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Meaning Making, Environment/Climate, Coexistence
Sofia Sayabalian
Among Ice, Lichen, and Light

by Sofia Sayabalian

Having the opportunity to visit Reykjavík, Iceland was a special one. I always thought of Iceland as an isolated place–far, freezing, and frosted with whispers…

Among Ice, Lichen, and Light
March 2025, Inclusivity, Meaning Making, Ethics
Frank DiGirolamo
Authoring our Shared Story

by Frank DiGirolamo

“Wow! … You just listened to my whole anthem.” It was late at night, years ago, on North Broadway in Capitol Hill. “Miguel” had just recited his life story to me for a good 20 minutes…

Authoring our Shared Story
March 2025, Family, Meaning Making, October 2012, Beliefs
Camila Torres
Echale! The Story of Generations Past

by Camila Torres

When I was a child, I was terrified of the dark. I hated going to sleep, because, once the lights turned off, the sheer possibility of encountering a monster kept me awake…

Echale! The Story of Generations Past
Judaism, Family, March 2025, Young Adult
Amina Malkin
An Inheritance of History

by Amina Malkin

When talking about religion, my father will sometimes talk about “the chosen people,” a title that Jewish people have historically adopted as a way to reference being descended from…

An Inheritance of History
March 2025, Family, Young Adult, Catholicism
Gabby Prado
An Ongoing Legacy of Faith and Family

by Gabby Prado

Throughout my life, I’ve lived by the belief that my success and achievements are not solely mine but are deeply connected to the generations of my family who came before me…

An Ongoing Legacy of Faith and Family
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Four Paradoxes on the Path of Yoga

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Four Paradoxes on the Path of Yoga

by Philip Goldberg

Adapting the perennial wisdom of the Yoga tradition to contemporary life and a diversity of religious and spiritual perspectives is, and always will be, a work in progress. It is also a highly individual project, with few one-size-fits-all answers to the conundrums and challenges that arise. That’s why the Upanishads call the spiritual path a razor’s edge: You have to tread carefully, with keen vision, intellectual discernment, acute intuition, and a really good sense of balance.

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The Wholeness of Nature

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The Wholeness of Nature

by Katie Reis

I’m not a religious person. I was baptized a Catholic but slowly realized that many of Catholicism’s beliefs and principles did not fit my own. Over the years, I have explored many different religions. After I visited Japan as part of a student exchange program about a year ago, I became fascinated with Shintoism. Shinto beliefs are encapsulated by a perspective of seeing nature and the world in all its beauty.

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The Growing Edge of Interspirituality

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The Growing Edge of Interspirituality

by Kurt Johnson

Br. Wayne Teasdale is famous for his “interspiritual” worldview embracing all the spiritual narratives of the world as one collective heritage, arising historically from the conscious experience of our species, and seeks to draw from these resources the tools for altruistic behaviors that can actually build a world so envisioned.

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Dogma is a Danger to Us All

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Dogma is a Danger to Us All

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

“Religion is dead.” I winced as if I had experienced a body blow when I heard these words, delivered by one of the keynote speakers at an interspiritual conference on the East Coast three years ago.The keynote speaker happened to be a friend of mine, a cable show producer who for decades has extoled and promoted the “spiritual-but-not-religious” movement, a growing phenomena that has challenged the value and significance of traditional religions in our times.

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Bede Griffiths – Interfaith's Interspiritual Pioneer

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Bede Griffiths – Interfaith's Interspiritual Pioneer

by Marcus Braybrooke

Brother Bede Griffith’s (1906-1993) life of physical and spiritual exploration has been important in the spiritual journeys of many, many people, including myself. He was one of the first spiritually resonant models for those of us engaged in interfaith activities more than 50 years ago. His life suggested that one could be spiritually grounded and thriving in more than one tradition at the same time.

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Encountering Mary Magdalene

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Encountering Mary Magdalene

by Kathe Schaaf and Kay Lindahl

We are living in a time of profound spiritual crisis – and opportunity. As old systems break down, it is clear patriarchy is no longer a viable option. Everywhere around us we see the harm and imbalance that has resulted from the lost wisdom of the feminine on this planet. How can we animate a powerful wave of feminine spiritual leadership that will ground and nurture a new way of being on this planet now?

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Learning to Live in a Living Universe

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Learning to Live in a Living Universe

by Duane Elgin

For at least 12,000 years, since the end of the ice ages, humanity has been on a journey of separation – pulling back from nature and becoming ever more differentiated, individuated, and empowered. In recent decades, we have become so dominant as a species that we are producing Earth-changing trends – global warming, species extinction, unsustainable population, massive famines, waves of migration, and more – that threaten humanity’s future.

