America's Collective Shadow: Race, Poverty and Religion

Commonway Tele-Seminar on 17 & 18 November, 2009 6-8 pm Pacific time

Many of us have done our own personal “shadow” work: courageously looking into those places where we do not live up to our own potential, when we fail our own standards.

Now, it’s time to take the next step: to look at our communities and our nation. This is not to DWELL on our past, but to RELEASE ourselves from its grip.

Race: This nation was founded on the highest principles of our Founders – the notion of the inalienable rights of humanity, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They then immediately walked away from those principles in the face of the economic, cultural and political reality of slavery.

Each one of us in this society is the economic beneficiary of hundreds of years of slavery. Each one of us has been scarred by the “hidden wound” – some more severely than others. And, the collective psyche of American society has been tainted.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. It's in our power to change our relationship to race and ethnicity, to learn and celebrate each other, instead of fear and separate.

Poverty: We see the people on the streets, holding up cardboard signs, asking for coins. We see the lines at the soup kitchens. We see people pushing all their worldly belongings in a shopping cart, looking for a doorway to sleep that night. We see, but we do not SEE.

Poverty isn’t something that happens to “those people”. Each of us is intimately bound and connected to the indignity, the powerlessness, the hopelessness of abject poverty in the land of wasteful abundance. Ignoring poverty is like ignoring cancer. Poverty – having too little, cannot be addressed without also addressing greed and avarice – having too much.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. It's in our power to eliminate poverty, on a global level.

Religion: Paradoxically, the core principles of every religion represent some of the highest aspirations of humanity, but the ACTIONS of some who claim to be religious represent the lowest forms of human behavior. Slavery, racism, the oppression of women, the justification of poverty, the suppression of learning (and even common sense) constitutes our “shadow” religious history. In order to shine our collective spiritual Light, we must free ourselves from our collective religious shadow.

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. In order to shine our collective spiritual Light, we must free ourselves from our collective religious shadow.

Format: This seminar will be offered over two days, in an interactive format of lectures and both large and small group discussions. The innovative “Maestro Conference” tele-seminar interface will allow maximum interaction for up to 50 participants.

Dates/ Times:

Part One: 17 November (Tuesday) 6-8 pm Pacific Time.
Part Two: 18 November (Wednesday) 6-8 pm Pacific Time.

Fees: Seminar fee for both Parts is $35. ($30 for Commonway members). To register: click on this link to go to the Commonway website for registration instructions:

http://www.commonway.org/node/109.