Tag: "Union Theological Seminary"

Fields of Hope or Acres of Desolation

| September 18, 2012 | Comments (10)
Fields of Hope or Acres of Desolation

As we look at the monumental tasks we face today, it easy to become overwhelmed. It’s easy to feel like Sisyphus, staring up the long road we are destined to walk. Will we even make it to the top of the hill before the stone rolls back down? Will this be the time that the stone decides to stay at the top? Are we always destined to chase the stone of struggle back down the hill only to discover that what we left at the top has morphed into something new on the way back down?

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Beyond Rio: The Winding Path to Sustainability

| June 21, 2012 | Comments (0)
Beyond Rio: The Winding Path to Sustainability

There are maps all over the Rio+20 conference center. They are normal by all standards: you are here; that building is there, walk this way or that way and viola. The catch, though, is that none of the maps in the complex are oriented in the same direction. You have to guess which direction you should walk next. For the first few days of the conference most people walked away from the map with stunted confidence, stepping uneasily one way, catching themselves, regrouping; then departing. The visual clues were there, the destinations were promised to exist but the surety isn’t there.

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Is it Time to Forgive Wall Street?

| June 5, 2012 | Comments (9)
Is it Time to Forgive Wall Street?

Monika Mitchell writes, “Several weeks ago, I joined a panel at Union Theological Seminary on how to bridge the gap between Main Street and Wall Street. The program was organized by Samir Selmanovic, Founder of Faith House in New York and facilitated by Dr. Paul Knitter, Professor of Religious Studies at Columbia University. When I explained to the crowd assembled that many on Wall Street were hurt in the crisis too, a fellow panelist from the “Occupy” movement responded, “I don’t want to think about Wall Street as human.”

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