CEIE Releases 2026 Annual Report

from the CEIE Team

CEIE is pleased to announce the release of our 2026 Annual Report, showcasing key milestones, initiatives, and partnerships from the past year. We invite you to explore the impact of our work and the communities that make it possible down below.

A faith-rooted reflection on gender, climate, economy, and moral witness

by Sheena Foster

In Washington, D.C., the snow comes down quietly at first. It hushes the city. It blankets the sharp edges: the curb cuts, the cracked sidewalks, the marble steps of institutions that were never designed for all of us. The snow can make everything look clean, even when the systems beneath it are still polluted.

As a Black woman and seminarian, I have learned to pay attention to attempts to cover the truth. I have learned to listen for what is beneath the surface. I have learned that in this country, there is always a storm. Sometimes it is meteorological. Sometimes it is political. Sometimes it is moral.

The “snowstorm” that hit the nation’s capital was a disruption, yes. But it was also a sign. A reminder that nothing is stable anymore. Not the climate. Not our economy. Not the fragile networks holding together the lives of working families across this country.

And yet, as the snow fell, outrage rose.

Sometimes two things can spark moral awakening at once: the visible interruption of a storm, and the unbearable rupture of violence and injustice.

On January 29th, 2026 the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) joined a powerful coalition of faith-based organizations and people of faith from across the country in Washington, D.C. for an act of moral witness, praying with our feet and taking bold, collective action. We came together not just to speak, but to show up. Not only to lament, but to make the kind of holy noise that refuses to let injustice have the last word.

This witness unfolded in a moment of intensifying national grief and outrage following killings linked to federal immigration enforcement actions, including the deaths of Alex Jeffery Pretti, Renée Nicole Good, and Keith Porter Jr., U.S. citizens fatally shot by federal immigration agents. These tragedies have deepened a national crisis of conscience. They have exposed how cheap life has become in the public square, and how easily violence is justified when the suffering is politically convenient.

For people of faith, a crisis of conscience is never abstract. It is personal. It is political. It is embodied.

That is why leaders from multiple denominations stood shoulder to shoulder in moral witness. Many chose civil disobedience and were arrested. Their arrests were not for spectacle: they were a form of sanctified resistance. A reminder that faith is not meant to stay neat and inside the sanctuary. Sometimes faith demands that we move our bodies into the street.

To pray with our feet is to acknowledge the truth: faith that is not embodied can become domesticated, safe, sentimental, and distant. But faith that moves is faith that refuses to accept injustice as normal.

The personal is political: whose bodies bear the cost? When we talk about the personal as political, we must tell the truth about whose bodies bear the greatest burden. In every generation, the most vulnerable bodies are placed closest to danger. This is not new for Black people. This is not new for women. This is not new for immigrants, for the poor, for those navigating systems that were never built with their thriving in mind.

Women’s bodies carry life, and women’s bodies also carry grief. Black women in particular carry the load of a nation that often praises our strength while refusing to protect our humanity. We lead households through uncertainty. We provide care to children and elders. We hold communities together through prayer and organizing. We show up for the church, for our jobs, for our families, even when we are exhausted and even when our needs are ignored by others.

We do this while being concentrated in low wage service jobs, caregiving roles, and public sector work that is underfunded and undervalued. We experience storms not simply as weather but as threat. When the city shuts down: hourly workers lose pay, childcare collapses, commutes become dangerous. People risk their lives on icy roads simply to keep jobs that do not pay them enough to survive.

Scripture now comes alive in new ways. I hear the text speaking back. I hear it as witness. Romans 8:22 (NRSV) says: “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.” The earth is groaning: creation is testifying. That groaning is not metaphor anymore. It is measurable. It is visible. It is happening on our streets and in our lungs and in our communities. Climate change is not only environmental. It is economic. It is gendered.

Our earth is reacting to our poor stewardship. Heat waves are longer. Floods are more frequent. Storms are harsher. Seasons are unstable. Communities are fractured. The climate crisis is no longer a distant warning. It is a cataclysmic unfolding. The snowstorm that brought Washington to a standstill was not simply an inconvenience; it was a revelation. Creation is testifying.

