For most of her life, Neets’aii Gwich’in leader Sarah James has worked to protect her homelands, including the coastal plain of the nearby Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The United States government wants to lease some of the area for oil exploration and drilling. To the region's longtime inhabitants, those plans threaten land they call sacred. *** Gwichʼin Alaska Native Sarah James … [Read more...]
SACRED STEPS: A Palestinian Man Changes How He Resists
In this story from The Spiritual Edge and our series Sacred Steps, we meet a Palestinian man trying to navigate one of the thorniest conflicts imaginable — whether Palestinians and Israelis can co-exist peacefully on a landmass barely bigger than the nine-county Bay Area. *** In the Palestinian town of Jericho, customers cycled in and out of a cell phone shop to buy new SIM cards. … [Read more...]
SACRED STEPS: They Wanted to Save Lives. The Government Accused Them of Crimes.
Most religions teach people to help those in need. But what happens when that mandate clashes with how the government views the law? After federal prosecutors cracked down on volunteers providing aid on the border, Scott Warren faced decades in prison for following his conscience. *** The desert near the Arizona-Mexico border can get brutally hot, and the August day I … [Read more...]
Sacred Steps: A Buddhist Lay Minister Asks ‘What Is A Good Death?’
Caroline Yongue (in orange cap) talks with colleagues as they use GIS to map the location of graves throughout the Sanctuary. Photo Credit: Jess Engebretson In the latest installment of Sacred Action from KALW’s The Spiritual Edge, we meet a Buddhist lay minister who runs a small green burial cemetery in Western North Carolina. The goal is to give North Carolinians an … [Read more...]
SACRED STEPS: How Two Mennonite Musicians Turn Street Ministry Into Song
Al and Andi Tauber met in the 1980s, when they were students at Illinois Wesleyan University. After trying different denominations, they settled on the urban Mennonite Church, and for the past 20 years they've worked with male sex workers in Chicago. Photo Credit: Jules Wecker The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was never really one movement. Lots of reformations … [Read more...]
