Hello! Welcome to the next edition of my weekly habit of sharing.

If you know me you know that I am not a follower of any Religion. But I am spiritual. I believe that, like you, I am ”a spiritual being having a human experience” and I’m endlessly curious about this experience we call Life.

So it is with a spiritual lens that I see that humanity is having a moment right now.

We all feel it—we are steeped in it right now—on the internet and if you’re like me, in every single conversation with friends, family and strangers these days. I sit with it within myself: a huge swell of emotions, an uprising of anger, fear, outrage, guilt, grief…

I want solutions. Right now. Make the virus go away. End racism. Stop injustices. Stop destroying the planet. Fix all that is wrong with our country and our world. DO something. Right now. How can I fix this? How can we fix this? More emotions uprising.

Yet the answers aren’t simple—and solutions won’t happen in a short timeframe. Also, maybe in the grand scheme of things unknown, maybe this is the Moment to see more clearly. To understand more deeply. Maybe this is our work.

Rob Bell says on his podcast this week that we as a human society—like other ancient societies before us—seem to be experiencing what he calls The Great Unmasking. And in fact this seeing and naming what IS is a necessary first step to creating what comes next:

“You cannot have the new world until you have fully named and unmasked all that’s wrong with the present world. You cannot have a new, higher, better order until you have been brutally honest about with everything that is corrupt and destructive about this order.”

—and then out of deep understanding, a moral revolution.

May it be so.

Privilege Is

The Damage that White Onlookers Inflict

21 Racial Micro-Aggressions You Hear on a Daily Basis

We are Not the Virus. We are the Kamikazes.

The Power of 2020 and America’s Promise

“Have a look at the New York City Budget for the fiscal year 2020 and you will very quickly note the priorities (policing) for public expenditures and for cuts (social services of health, education and youth services). A quick back of the envelope public expenditure review reveals and illustrates the fiscal story for the fault-lines nourishing and giving free rein to the virility of both viruses of anti blackness and of the pandemic. And this is the story of masked interventions for maintaining inequity and cruelty…”

Finally, I’m reading How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi—I highly recommend it. First new idea: The opposite of racist is NOT not racist. It’s antiracist.

Peace and joy until next week—

Denise

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