Environmental harm is moral harm. Ecological violence is spiritual violence. When corporations poison the water, when neighborhoods are redlined into hotter zones with fewer trees, when public infrastructure fails and communities are left to fend for themselves, we are witnessing not only policy failure, but moral failure.

The earth groans because we have normalized exploitation.

The economy is trembling and wage workers face a deeper crisis.

Creation is not the only thing groaning. Wage workers are too.

Across this country, millions of people are living one paycheck away from collapse. A storm closure can mean unpaid rent. One missed shift can mean food insecurity. One medical bill can mean debt for years. Families are not simply balancing budgets. They are balancing survival.

And in moments like this, the political decisions made in Washington reveal what kind of nation we are becoming. The Senate is expected to vote on a legislative package narrowly passed by the House that includes Department of Homeland Security funding. The moral question is not whether enforcement can be funded. The moral question is: what does our nation choose to fund, and whose lives does that funding protect?

When public funding expands systems of enforcement while social protections erode, the result is not safety. It is fear. It widens the net of harm while leaving families without the basics required for human flourishing: stable housing, health care, quality education, livable wages, and dignity.

Faith demands witness: from prayer to public action. This is why the NCC and many others gathered in Washington, even amid freezing temperatures, even amid political backlash, even amid the personal risk of civil disobedience. Faith is not private when public policies determine who lives and who dies. Faith is not neutral when systems produce suffering. Faith is not complete when it ends at the altar and never reaches the streets.

The act of praying with our feet is part lament and part protest. It is confession and proclamation. It is the refusal to separate prayer from justice. We pray because we believe every human being bears the divine image. We march because we believe public policy must reflect moral truth. We grieve because lives have been lost and communities have been wounded. We organize because grief without action becomes despair.

In a democracy, silence is also participation.
Our faith calls us to build toward social flourishing. In the midst of the storm of national outrage, the question is not only what we oppose, but what we are called to create. Social flourishing requires more than reform. It requires moral reimagining.

A flourishing society is one where mothers do not fear immigration raids at school pick up, where workers do not fear bankruptcy because a storm shuts down their shift, where communities do not fear poisoned air and water, and where young people are not trained to accept violence as normal.

Faith communities cannot outsource justice to politicians. They must shape the moral imagination of the nation through teaching, organizing, public witness, and courageous truth telling. The work ahead is spiritual and structural. We must preach and we must protest. We must pray and we must legislate. We must cultivate compassion and demand accountability.

To pray with our feet is to declare: we will not be numbed. We will not be silent. We will not accept injustice as the final word.

Because the earth is groaning.

And so are the people.

And faith, real faith, moves.

by Phyllis Curott J.D. Rev. H.Ps.

“First they came for the Communists… then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

These words, written by Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller after the Second World War, are not just an act of contrition. They are a warning about silence—about the cost of waiting until injustice reaches our own door.

Today, the danger Niemöller named is no longer abstract. It’s no longer safely historical. It’s here, at our neighbors’ doors, and it is accelerating.

Without warrants, immigrants and citizens are seized from their homes and off the streets by heavily armed, masked Federal agents. The shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis are tragedies that brutally expose what happens when political extremism, dehumanization, and authoritarian rhetoric move from speech into action, from ideology into humanity. They force us to confront a sobering truth: when violence becomes normalized, when fear becomes a governing tool, no one is untouched.

But Minneapolis offers us something else—something vital. In the aftermath of violence, the state and local government are standing up for its citizens, and citizens are standing up for each other. Faith leaders are crossing denominational and theological boundaries to stand at the front lines of peaceful protest. Vigils are being held, mutual aid networks are being mobilized, neighbors are bearing witness. Compassion, courage, and love are embodied in action. Environmental justice groups, labor advocates, women’s organizations, racial justice, and religious communities are standing together—not because they agree on everything, but because they understand something essential: flourishing is collective, or there is none.

