Category: For Living

Take a Breath

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Are you in a courtroom? an office? On the street? At your kid’s sports practice? In a classroom? Here is a meditation that can be folded into an active day, or used during time set aside for meditation. Observe the people around you and imagine how they might be breathing, how their breath sounds and feels to them right now. For each breath you take, rest your eyes on a different person, and imagine you are taking a breath with them. Notice how the air smells and feels, be present to the sounds that accompany the breath. Gradually move outward in your thoughts to imagine people who are outside of where you are. If you are sitting alone, you would start this meditation at this stage. There may be a park nearby. There could be parents, nannies, and children on the playground. Imagine a young child who is being pushed… Continue reading

Centering Prayer

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People working for justice are regularly witnesses of others’ pain. Often those painful circumstances rearrange the other person’s life, or even ends it. Justice workers, and in fact all of us, need to practice self care in order to not close down, give into anger, harden, retreat, project, or attack. In speaking of justice workers, I’m thinking broadly -of police officers as well as activists; lawyers, lawmakers, prison guards, and sometimes offenders; judges, ministers, volunteers, and aid workers; artists, writers and performers who tune their work to the timbre and call justice and injustice. Centering Prayer is a daily practice in which you rest in the Presence of Love, of the Ground of Being, of God. It is a form of meditation, and a time of healing. Centering yourself daily in Love can offer a reserve of strength and a practice of letting go, a steadiness which contributes to the… Continue reading

Street Requiem

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Contributed by Kim Vanderheiden A friend and I recently attended a performance of Street Requiem in Berkeley California. A fellow artist I knew was singing in it, and I had read about efforts to collect the names of the homeless who had recently died on our streets who were being remembered in it. I wanted to hear this contemporary take on a rich and powerful traditional form of music and prayer, and to hear the names of people whose paths have interwoven with mine, but I’ve never known, and who are now gone. The church in which it was held was close to the college campus and active in hosting performances and speakers of interest to the local community as well as students. My friend and I walked in among hundreds of others who were gathering. Many were seated already. We decided to try the balcony. As the orchestra warmed… Continue reading

Love is the Light of the Sight

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Journey Through the Planes

The following is a teaching of the Sufi master, Hazrat Inayat Khan,  contributed by artist and Sufi retreat guide, Mary Risala Laird. “There are moral principles taught to mankind by various teachers, by many traditions, one differing from the other, which are like separate drops coming out of the fountain. But when we look at the stream, we find there is but one stream, although it turns into several drops on falling. There are many moral principles, just as many drops fall from one fountain; but there is one stream that is at the source of all, and that is love. It is love that gives birth to hope, patience, endurance, forgiveness, tolerance, and to all moral principles. All deeds of kindness and beneficence take root in the soil of the loving heart. Generosity, charity, adaptability, an accommodating nature, ever renunciation, are the offspring of love alone. The great, rare… Continue reading

The Right to Remain Human

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Wallet card of Right to Remain Human text

contributed by Kim Vanderheiden You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me? In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court gave its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, requiring that suspects in police custody be alerted to their 5th Amendment rights before interrogation. The court did not rule in what manner or with what language suspects were to be informed. Subsequently, then Deputy Attorney General Doris Maier, along with Nevada County District Attorney and internationally renown letterpress printer Harold Berliner, were called upon to write concise language that officers in the state of California should use to… Continue reading

Meeting Eyes

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This may sound simplistic, but I try to make a conscious practice of meeting strangers’ eyes as I pass them on the street or in a hall or store or other public places. I spend most of my time in an urban area, where people are passing by each other all day and most are strangers to each other. I try to keep an openness and receptivity in my own face and eyes. If someone meets my eyes in return, I acknowledge them in some way that seems appropriate to their manner or the situation, a small smile, a nod, or sometimes just the direct and open gaze from one person to the other. Sometimes I’ve passed someone and looked and it’s seemed they’ve been crying recently. Sometimes I can see that someone is very tired. I say a silent prayer for someone who seems to be in difficulty. Many… Continue reading

An online conversation with PISLAP (Project for Integrating Spirituality Law & Politics)

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Initiated by Mothiur Rahman of New Economy Law, supported by Gita Parihar of UK Youth Climate Coalition, and Kim Vanderheiden of Justice Conversation. A conversation with Peter Gabel & Nanette Schorr of PISLAP, a US network of lawyers, academics, law students and other legal professionals at the forefront of shaping an understanding of justice inspired by the spiritual values and social activism of Martin Luther King. November 2nd 2018 | 4 pm GMT Cost is free. See details below to join the conversation. from Mothiur Rahman’s description of the event: Next week is “Justice Week, an initiative launched by the Law Society and Bar Council amongst others, the professional representative bodies for solicitors and barristers respectively. The Law Society’s website explains the need for Justice Week in the following way: “with many parts of the UK system at breaking point now is the time to make a strong and clear… Continue reading

Positive Discipline

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Contributed by Dale Gregory, co-director Broadmoor Preschool, and Kim Vanderheiden, founder of Justice Conversation. I first met “Teacher Dale” as a new parent participating in a local co-op preschool known as Broadmoor. Over the next four years, I watched as Teacher Dale and her co-director Teacher Colleen guided parents as well as children with a patience and care that made a cohesive community out of families with tremendously varied backgrounds. Dale’s knowledge of child development is rich, extensive, and continually expanding. With compassion and realism, She and Colleen have provided countless parents with added positive tools to pull out in difficult situations with their children. Dale also has a strong interest in justice, values restorative justice practices, and has a ready grasp of the connection between family discipline and problem solving and the larger practices of justice in our society. When I began this site, I knew I had to… Continue reading

Book Review: ‘The Desire for Mutual Recognition – Social Movements and the Dissolution of the False Self’ – Peter Gabel

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Image showing book cover

Contributed by Elaine Quinn, editor of The Conscious Lawyer This review first appeared in the online magazine, The Conscious Lawyer, vol IV, October 2018. You can purchase this book through Routledge Taylor & Francis Group or through your favorite bookseller. “…our original longing from birth [is] to be seen by the other in a way that fully recognizes our humanity and our longing to simultaneously affirm our recognition of the other in the same way.” (Chapter 3, page 58) Before reading any further, take a moment to sit and look at the striking portrait below. This unusual and powerful invitation is one made to the reader in the first chapter of the book. It is an invitation that perhaps experientially captures the essence of what the author wants to convey – the experience of being truly recognized by a fully present human being, of deepening into our own natural presence… Continue reading

Reimagining Justice for a Precarious World

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Contributed by Mothiur Rahman of New Economy Law, a legal innovation lab based in the UK, strengthening civic resilience for precarious futures. Having been invited to give a UK briefing for the 2018 Conference for the “Project for Integrating Spirituality Law and Politics” (PISLAP), I have been reflecting on what it means to bring these 3 domains together of law, politics and spirituality. Many might associate law and politics together, but joined with spirituality? Modern notions of spirituality often see spirituality as a personal individual pursuit, separated off from the political that is social and collective by definition. Why is this the case? This separation begins to make sense when one considers that the spiritual foundations of Christianity were being settled at a time when the idea of institutions and their functions were still in their intellectual infancy. Thus it is arguable that the manner by which “spiritual authority” was… Continue reading