Powerful social change only happens when ordinary people create movements to fight for their ideals.
- Do you feel moved to help build a global human community based on love, generosity, true caring for each other, mutual forgiveness and compassion?
- Do you want to allow yourself time to connect with your own inner spiritual being?
- Do you want time to experience awe, wonder and amazement at the grandeur and mystery of the universe, the on-going miracle of your own consciousness, and the beauty and fragility of life itself?
If these desires resonate with you, join together with us – members of the Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) - in a movement to heal and transform the world. NSP is open to anyone, from atheists, agnostics, “spiritual but not religious” to religious people, who support a NEW BOTTOM LINE IN AMERICA of love and caring, ethical and ecological sensitivity and behavior, kindness and generosity, nonviolence and peace. We challenge corporate greed and the “me-first”-ism that permeates the global market culture. Our goal is very concrete action e.g. H.R. 1016 Global Marshall Plan and our Environmental Social Responsibility Amendment (ESRA) to the Constitution.
Join a Caring Society: Care for the Earth, Care for Each Other
During past programs, we’ve covered a broad spectrum of global, yet which affect us all: we examined a phenomenal discourse on why poverty exists when there is so much wealth in the world; heard a brilliant theorist and visionary for social change speak soberly about where we are as a society and a planet in healing, repairing, and transforming the world, and the strategy for the Obama years ahead; learned how the world’s largest corporations & governments are responding to Earth’s looming environmental disaster and what we can do as social activists; learned about global warming & organizing a worldwide movement, and more.
In the months ahead, we’ve planned a:
Video & Discussion: Positive Economic Alternatives
Thurs., Nov. 11, 7:00-8:30 pm
Economist David C. Korten’s addresses the NSP’s 2010 Conference in Washington, D.C. Founder of Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures magazine, author of five books and many articles about global economies, including The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, When Corporations Rule the World, & Agenda for a New Economy.
Video & Discussion: Caring for the Earth and Each Other
Sun., Nov. 14, 12:30-1:45 pm
Watch the following addresses to the NSP’s 2010 Conference: Congressman Dennis Kucinich speaks on the need for the Environmental Social Responsibility Amendment to the Constitution (ESRA) to protect the planet from environmentally and socially destructive behavior; Rabbi Arthur Waskow, author of God Wrestling & Down-to-Earth Judaism: Food, Money, Sex, and the Rest of Life, speaks on “Earth as Our Sacred Temple” and confronting big oil; Marianne Williamson, spiritual activist and author of Healing the Soul of America and founder of Peace Alliance supporting legislation establishing a U.S. Dept. of Peace, speaks on “soul power”—turning love into a political force for good.
Film: The Corporation (2 ½ hr., divided into 2 parts)
Mondays, Nov. 15 (Part I) & Nov. 22 (Part II), 7:00-9:00 pm
Watch & discuss this Canadian documentary’s exploration of the genesis of the American corporation, its global economic supremacy and its psychopathic leanings, based on Joel Bakan’s book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit & Power. Featuring candid interviews with CEOs, whistle blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, and pundits—including corporate social critics like Noam Chomsky & capitalist views of Milton Friedman. (Fundamental to understanding the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling’s effects on democracy.)
Video & Discussion: Ethics, Economic Democracy, & Social Change
Mon., Nov. 29, 7:00-8:30 pm
Watch the following addresses to the NSP’s 2010 Conference: Dr. Sharon Welch, UU ethics scholar and Provost of Meadville Lombard Theological School (UU Seminary) and author of Feminist Ethic of Risk & Real Peace & Real Security: The Challenges of Global Citizenship, speaks on paradoxes & challenges of democratic government, opening closed minds; Dr. Gary Dorien, Professor of Religion at Colombia University, and leading social ethicist, speaks on economic globalization, meltdown, democracy and the National Council of Churches’ Social Creed for the 21st Century; Dr. Graylan Hagler, leader in United for Peace and Justice & Director of Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America (NACA) fighting predatory lending, speaks on new ways of doing things, seeing things, engaging each other.
Video & Discussion: Nuclear Disarmament, War & Peace, the Great Awakening
Thurs., Dec. 2, 7:00-8:30 pm
Watch the following addresses to the NSP’s 2010 Conference: Father John Dear, activist Jesuit priest, author of A Persistent Peace & Put Down Your Sword, arrested over 75 times for civil disobedience against war & nuclear weapons, speaks on Pres. Obama’s nuclear policies, nonviolent practice within and resistance without; Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, author, attorney, and international peace activist, speaks on universal spiritual imperatives—loving your neighbors as yourself and protecting the global commons; Rev. James Forbes, Pastor Emeritus of the Riverside Church of New York City, Director of Healing of the Nations Foundation and who Newsweek called one of “12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world,” speaks on the need for the 4th Great (Interfaith) Awakening in America.
Video & Discussion: Compassion
Thurs., Dec. 9, 7:00- 8:30 pm
Watch Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister’s address to the NSP 2010 Conference. Social psychologist, author of 30 books, co-founder of the NSP & Tikkun Magazine, and one of America’s key visionary spiritual voices for over 30 years, she speaks on compassion. Drawing on scientific brain research and universal religious principles, she answers the questions: What is a Caring Society? What is Compassion? She names six major global crises and what we need to do in response, in order to manifest our human instinct for compassion.
Video & Discussion: Non-Alienated Human Relationships Necessary for Social Transformation
Sun., Dec. 12, 12:30- 1:45 pm
Watch address of Keynote Speaker, Peter Gabel, to NSP’s 2010 Conference. Psychotherapist and founder of the Institute for Labor and Mental Health in Oakland, CA., Associate Editor of Tikkun Magazine, lawyer and a founder of Critical Legal Studies, and author of The Bank Teller and Other Essays on the Politics of Meaning, Gabel speaks on why social and political change/transformation is part of spirituality, what he says Ronald Reagan clearly understood--our need for recognition and community.
Please join us at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Rd, Morristown, for the NSP Film/Talks I’ve described above. For more info, www.spiritualprogressives.org or www.tikkun.org, local NSP contact Teresa Guyton at teresguyton@yahoo.com or 973-989-9098 or Jo Sippie-Gora at seedsofpeacemuf@optonline.net or 973-838-8576.
