagement with the Earth, Thomas Berry possessed prophetic insight into the rampant destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species. In this book he makes a persuasive case for an interreligious dialogue that can better confront the environmental problems of the twenty-first century. These erudite and keenly sympathetic essays represent Berry's best work, covering such issues as human beings' modern alienation from nature and the possibilities of future, regenerative forms of religious experience. Asking that we create a new story of the universe and the emergence of the Earth within it, Berry resituates the human spirit within a sacred totality.

From and for God

From and for God
Author: Sitaram Dass
Publisher:
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2020-11-30
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9781735530505
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From and for God is an intimate and contemplative collection of writings on the spiritual path. Through poetry and prose, Sitaram Dass honors his teacher, Ram Dass, and shares his heart's journey on the path of Love. The author donates 100% of his profits to Hanuman Maui, a 501(c)3 nonprofit with a mission to preserve Ram Dass's legacy on Maui and foster community through the teachings of love, service and devotion. Half of those proceeds are specifically designated for Kripa's service projects through the Sacred Community Project, a program under the direct fiscal sponsorship of Hanuman Maui. Kripa works to lower the barriers of access to contemplative and devotional practices through affordable, free, and donation-based offerings and prison outreach. "In these luminous pages, Sitaram Dass embodies the teachings of his beloved mentor, Ram Dass. The warmth of devotion melts any meaningful distinction between cultivating loving awareness of the perfection of all that is and a wholehearted YES to alleviating suffering in the world, between art and activism, poetry and spiritual practice, between self as separate and Self as one with the One." -Mirabai Starr, author of Wild Mercy and Caravan of No Despair "Sitaram Dass is a writer in the tradition of the great mystic poets: Kabir, Rumi, Hafiz, and the original Mirabai, and his use of language is infused with that divine spark. His poems awaken joy, which often is in short supply. His essays explore how the teachings of Ram Dass and Neemkaroli Baba relate to materialism, gender and race, and the delicate balance required in holding suffering, compassion, karma and grace in one life. I loved reading this book: as he says Ram Dass taught him, Sitaram Dass shows us an example of what is possible when we fully honor our human hearts." -Mirabai Bush, founding director of Contemplative Mind in Society and author of Walking Each Other Home "There is sweet wisdom here and deep devotion, and Ram Dass's love perfume that infuses SitaRam's words and heart, offered here to you." -Jack Kornfield, founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and bestselling author of A Path with Heart "In the many hours, days and weeks I shared with Sitaram Dass at Ram Dass's home on Maui, I was always deeply touched by his kindness, his sweetness, his intelligence, and his devotion. He is a relatively "young" man who embodies the wisdom, depth, and clear perception of a very old soul. His dedication to caring for Ram Dass was deeply touching. And it was abundantly clear how very much Ram Dass loved him . . . and enjoyed his Presence. This lovely collection of poems and writings emerged from Sitaram Dass's joyful, radiant Heart. They offer the reader a delicious taste of the unfolding of the Light on one Beautiful Soul's journey hOMe." -Ramananda John E. Welshons, author of One Soul, One Love, One Heart and When Prayers Aren't Answered "In this beautiful book, Sitaram Dass sings his boundless love of serving Ram Dass and his guru, Maharaji, in sacred poetry and consecrated prose. You'll fall in love along with Sitaram-and for those of us blessed to spend time in the divine household on Maui, it all rings true. I'm inspired and touched by Sitaram's generous, courageous revealing of his heart's journey to God. I can feel the love and joy that suffuses it all. May you bathe in Sitaram's wisdom and compassion as you savor the learning he offers to our world." -Trudy Goodman, founder of InsightLA

