9 Inspiring Stories of Solidarity with Refugees and Migrants
While governments seal borders and erect walls, ordinary people are offering support and shelter. These nine inspiring stories of solidarity will encourage, uplift and incite you to action. Migrant offshore Aid Station rescues migrants along the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. Miksaliste helps as many as 1,000 refugees a day in the heart of Belgrade. Lawal Dan Gashua, the Chair of... posted on Oct 17 2019, 2,830 reads

A Message About Messages
The complex meanings of a serious story or novel can be understood only by participation in the language of the story itself. To translate them into a message or reduce them to a sermon distorts, betrays, and destroys them. This is because a work of art is understood not by the mind only, but by the emotions and by the body itself.... posted on Oct 16 2019, 8,987 reads

The Religious Value of the Unknown
In an age when the fate of the world is unknown, George Prochnik makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. Restoring a sense of the unknown requires unlearning, calling into question our way of life. In uncertainty, reason fails whereas love guides. This love can be exemplified by those who spend hours practicing arts and handicrafts with no concern for real-world application, but ... posted on Oct 15 2019, 3,299 reads

Teaching Brain Science to Monks and Nuns
Where do compassion and empathy come from? What makes life sentient?
This summer, as they have the past several years, professors from across the United States and elsewhere are traveling to three major Tibetan monastic universities in Southern India to train monastics in the philosophy of science, physics, biology, and neuroscience. Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have grappled with these ... posted on Oct 14 2019, 2,423 reads

Humanizing Aid with Dignity
A small but increasingly influential British NGO called Refugee Support aims to deliver what it calls "aid with dignity" by adding a sense of normality and respect to its food distribution efforts. Refugee Support co-founders Paul Hutchings and John Sloan met in 2015 in Calais' notorious Jungle camp. They were both drawn to help alleviate the suffering of the thousands of migrants and refugees liv... posted on Oct 13 2019, 1,758 reads

Creative Chaos
The transcendent artistry of Green Renaissance Films allows us to enter into the life of a young man who has journeyed through mental disorder and arrived at a place of wholeness with an openness to the chaos of life. He has come to realize that he does not need to hold fear at bay by trying to order his world, controlling everything. Rather he embraces the chaos and unpredictability of daily livi... posted on Oct 12 2019, 2,588 reads

The Understory: Life Beneath the Forest Floor
"The first time I heard anyone speak of the "wood wide web," more than a decade ago now, I was trying not to cry. A beloved friend was dying too young and too quickly. I had gone to see him for what I took to be the last time. He was tired by pain and drugs. We sat together, talked. My friend was a woodsman. Trees grew through his life and thought. His grandfather's surname was Wood, he lived in a... posted on Oct 11 2019, 12,421 reads

Ian Chillag: Everything Is Alive
Ian Chillag is the host and creator of the original podcast 'Everything is Alive,' in which inanimate objects are interviewed. The inventive, funny and frequently poignant series is almost entirely improvised. "We cast actors, and I have a running list of objects. When we find someone we like, and we have a couple objects that we've vetted through some research, we give them a couple to choose fro... posted on Oct 10 2019, 2,138 reads

How the Sound of a Space Influences Our Mood
"Step into the underground concourses of New York's Penn Station and you might just feel an uneasy sense of claustrophobia that's hard to explain. Stroll across the hardwood floors at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and a sense of calmness might descend on you. Why? Each of these buildings has its own unique voice --the way sound behaves in the structure. Think of the way whispers tra... posted on Oct 09 2019, 2,239 reads

The Land Where Swans and Giraffes Are Made of Tires
The human spirit cannot be quieted. Through the cracks of ordered Soviet structure has blossomed the artsy jungle of Bishkek. The people of this city in Kyrgyzstan have created beautiful art out of the used tires and car parts that littered the streets of this major transit hub. Out of chaos arises a new form of beauty.... posted on Oct 08 2019, 2,670 reads