Description
Stock options and high earnings are no replacement for a sense of meaning and purpose for one's life. Living in a society whose "bottom line" is "looking out for number one" has undermined friendships, made relationships difficult, produced alienation and loneliness-and has been used to justify corporate social irresponsibility and environmental destructiveness. Selfishness and materialism permeate our relationships in work and in personal life, while we are taught to keep our spiritual life and our moral vision away from the public sphere. Spirit Matters shows how deeply we've been hurt personally, emotionally, ecologically, and politically by living in a world that systematically represses our spiritual needs-and how we might create a personal life and society that embodies what Michael Lerner describes as an Emancipatory Spirituality. It is a spirituality that affirms that there is enough, that generosity, atonement, joy, and celebration of the grandeur of the universe can be basic building blocks in constructing our own lives together. Spirit Matters demonstrates that the time is now to stop compromising with a world whose fundamentals are so far from our own highest values and begin to create the world we privately tell ourselves we really believe in. Don't be misled by the easy and accessible style of Lerner's writings: Spirit Matters is a profound new contribution to social theory and spiritual practice, and a new framework for thinking about childhood, loving relationships, the world of work, politics, law, education, and ecology. It is on the cutting edge of contemporary thought and yet speaks to the heart and soul. Spirit Matters speaks both to people who have tended to think that "spirit" is an empty category for religious zealots or a reactionary tool of repression, as well as to those who take spirituality seriously in their personal lives but who have yet realized that their spiritual practice could be the basis for a fundamental transformation of the world.… (more)
Library's review
Spirit Matters shows how deeply we've been hurt personally, emotionally, ecologically, and politically by living in a world that systematically represses our spiritual needs-and how we might create a personal life and a society that embodies what Michael Learner describes as an Emancipatory Spirituality.
Don't be misled by the easy and accessible style of Lerner's writings: Spirit Matters is a profound new contribution to social theory and spiritual pracitce, and a new framework for thinking about childhood, loving relationships, the world of work, politics, law, educations, and ecology. It is on the cutting edge of contemporary thought and yet speaks to the heart and soul. It could be the basis for a fundamental transformation of the world.
'If you are concerned about your health, the health of society and of the planet, read this book. Rabbi Lerner's Emancipatory Spirituality is just the right medicine for many of the ills of modern life.'-Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Spontaneous Healing and Eating Well for Optimum Health
'Spirit Matters is a profound and compelling look at the presence, or more disturbing, the absence, of spirituality in our world, along with powerful suggestons and remedies. Fully engaging and highly readable, it is a passionate cry from the heart to a world tranquilized with trivia and adrift in drivel. Read it for your own soul, and for the soul of the world as well.'-Ken Wilber, author of A Brief History of Everything and Integral Psychology
'This book is a miracle and a treasure. Please read it! It can open the heart of the most cynical person who denies spirit and thinks it's all new-agey flakiness. And at the same time it deepens the understanding and spiritual depth of those of us who have thought we already read all the books on spirituality we need and have already been involved in our own spiritual practice. If there's one spiritual book you must read and then share witih friends, this is it.'-Marianne Williamson, author of The Healing of America
'His theorietical arguments are compelling and well considered, particularly as he traces the history of the horrors we have reaped from collectively denying the Spirit, and readers will no doubt appreciate his exercises in becoming more open to the Spirit.'-Publishers Weekly
'Michael Lerner wants nothing less than to remake the world. Genuinely startling and thought-provoking.'-Los Angeles Times
'This book is well planned, beautifully presented, bold yet gentle, and hopefully will get the recognition it deserves.'-NAPEA Review
Contents
Preface
Introduction
One The evolution of spirit
Two Living in a spiritually deadened world
Three Love, mutual recognition, and spirit-The psychospiritual dimension
Four Ecological sanity requires spiritual transformation
Five Emancipatory spirituality
Six The respiritualization of our work and our professions
Seven The soul of medicine
Eight The spiritual transformation of law
Nine The spiritual transformation of education
Ten Spiritual practice and the socially engaged soul
Afterword How you can be involved
Bibliography
Index