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Spiritual Exploring with Kids

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Spiritual Exploring with Kids

by Vicki Garlock

Kids love to explore. And a quick look at any summer camp guide will support that claim. Last summer, kids in our area could attend Camp Explorer, Camp Eco-Explorer, Camp Adventure, Camp Discovery, Camp Run Wild, Camp Invention, or Nature Adventures, to name just a few!

While We Still Can

While We Still Can

by Paul Chaffee, Editor

The decision to devote the September TIO to eco-justice came months before Harvey, Irma, and Jose ravaged the Caribbean, Texas, Florida, and eastern Mexico with torrential wind and water, before all-time heat records in the West sparked hundreds of fires...

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Ecology of Our Minds

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Ecology of Our Minds

by Nimai Agarwal

When I was eight years old, my parents used to take me to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. We would go every week of the summer, spread out a blanket on the grass, and enact a tradition central to our monotheistic branch of Hinduism: singing devotional songs to passersby, often accompanied by a harmonium and brass hand symbols.

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Caring for Creation (for Kids)

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Caring for Creation (for Kids)

by Vicki Garlock

Once creation, in all its splendor, has been spoken, dreamed, resurrected, danced, and cracked open into existence, we can turn out attention toward creation care. Since all the major faith traditions emergbed when people lived in harmony with the land, stories highlighting our connection with nature are readily found in the sacred texts and narratives of the world’s religions. 

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A Plea for the Sake of Us All

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A Plea for the Sake of Us All

from Voices for a World Free from Nuclear Weapons

This summer, two events of nuclear significance happened. First, North Korea successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that demonstrated greater reach and sophistication, signaling that, soon, it will have the capacity to drop nuclear weapons on the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia. Second, at the United Nations, 122 nations of the world voted “never under any circumstances to develop, test, produce, manufacture, otherwise acquire, possess or stockpile nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devises.”

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Where's the Moral Outrage?

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Where's the Moral Outrage?

by Katherine Marshall

“Where is the moral outrage?” A questioner at a recent Washington event demanded some explanation for the seeming indifference in the United States to hunger that affects tens of millions of people in Africa and the Middle East. Is it lack of knowledge? Citizens numbed by an unending deluge of horrifying news? A hardening of spirit accompanying Americans’ turning inwards?

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Acts of Mercy and Saving the Environment

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Acts of Mercy and Saving the Environment

by James Kurzynski

On September 1, 2016, Pope Francis introduced two new works of mercy pertaining to the environment...Why did Pope Francis add these works of mercy? What does this mean for the Church?  In answering these, it is important to reflect on why popes make these kinds of changes in the first place.

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Eco-Dharma: Awakening to the Environmental Crisis

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Eco-Dharma: Awakening to the Environmental Crisis

by David Loy

Interest in eco-dharma — the ecological implications of Buddhist teachings — is growing after years of apparent indifference and little conversation about it in Buddhist sanghas (communities). The environmental crisis has been in and out of headline news since at least 1992, when the first President Bush attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro

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Teilhard de Chardin – Envisioning a Unitive Evolution

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Teilhard de Chardin – Envisioning a Unitive Evolution

by Marcus Braybrooke

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-55), a distinguished paleontologist, theologian, and visionary, held a unitive vision that covered a wide canvas. He tried through his writings to bring the worlds of science and religion together, believing their combined insights held the key to creating a greater sense of global community. 

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John B. Cobb Jr. – Environmental “Evangelist”

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John B. Cobb Jr. – Environmental “Evangelist”

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

No ivory tower has ever been able to contain Dr. John B. Cobb, Jr. Even at 92, the premier “eco-theologian” of our times is a man on a mission. He urgently wants to convert us. But not in the conventional sense. He wants us all – regardless of our religious orientation, our racial, national, and cultural origins – to “evangelize” for an “ecological civilization”

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Seizing an Alternative

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Seizing an Alternative

by Philip Clayton

This is the story of the interfaith movement and climate change. It is also the story of a scholar of science and religion who gradually realizes that global climate change is the most urgent threat that humanity faces.Rampant poverty, social inequalities, the unjust treatment of the global South, each of these is magnified ten or a hundred fold by climate disruption.

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Interfaith Collaboration in the Wake of Global Climate Change

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Interfaith Collaboration in the Wake of Global Climate Change

by Justin Catanoso

On May 24, 2017 a grim-faced Pope Francis handed a signed copy of Laudato Si to President Trump during his visit to Rome. The U.S. president, who has called climate change “a hoax,” promised to read the papal encyclical, a spiritual and secular plea to save the Earth from environmental destruction. A week later, Trump announced plans to pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement

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Daring to Dream: Religion and the Future of the Earth

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Daring to Dream: Religion and the Future of the Earth

by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

There is a dawning realization from many quarters that the changes humans are making on the planet are comparable to the changes of a major geological era. The scientific evidence says we are damaging life systems on Earth and causing species extinction at such a rate as to bring about the end of our current period, the Cenozoic era, and ushering in the Anthropocene.