We Can’t Go Back

This series of spiritual reflections has progressed as we have been led into the wilderness of the COVID season together as a people. We are dislocated from what we used to know as "normal," and we are not settled into a "new normal." The wilderness has always been a place of spiritual growth and reorientation, and this series invites us all to carefully reflect on how we might be transformed in the ways that we understand ourselves and others so that we can create a better and more just future for all people. The episodes focus on the posture we take in the wilderness, the assumptions we carry into the wilderness with us, the troublesome physical tendencies that evolved within every human being as self-defense mechanisms, the temptations these tendencies cause, the various -isms that plague humanity and compromise peace as collective manifestations of these tendencies, and the need for a Golden-Rule Spirituality within all people to act as a louder voice and counter-force to the animalistic and self-preserving tendencies. If we can move beyond our instinctual self-focus and follow a spirituality that nurtures an other-focus with love for neighbor, then we can move together through this wilderness into a more peaceful and just world.