Yesterday we meditated on the great work of artist Lily Yeh to prepare the oppressed from the underside up, i.e., starting with the youngsters, and uplift all of us by means of constructing neighborhood via joint artwork initiatives. Magnificence unites and wonder heals. Her work was celebrated this month in her TED speak.
I linked her vocation to the phrases of Jesus within the “Our Father” prayer which, taken from his unique Aramaic language, means to make the most of our “fiery hearts and prepared palms” to work for bringing concerning the unity of the dominion/queendom of God on Earth. Considered one of peace and justice, pleasure and wonder.
At present I wish to salute one other employee/thinker of our day whose vocation I love, Thom Hartmann. He too, as a journalist and author, is utilizing his work and “fiery coronary heart and prepared palms” to critique falsity and to unfold data that may feed a more healthy world.
In a current and essential article entitled “Is Social Media This Technology’s Heroin?” he proposes that social media itself is a form of heroin or habit invented in our time that delivers rage within the identify of politics the world over. Its impact is thus not solely to dumb down our species in a time of earth peril and different perils however provides to the issue fairly than offering an answer.
His argument is constructed on current psychological and historic research of how and why habit readily takes over the human mind. He cites psychologist and neuroscientist, Kurt Grey, on the function worry performs in our evolutionary survival. Animal predators have been in every single place within the early instances of humanity and we grew to become “hard-wired to detect threats shortly and to remain fixated on locations the place threats as soon as appeared, even after they’ve vanished.” This prominence of worry in our psyches nonetheless guidelines.
As Hartmann places it: In the event you might invent a drug that will trigger folks to be fearful—and thus stimulate the craze that comes from worry—you possibly can have unimaginable management over a inhabitants in case you might merely inform them the place and towards whom to direct that fear-induced rage.
Social media has invented that drug: It’s algorithms. Secretly, they purify and focus hate and worry spreads throughout the broader social media web site, distilling probably the most potent memes and messages to the highest and shoving them into folks’s brains.
The result’s that by growing our particular person ranges of worry and rage, they create a broader social sense of worry and rage, making these feelings far easier to use.*
To be continued
* Thom Hartmann, “Is Social Media This Technology’s Heroin?” The Hartmann Report, December 26, 2024
And Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood for Our Time.
And Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
Banner picture: Hooked on cell telephones. Picture by Stefan Klauke on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you acknowledge your work and vocation as your effort to convey your fiery coronary heart and prepared palms to critique evil and to create a world that’s extra simply and exquisite and sustainable?
Really helpful Studying
The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood For Our Time
Thomas Aquinas stated, “To stay properly is to work properly,” and on this daring name for the revitalization of each day work, Fox shares his imaginative and prescient of a world the place our private {and professional} lives are celebrated in concord–a world the place the self will not be sacrificed for a job however is sanctified by genuine “soul work.”
“Fox approaches the extent of poetry in describing the reciprocity that have to be current between one’s inside and outer work…[A]n essential street map to social change.” ~~ Nationwide Catholic Reporter
The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he reveals ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historical pagan image of our elementary relationship with nature, to the Religious Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their increased calling to connect with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this e book — to not point out each lady who desires to grasp the struggles, usually unconscious, that form the lads they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, writer of The Left Hand of God
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox affords a brand new theology of evil that basically adjustments the normal notion of fine and evil and factors the way in which to a extra enlightened therapy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Japanese custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to assume creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we are able to do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anybody single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Religious Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had all the time shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and worry. Nevertheless, given as we speak’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this e book using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for analyzing the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this e book with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For fast entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white pictures, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for fast obtain.
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