This is where the personal becomes political.

In traditions like my own, Spirit is embodied by Creation. The world is understood as a living web of relationships. Harm to one strand reverberates through the whole and awakens restorative action. Justice is not an abstraction; it is a sacred practice of care for others, communities, land, and future generations. From this perspective, authoritarianism is not merely a political system. It is a spiritual pathology. It severs relationships. It thrives on domination rather than reciprocity, fear rather than belonging. Cruelty is the point. It is unnatural.

Across the United States, we are witnessing the rise of a movement integral to autocracy, cloaking itself in religious language while betraying the moral core of religion itself. Under the banner of “faith,” fundamental freedoms are being narrowed. Under the guise of “religious liberty,” the rights of people of color, immigrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, and religious minorities are being stripped away. Economic inequality is sanctified as destiny rather than confronted as an injustice, and the natural world is objectified and treated as expendable.

This is not accidental. Authoritarian movements require an enemy. They depend on “the other”—someone to blame, to fear, to exclude. Religion, when distorted, becomes a powerful tool for this project. It can be weaponized to demand obedience, silence dissent, and sacralize hierarchy.

Religious leaders face a defining choice.

We can remain silent and tell ourselves that politics is not our domain, that neutrality is wisdom, that speaking out risks division. Or we can tell the truth: silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality. It is acquiescence. It is consent.

Every major religious and philosophical tradition teaches some version of this truth: human dignity is not conditional. Compassion is not selective. Justice is not optional. When religious leaders lend their voices—or their silence—to movements that dehumanize, they do not protect faith. They hollow it out.

Conversely, when religious leaders stand together across differences, something remarkable happens. We saw it in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 60’s. We see it in Los Angeles, Chicago, and now Minneapolis. We see it wherever faith communities partner with organizers to protect civil liberties, democracy, and voting rights, defend our neighbors, preserve reproductive autonomy, care for Mother Earth, and insist on an economy that serves life rather than exploits it. We see it when interfaith coalitions refuse to let grief or fear collapse into hopelessness and instead transform these feelings into action.

This is what spiritual leadership looks like in an age of authoritarianism. It is not about capitulation. It is about courage. It is not about purity. It is about solidarity.

As a First Amendment attorney, I know how precious and precarious freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion are. These liberties cannot survive when dissenting voices are punished, erased, or when the state elevates one worldview above all others. They cannot survive when truth is murdered by lies. Freedom depends on the conviction that no single person or tradition has the right to rule, and that all have the responsibility to protect one another’s freedom.

As a Wiccan priestess, I know that joy, care, and reverence are acts of resistance. To respect the land, to gather community, and to insist on beauty and meaning in the face of cruelty—are not retreats from political life. They are refusals to let fear constrain life.

We are at a crossroads. The personal losses we grieve today are warnings about the collective future we may inhabit tomorrow. They are calls to choose relationship over rupture, courage over comfort, and solidarity over silence.

To the readers of The Interfaith Observer, and to the communities you serve: this moment is asking something of us. Not perfection. Not unanimity. But presence. Voice. Action.

If authoritarianism thrives on isolation, then our answer must be community. If it feeds on despair, then our answer must be hope made visible. If it seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor, then our answer must be a radical commitment to one another’s dignity, safety and wellbeing.

The personal is political because people matter. The personal is political because of what we choose to defend—now—will determine who is left to speak when the danger comes to our door.

May we choose wisely. May we choose each other. May we choose life.

by Amelio Collins

The world held its breath in 2018 marked by intensifying climate reports, rising global temperatures, and a growing sense that time was running out. That same year, the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning of the severe consequences of surpassing 1.5°C of warming signaled a turning point in global climate awareness. Public discourse began to shift from distant concern to urgent crisis, as scientists, activists, and policymakers grappled with the reality that immediate action was necessary. Around the same time, a young, eminent activist, Greta Thunberg, emerged as a powerful voice and catalyzed a global youth movement through reframing climate change as not only an environmental issue, but a moral and generational one.

