Love is an active verb

The Danforth Dialogues: Envisioning the future of politics and religion in America. The event was held on October 8, 2016.

It is time to get our collective soul back in order, America.  The onslaught of the past 18 months has left our nerves rawer, our jaws permanently dropped, our hearts saddened by what we saw from some of our own friends and family, and our trust in our institutions bruised.  For many, if not most, on both sides, this experience has been deeply personal, and the distress is very real.  We are longing to feel again that our neighbors and fellow Americans are good, that we all share a common humanity, that we can work together to improve our collective society.  And that we can be proud of America in the fullest and widest sense of what that word can mean.

The gentler spirit we need is not just going to happen on its own.  And there are few rays of hope among national leaders who will be inspiration for our collective souls.  We need to do the hard work of righting ourselves, our families, and our communities.  Much of that will need to be face-to-face with others.  But sometimes we need to get right with our own souls first, before we can contribute to the collective.  Get back in the saddle of grace-filled, joy-filled, we-can-do-it thinking.

If you too are in for this, here are some books, podcasts, and soundtracks that might start to restore the faith – or at least reflect the love and tenderness our souls need.  These came my way through highly diverse paths – it was a surprise to find that each has at its heart a celebration of goodness in each other and humanity, from completely different perspectives.

Please add your suggestions.  We can all benefit from collective wisdom, when offered from a place of kinship.

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion – Father Greg Boyle’s stories of building Homeboy Industries in gang-ridden neighborhoods of LA will break your heart and fill it with complete joy, while somehow making you laugh loudly too.  This book is right – about God, about kinship with those at the margins, about joy, about love.

On Being with Krista Tippett in discussion with David Brooks and E.J. Dionne – On Being is always a beautiful listen.  Krista Tippett’s discussion with writers David Brooks and E.J. Dionne about faith in our public sphere is perhaps the most poetic and civil of all discourses of the past year between differing view points.  They eloquently argue for privileging the better, hopeful narrative that actually does exist in the daily good works in communities throughout our country.  They speak with hope of the energetic faith communities they see filled with young people.  They argue for the increases in and respect for common experiences that bind us as Americans.

Hamilton, the Musical – Listen to the musical.  Laugh at the irony of two complicated New York politicians doing battle over two centuries ago – often sordidly and always viciously. Marvel at the sheer brilliance of Lin-Manuel Miranda – and the success that brilliance can produce when dedicated for 6 straight years of creation (a millennium in our rapid fire society).  As you fall in love with songs written in styles you never thought you would like, enjoy the realization that music is a great connector across cultures.  Hear the common humanity of the characters as they spell out their dreams for their children, wrestle with their birth lottery, and walk through grief.  And most of all, stand in awe that out of all of the messiness, of which there was much, these very human people created our nation.

The Gene: An Intimate History – Pulitzer Prize winning Siddhartha Mukherjee writes fascinatingly of the history of our understanding of the gene – the most common foundation of humanity.  Sweeping in scope, he reaches from Aristotle to the present, encompassing science, politics, ideologies, policy, and what it means to be family and even human.  His writing is beautiful, intertwining story-telling with history.  You feel like you are back in your favorite college course, while remembering with every page that we are all made of the very same stuff.

The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens – Hasn’t your intuition always told you that humans do not act purely to maximize their self-interest?  Well, you are right.  Samuel Bowles provides fascinating experiments and research demonstrating that not only are we wired toward pro-social behavior, but that incentives can even crowd out that instinct.  This has big implications for policies, laws, business, and even parenting.

There are many other older books that are worth brushing off for a re-read right now:
Dorothy Day, of course.  The Duty of Delight has you from the title.  Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, is required reading for many kids – and should be for adults.  And there are brand new titles sitting on my nightstand, in line to read: Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance with the radically simple idea that God is community and flow, as represented in Rubelev’s icon of the Trinity.  And Brian D. McLaren’s The Great Spirtual Migration: How the world’s largest religion is seeking a better way to be a Christian.

And so many more…. Please add your suggestions for books that celebrate the goodness.