During the days between Easter 2020 and Pentecost - April 12 and May 31 - my live-streaming focus will be grounded in a spirituality of tenderness. (NOTE: you can join me at my spiritual direction Face Book page, Be Still and Know, on Sundays @ 9:55 am. Please go to: https://www. facebook.com/Be-Still-and-Know-913217865701531/)My articulation of this spirituality is a work in progress, a way of being, thinking, praying and living that I have been consciously nurturing for the past five years. In reality, it has always been the song of my heart. In these later days, however, it has found shape and form through what is best defined as tenderness. It is contemplative and mystical as well as counter-cultural and small. It is my deepest longing and one I am not very good at incarnating. It is informed by the alternative and generous orthodoxies of Richard Rohr, Henri Nouwen, Frederick Beuchner, Cynthia Bourgeault, Jean Vanier, Joan Chittister, Ernest Kurtz, St. Francis and St. Clare, St. Paul (in his humility), Rumi, Kathleen Norris, Mary Oliver, James Carroll, Walter Brueggemann, Robert Wicks, Edward Hays, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison, Aretha Franklyn, Marvin Gaye, Paul Simon, Carrie Newcomer, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Miles Davis, Robert Bly, James Hillman, Clarence Jordan, Holly Whitcomb, Abraham Heschel, Ellie Wiesel, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dorothee Soelle, George Macleod, Elizabeth O'Connor, Padraig O Tuama, Krista Tippett, Wendell Berry, Parker Palmer, Paul Tillich, Phyllis Tribble, Cornel West, James Washington, MLK, my daughters (JLP/MCL), Dianne de Mott, Ray Swartzback, Sam Fogal, Tom Dipko, Harvey Cox, Christine Valters Paintner, Bob Franke, and Patti Smith.
It is my growing conviction that as our old order dies out - and a new way of being together struggles to be born - people of profound tenderness must claim a place at the decision-making tables - and be out in the streets, too. This is a time like no other: it is a season where compassion and solidarity are essential. A great awakening beyond bottom-line goals and consumption without consequences is taking place. And while this spirituality of tenderness, of course, is not the only way of living into the new world order. That would be contradictory and arrogant - the antithesis of this small and quiet way - the polar opposite of the foolishness of Christ. Yet, I believe it still has its place...
Perhaps you can join me for this encounter and exploration? I would value your wisdom and presence.
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