In the face of these mounting challenges, humanity was forced to confront a difficult question: would we continue down this destructive path or finally take responsibility for the future of our planet? I remember holding my breath the first time I heard Greta Thunberg speak out against how we were treating our planet. She was confident, urgent, and quickly became a role model for my generation, Gen Z. The video I was watching in my middle school class about Greta Thunberg speaking out against climate change ended, yet I still held my breath. How in the world are we going to fix this? I wondered.

I was eleven years old when I first learned about environmental sustainability. At the same time, I was also beginning to question my gender and sexual orientation in a world that already felt fragile and uncertain. I worried about the future, the future of our planet and the future of my identity, since it was unknown whether either would be taken seriously or disregarded as something temporary, inconvenient, or unworthy of real attention. Even at such a young age, I knew that both the Earth and my identity—my sense of self—deserved care, protection, and the chance to grow without apology.

At that age, what I did not yet have was the language to understand that these anxieties are not separate. The climate crisis, the politics of gender, and the economic systems shaping our lives were already deeply entangled. What felt personal—fear, uncertainty, and the search for belonging—was already political, shaped by decisions made far beyond my classroom walls.

Today, the overlap of climate policy, economic inequality, and identity-based politics is impossible to ignore. Climate change is no longer treated as a shared moral responsibility, but as a political fault line. Scientific evidence—from rising global temperatures to accelerating biodiversity loss—directly challenges industries built on fossil fuels, mass extraction, and unchecked consumption. Accepting these findings would require a complete structural economic change, threatening the power and profit of those who benefit most from the current system. As a result, climate science is often debated, delayed, or dismissed—not because it lacks credibility, but because it disrupts entrenched economic interests.

At the same time, gender—particularly the lives of transgender and gender- nonconforming people—has become a central battleground in political discourse. In many cases, anti-transgender rhetoric functions as a distraction, redirecting public attention away from widening economic inequality and systemic failures. By framing marginalized identities as threats, political leaders can mobilize fear, consolidate power, and avoid accountability for economic injustice.

This creates a dangerous dynamic: advocating for both environmental protections and gender-affirming care becomes politicized as radical or destabilizing, even though both are rooted in dignity, survival, and human rights. In both cases, urgent realities are reduced to talking points—the Earth becomes something to exploit or defend, and transgender lives are flattened into ideological tools rather than recognized as human lives deserving of care. These debates do not unfold in isolation. They are rooted in economic systems that reward extraction, consumption, and endless growth, even when the costs are borne by the most vulnerable. The same systems that treat the planet as disposable also treat marginalized people as expendable.

And yet, within this political climate, there are signs of social flourishing—quiet and determined moments where people resist oppression and choose care instead. Across the globe, women and transgender leaders were and continue to be at the forefront of climate justice movements. Activists such as Xiuhtezcatl Martinez have taken direct political action—speaking before the United Nations and participating in youth-led climate litigation—to challenge government inaction, while figures like Wyn Wiley have created initiatives like the Outdoorist Oath, using performance and community engagement to advocate for environmental protection and inclusivity. These fearless leaders set an example for others to build community centers, healthcare support, and faith-based initiatives that step in where governments fall short.

I remember pitching into these efforts as an adolescent. While reflecting on these times, I notice that the majority of those who were in charge were being oppressed in different ways due to their identities. But they stood together, no matter how different they were from one another, to create a holistic, healing, and safe community. These efforts remind us that politics is not only what happens in legislative chambers, but it also unfolds in our shared neighborhoods, sanctuaries, and acts of care and responsibility.

Faith traditions are sometimes co-opted by political ideologies that betray care for others and our planet. Faith and religion are not neutral in the political landscape and religious language is often wielded to resist women’s and transgender rights. This tension reveals how faith, like politics itself, can either reinforce harm or cultivate flourishing lives and communities. The question here is not whether faith belongs in public life, but which values it wants to uphold: fear or compassion, control or care. Faith builds a community where individual ethics are channeled into collective action. In my experience, faith has meant being part of a community that supports my right to explore belief on my own terms—whether individually or collectively—while still remaining accountable to others.

