I wondered what on earth I would blog about this week, considering that our dear earth is in trauma itself from all of its changes as a consequence of rapidly changing climate. More than that, our dear earth holds the bodies of those who have died at the hands of unjust people. Our dear earth intently hears the lies of greedy people using the produce of earth for themselves and creating arbitrary boundaries that they say others can’t cross. Since I’ve lived in Australia, I have a new respect for everything earth knows about us, no matter how important we feel ourselves to be. In the battle of which of us will survive the longest, there is no battle we humans will win, though Australian First Nations people have been holding their own for over 60,000 years. Yes, that number keeps growing, if you’ve been following my newsletter and seen smaller numbers. More and more research, in partnership with Aboriginal people and their knowledge, informs us daily.
In the meantime, we have life crafted by our Divine to live preciously with earth. Part of that living preciously is paying attention to where life in all its forms is not regarded as precious. We are urged by Love itself to face the facts of brutality, cruelty and more. But fact? Where can we find that? This blog is to give you some links to who and what I follow/read to give me facts – if you feel you need help. I read daily, but only until my body says, “enough for now.” I listen for the enough. We’re not called to hold it all, but to hold what we can, to speak truth with whomever will engage and to continue to feed hope. Here’s my list:
1. Substack, particularly the subscriptions pages of Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, Robert Hubbell, and Marianne Budde. I also read my Substack homepage, as it contains important information from a wide range of people. To state the obvious, I also check who I’m reading if I’ve not heard their name and like what they say. I use a search engine and enter ‘Name Name’ Reviews. That tells me relatively quickly if I can trust their media.
2. My homepage on Bluesky because I post articles from Substack which will point Bluesky in the direction of things I’m interested in. But as you’ve picked up, that could keep in me in a silo, so I also read headlines (at least) from
3. News outlets Washington Post, New York Times, The Guardian, Sojourners, the BBC and Al Jazeera.
4. Podcasts (when I’m at the gym): Nomad, The Rest is Politics [US and UK], Soul Search.
I keep up with politics and progressive religion (the Nomad podcast with Munther Isaac, a Palestinian Pastor and theologian was eye opening).
This picture is a little postcard size from the Twitter Art Exhibition in 2017. It was meaningful for me in the first full year of D J Trump’s first “presidential” term and the first full year of dealing with Brexit. Titled Despite, We Stand, it means far more now:
