Am I My Brother’s Keeper   July 2020 Newsletter Paul Ferrini

Dear Friends,

I hope this finds you well and thriving. It is a challenging time for all of us and we need to rely on our core values and our daily spiritual practice to weather the harsh winds and stormy seas of this pan-epidemic and the economic and moral crisis that comes with it. We need to connect to love in our hearts, take time to nurture ourselves and shelter and protect our loved ones as best we can.
Every month I have been meeting with teachers and students of this work to check in to see how everyone is doing and to support each other through this crisis. I would like to invite you to join us for free on our next call on Wednesday, August 19, 2020 at 11 AM Eastern. There is no charge but you need to register so we can add you to the group send you the zoom link.
I am reaching out to everyone who needs a connection to love and a safe space to share feelings and experiences. So whether you are just discovering my work or you have attended a workshop or retreat in the past, I encourage you to re-connect with us. We are having this open house to welcome everyone back home.
I hope that you will join us. Please cllck here to register for the Open House and receive the link to join the zoom call.
I also want to invite all of you to attend my retreat September 18-20, 2020. Of course this retreat will be virtual so that we can all stay at home and stay safe. We are doing all that we can to make this event affordable for everyone. We hope you will join us.
Below you will also find a piece I recently wrote about “Why black lives matter.” This piece provides an important preview of the themes that I will be addressing in our retreat in September, which has the theme Freedom, Equality and Justice in the 21rst Century. Click here to read more
I hope to see you at the open house in August and/or the retreat in September,

Love and blessings,
Paul Ferrini

Why Black Lives Matter

Jesus told us in Mark 12.31 “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself.” Following that teaching means we learn to  treat each other with dignity and respect regardless of our skin color, our religion, our class, our cultural background or our gender identity. This is not just an ideal that he calls us to aspire to; it a heart-set and a mind-set that must be cultivated every day.

Yes, we all fall short.  Each one of us has prejudice and unconscious bias.  Some of us have beliefs that stand in the way and must be dissolved for us to break through to higher ground.

A simple example is refusing to wear a face-covering in the middle of a pan-epidemic because it somehow limits our freedom to do what we want to do.  If our freedom negatively injures or causes harm to others then that freedom will be short-lived and the virus we might have helped to prevent may find its way back to us.

“Love Your Neighbor as yourself’ means that you care not just for your own well-being, but for that of others as well.   And that short term sacrifice not only benefits others immediately; it also creates a long term benefit for you.

John Donne wrote that “No man is an island” and that is more true now than ever before.  What comes around goes around.  In a matter of a few hours Covid 19 hops a plane and makes its presence felt in a distant country. 

We are bound together not just in health, but also in sickness.  What effects one person effects all of us.

Covid 19 brings us face to face with the living truth that all lives matter and I cannot prosper unless you do.  My heath depends on you and what you do and vice versa.  I cannot be free if you are not, nor can I realize my potential if I in any way prevent you from realizing yours.

The golden rule is the great guiding spiritual principle for humankind.   “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

If you do not offer love, acceptance and equality then you offer judgment, attack and harassment of one kind or another.  I cannot climb the ladder to heaven if I leave you behind swinging from a tree or rotting in a prison cell.

After Cain slew his brother God asked him where Abel was, Cain responded, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  He wanted to deny or obscure his responsibility for killing his brother.   Sound familiar? White men in power have done a good job of that.

You can hide the truth, but sooner or later it will come back to haunt you.  This is one of those moments of reckoning.

Not just the murderer but the one who stands by and does not stop the crime must be held responsible.

Each one of us is responsible for what we think, feel, say and do.  If we don’t face the truth, it will come back to bite us.

The boomerang always returns to the sender.

So we must ask what seeds are we sowing with our thoughts, our emotions, our words and our actions?  What kind of tree will grow from those seeds.  Will it be the tree of life or death, the tree that shelters us or the tree on which our brother is crucified?

Until we know that we are called by our Creator to love each other the way that S/He loves us, neither justice nor prosperity can come to this world.

Waiting for a savior just delays the fact that we must come face to face with ourselves and the way that we treat one another.
We are the bringers of love.  It is and will always be up to us.

Freedom, Equality and Justice in the 21rst Century

A Virtual Retreat with Paul Ferrini September 18-20, 2020

The beauty of a virtual retreat is that you don’t have to leave your living room to participate. You save on air fare, room and board and even tuition. With the pan-epidemic spreading around the world, it is wise to stay home and stay safe. Yet attending this retreat will allow you to stay engaged with this important and timely issue.
Gathering together at the Autumnal Equinox (and Rosh Hashanah) we will explore how we can create greater authenticity and equality in our relationships and chart our course toward Freedom and Justice in the 21rst Century. Click here to read more about the retreat and see a description of the talks Paul will present.

New Books and Ebooks in French

Since some of the books translated by Martine Chalanset and published in France will soon be out of print, we have created ebooks and print on demand titles that now can be purchased here on this site or on Amazon.fr Please click here to see all of the titles that are available.