Looking back, I realize that the breath I held at eleven years old was not only fear. It was also anticipation. The questions I asked earlier are no longer simply how we will fix what is broken, but who gets to imagine the future and whose voices are trusted in shaping it. If we continue to treat gender, climate, faith, and the economy as separate issues, we miss how deeply they inform one another. But if we recognize their interconnectedness, we open the possibility for more equitable and compassionate ways of living together.

To name the personal as political is not to reduce experience to ideology, but to recognize that our lives unfold within systems that demand moral attention. Gender, climate, faith, and economy intersect not in theory, but within bodies, communities, and ecosystems. In a political climate that often encourages despair, social flourishing still emerges wherever people choose care over disposability. So perhaps, the most hopeful act is no longer holding our breath in fear but learning to breathe together. What we must do is recognize our shared vulnerability and claim our shared responsibility for the world still taking shape, and then choose, together, to shape it.

by Kehkashan Basu

We can no longer afford neutrality.

Not when women and girls are being denied their fundamental human rights.

Not when the rights of Mother Earth and all her creatures to exist, regenerate, and sustain life are being stripped away.

Not when we live within an economic system that rewards the ultra-rich for exploiting the rest of humanity and the planet itself.

The global economic order is not neutral. It is largely designed and governed by a white, cisheteropatriarchal power structure that concentrates wealth upward while externalizing harm downward onto women, girls, Indigenous peoples, racialized communities, people of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, and ecosystems. It commodifies labour, land, and life. Climate change is not an accidental side effect of this system; it is one of its most visible outcomes.

Herein lies the question: if the systems that shape our lives are not neutral, then how can our response to them be neutral? Neutrality in this context only reinforces what is already unjust. This means that when economies are built on extraction, the planet pays the price. When the planet destabilizes, women and girls pay first.

In the world’s most vulnerable communities, climate disruption does not arrive as an abstract crisis, but as daily survival. Drought empties wells. Floods erase homes. Heat makes work dangerous. Storms force migration. As resources grow scarce, gender inequality deepens. I witnessed this firsthand while working with communities in Suriname, where I met a young girl standing outside her classroom holding a baby in her arms. She watched the lesson through the doorway but could not enter because, as the eldest daughter, she had been pulled out of school to care for her younger siblings while her parents travelled farther each day in search of work after climate disruptions had affected their livelihoods. Her story is not unusual. Girls are pulled from school to shoulder unpaid labour. Women absorb the burden of care without protection or recognition. Families under economic stress are pushed into impossible decisions that too often sacrifice girls’ futures in the name of short-term survival.

As the Founder-President of Green Hope Foundation, a grassroots organization working across 29 countries and reaching over half a million people, I write as a practitioner who has learned through lived experience that neutrality in any one of these crises reinforces injustice across all. At Green Hope Foundation, we work at the intersection of climate justice, gender equality, and sustainable development, implementing community-led solutions such as access to clean energy, safe water and sanitation, climate-resilient agriculture, and education for girls. My decision to found the organization was shaped by the values I grew up with - rooted in my Hindu faith and an interfaith upbringing - which taught me that the Earth is sacred and never a resource to exploit. In Hindu philosophy, the Earth is revered as Bhoomi Devi, the living embodiment of the planet. At the age of seven, I had seen a picture of a dead bird with its belly full of plastic – plastic that had been discarded by humans. I remember feeling a profound sense of injustice that one small creature had to suffer because of human carelessness. In that moment, the teachings I had grown up with - that all life is sacred and interconnected - became real to me. This led me to plant my first tree on my eighth birthday, and that act became the first step in a lifelong commitment to environmental and social justice.