Defend the Sacred

Defend the Sacred
Author: Michael D. McNally
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2020-04-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691190909
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"In 2016, thousands of people travelled to North Dakota to camp out near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to protest the construction of an oil pipeline that is projected to cross underneath the Missouri River a half mile upstream from the Reservation. The Standing Rock Sioux consider the pipeline a threat to the region's clean water and to the Sioux's sacred sites (such as its ancient burial grounds). The encamped protests garnered front-page headlines and international attention, and the resolve of the protesters was made clear in a red banner that flew above the camp: "Defend the Sacred". What does it mean when Native communities and their allies make such claims? What is the history of such claim-making, and why has this rhetorical and legal strategy - based on appeals to religious freedom - failed to gain much traction in American courts? As Michael McNally recounts in this book, Native Americans have repeatedly been inspired to assert claims to sacred places, practices, objects, knowledge, and ancestral remains by appealing to the discourse of religious freedom. But such claims based on alleged violations of the First Amendment "free exercise of religion" clause of the US Constitution have met with little success in US courts, largely because Native American communal traditions have been difficult to capture by the modern Western category of "religion." In light of this poor track record Native communities have gone beyond religious freedom-based legal strategies in articulating their sacred claims: in (e.g.) the technocratic language of "cultural resource" under American environmental and historic preservation law; in terms of the limited sovereignty accorded to Native tribes under federal Indian law; and (increasingly) in the political language of "indigenous rights" according to international human rights law (especially in light of the 2007 U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). And yet the language of religious freedom, which resonates powerfully in the US, continues to be deployed, propelling some remarkably useful legislative and administrative accommodations such as the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act. As McNally's book shows, native communities draw on the continued rhetorical power of religious freedom language to attain legislative and regulatory victories beyond the First Amendment"--

The Sacred Secular

The Sacred Secular
Author: Dottie Escobedo-Frank
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 94
Release: 2016-10-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501810456
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The Sacred Secular examines cultural spaces where people are experiencing something sacred. These places are not in the church. They’re in yoga studios, neighborhood potlucks, and TED Talks. Dottie Escobedo-Frank and Rob Rynders see lessons for the church in these spaces. They see new ways we can convey to people that the church is uniquely sacred and significant and that Jesus is for them. These glimpses into the sacred-secular will inspire creative church leaders to set aside their assumptions about what church looks like. The Sacred Secular nurtures empowerment, creativity, spiritual movement, and the courage to embody the sacredness and substance of our faith. “Many of us in the church (including clergy) feel we have more in common with the ‘spiritual but not religious’ than we have with lots of church folks these days. We are just as spiritually hungry and thirsty as ever, but we’re open to finding God in surprising places and spaces . . . including ‘secular’ ones. This beautifully written book is all about that phenomenon. I think you’re going to love it.” —Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker, brianmclaren.net “Be prepared to hear contemporary stories akin to the Apostle Peter discovering God in an ‘outsider’—Cornelius—in twenty-first–century urban America. This book is a jewel from two missional church practitioners in The United Methodist Church. It offers wisdom, vision, creativity, and humility that will mark the gospel-bearing church of the future. I highly recommend The Sacred Secular to pastors, church planters, and laity who want their congregations to know how to develop culturally connected faith communities in our rapidly changing world.” —Elaine A. Heath, Dean, Duke Divinity School, Duke University, Durham, NC

The Sacred and the Profane

The Sacred and the Profane
Author: Mircea Eliade
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1959
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780156792011
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Famed historian of religion Mircea Eliade observes that even moderns who proclaim themselves residents of a completely profane world are still unconsciously nourished by the memory of the sacred. Eliade traces manifestations of the sacred from primitive to modern times in terms of space, time, nature, and the cosmos. In doing so he shows how the total human experience of the religious man compares with that of the nonreligious. This book serves as an excellent introduction to the history of religion, but its perspective also emcompasses philosophical anthropology, phenomenology, and psychology. It will appeal to anyone seeking to discover the potential dimensions of human existence. -- P. [4] of cover.

Sacred Groves and Local Gods

Sacred Groves and Local Gods
Author: Eliza F. Kent
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2013-03-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0199895473
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In recent years, India's "sacred groves," small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine, and anthropologists. Environmentalists disillusioned by the failures of massive state-sponsored solutions to ecological problems have hailed them as an exemplary form of traditional community resource management. For in spite of pressures to utilize their trees for fodder, housing, and firewood, the religious taboos surrounding sacred groves have led to the conservation of pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, Eliza F. Kent offers a compelling examination of the religious and social context in which sacred groves take on meaning for the villagers who maintain them, and shows how they have become objects of fascination and hope for Indian environmentalists. Sacred Groves and Local Gods traces a journey through Tamil Nadu, exploring how the localized meanings attached to forested shrines are changing under the impact of globalization and economic liberalization. Confounding simplistic representations of sacred groves as sites of a primitive form of nature worship, the book shows how local practices and beliefs regarding sacred groves are at once more imaginative, dynamic, and pragmatic than previously thought. Kent argues that rather than being ancient in origin, as has been asserted by other scholars, the religious beliefs, practices, and iconography found in sacred groves suggest origins in the politically de-centered eighteenth century, when the Tamil country was effectively ruled by local chieftains. She analyzes two projects undertaken by environmentalists that seek to harness the traditions surrounding sacred groves in the service of forest restoration and environmental education.