by Louise Mangan
There is a longer and lovelier story about the Earth than most of us have been taught. This older wisdom story is grounded in the beauty and goodness of the natural world.
Caring for Creation: First Nations Teachings and Survival
Abraham and the Old Man
by Carrie Sue Ayvar
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I spent every summer from the time I was a year old until I went away to college at my maternal grandparent’s house in North Miami Beach, Florida.
The Chaplaincy Institute: Pioneering Interfaith Ministry
by John R. Mabry
Andrea paused at the doorway to the hospital room to gather her thoughts. Her last patient had been a Sunni Muslim grandmother who was scared of what her tests might say. This next patient is an atheist who may or may not want to talk to her. After that, she has a Jewish person, and a Seventh Day Adventist. While that kind of rapid-paced paradigm-shifting might cause vertigo in some chaplains, it’s all par for the course for Andrea and others...
Huston Smith – The Passing of a Giant in Our Midst
by Paul Chaffee
If Swami Vivekananda’s clarion voice at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions introduced us to the challenge of living happily in an interfaith world, it was Huston Smith’s voice in The Religions of Man (1958) which taught us what that meant.
A Very Shory Course in Wisdom
by Cynthia Bourgeault
1. Wisdom is not a philosophy or a curriculum, but a way of knowing. It’s not about knowing more but knowing deeper, knowing with more of yourself involved. 2. Wisdom is three-centered knowing: it engages mind, emotions, and body in a single, integral act of perception.
Chochmah – the Blueprint of Creation
by Rabbi Rami Shapiro
Wisdom, Chochmah in Hebrew, is the first of God’s manifestations and the means by which creation happens. I am the deep grain of creation, the subtle current of life. God fashioned me before all things; I am the blueprint of creation. I was there from the beginning, from before there was a beginning. I am independent of time and space, earth and sky.
Wisdom – An Ongoing Conversation with Divine Reality
by Shaikha Camille Adams Helminski
The Prophet Muhammad said, “Wisdom is like the truly faithful one’s stray camel; he (she) will recognize it when he (she) finds it.” Within the Way of Islam and the mystical path of Sufism, wisdom is received through the Qur’an (revelation of the “Book of God” conveyed through the heart of the Prophet Muhammad) and the example of how the Prophet, himself, lived, as well as through the “Book of Nature."
The Faceted Gem of Wisdom
by Shaikh Kabir Helminski
The Generous Source of our being has brought us to this world and has given us intelligence, insight, compassion, and the possibility to discern: the subjective perspective from the objective, appearances from reality, beginnings from endings, the transient from the enduring.
Prajñā – the Buddhist Path of Wisdom
by Dr. Ed Bastian
Shariputra, any noble son or noble daughter who so wishes to engage in the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom should clearly see this way: they should see perfectly that even the five aggregates are empty of intrinsic existence. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form; emptiness is not other than form, form too is not other than emptiness. Likewise, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are all empty.
Fostering Wisdom in Children (and the Rest of Us)
by Vicki Garlock
Some decades ago a friend of mine, a college senior way back then, was attending a conference at a large, distinguished university of “pre-faculty” students, collegians who hoped to pursue a higher-education vocation in the next few years. The three-day gathering culminated in a large banquet, some final comments on the benefits of professordom from several university presidents, and a question & answer session.
Joseph Prabhu's Anatomy of Wisdom
by Ruth Broyde Sharone
“Wisdom includes action as well as knowledge,” maintains Joseph Prabhu, a professor of philosophy and religion for four decades, a passionate interfaith activist, and Mother Teresa’s first altar boy in India. “Action brings insight into dynamic motion,” Prabhu explains, “and insight without thoughtful action, to my mind, is seriously incomplete.”
An Education Centered on Wisdom
We should be afraid when people start measuring education by its functional value. I tremble a little when I read about the need for “21st century skills” or the increasing necessity of a college degree for achieving middle class status. I feel anxious because I work with children every day, and they never seem very concerned about whether they are becoming “competitive in the global marketplace.” (If they ever do start showing concern, it may be my signal to find a new career.)