That understanding set the course of my life and continues to guide my work through Green Hope Foundation’s initiatives. In many of the communities where we work, the absence of basic infrastructure disproportionately harms women and girls. Through our programs in rural Bangladesh and in the Sundarbans of India - the world’s largest mangrove forest - Green Hope Foundation has constructed safe sanitation facilities so that women and girls no longer have to risk snake bites, harassment, or assault by relieving themselves in open fields at night. With access to toilets and clean water, girls are able to remain in school with dignity and safety instead of being pulled out of education due to stigma or risk. Similarly, Green Hope Foundation has installed solar-powered energy systems in schools and community centers in countries such as Liberia and Cambodia, enabling classrooms to remain open after sunset and creating new opportunities for women and girls to access education and skills training. The solar streetlights installed through our programs in these rural communities have additionally created safer public spaces for women and girls after dark. These outcomes are not abstract ideals; they are lived transformations. They demonstrate that when systems are redesigned with justice and dignity at their center, communities stabilize and inequality begins to recede.

This is why the theme Personal-as-Political matters to me so deeply. Climate change is personal. Gender injustice is personal. Economic exploitation is personal. These forces are felt in bodies, in households, in classrooms, and in fields - in the quiet calculations of who eats, who waits, and who is allowed to dream.

It is at this point that neutrality collapses. I am unapologetic about where I stand as an ecofeminist, recognizing that the same systems that exploit the Earth also disproportionately harm women and girls - treating both the planet and marginalized bodies as resources to be extracted rather than lives to be protected. My work has repeatedly shown that climate injustice and gender inequality are not separate struggles, but interconnected realities that must be addressed together. I am proud of my commitment to justice for people and planet, and I refuse to dilute it for comfort or approval. Naming harm directly, by challenging systems that profit from exploitation and insisting on dignity and life, is an act of ethical responsibility. Neutrality, in moments like these, does not preserve balance: it preserves harm. Speaking out against these systems has come at a cost. I have faced sustained cyberbullying, threats, harassment, and stalking for challenging the status quo. I have been targeted because of my age, my gender, my race, and my refusal to be silent. These attacks are designed to exhaust, intimidate, and silence those who question entrenched power.

Yet backing down has never been an option for me. If those of us who see the harm retreat, who will carry this work forward? If fear is allowed to dictate our response, injustice wins by default. The goal of intimidation is not disagreement: it is disappearance. Refusing to disappear is itself an act of resistance.

Interfaith and values-based leadership today can no longer stop at dialogue or symbolism. It must translate shared values into action by standing publicly for human and planetary rights, supporting policies that protect vulnerable communities and ecosystems, and investing in solutions that place women and girls at the center of climate resilience. Leadership beyond symbolism means working with communities on the frontlines – to support education, sustainable livelihoods, and clean energy access - while using moral authority to challenge systems that profit from exploitation. When faith and values-based leaders move from words to tangible action, they help reshape the economic and social structures that sustain injustice and demonstrate that climate justice, gender justice, and economic justice are inseparable.

The challenges that face us are daunting, but they are not insurmountable. History has continually shown us that progress has never come from neutrality, but from people who choose courage over comfort, solidarity over silence, and justice over convenience. Progress comes from those who remain steadfast in their values when it would be easier to step back.

There is no neutral ground when lives are at stake.

There is no neutrality when the planet is being pushed beyond its limits.

The question is no longer whether we will take a side. The question is whether we will have the strength to take the right one - and refuse to look away.

by Ann Smith

I first heard the phrase ‘personal is political’ in 1985 in Nairobi, Kenya, at the UN Third World Conference on Women. African women came in waves; they walked huge distances, traveled by buses, trains, and planes to demand their voices be heard. It was a breakthrough moment to witness for the first time a grassroots global women’s movement. The movement was presented both in the formal UN Conference Hall and outside in the Forums. We listened with open hearts. We shared best practices and realized we had more in common than what divided us, no matter where we lived. When Maureen Reagan, representing the US Government delegation, said the political was not personal, 10,000 women said it was.

Another breakthrough moment came to me outside of the conference when I witnessed an economic model that could eradicate poverty worldwide. Our Anglican delegation, the first delegation to attend a UN conference as an official NGO with consultative status, was invited by the International Anglican Mother’s Union to visit a remote village on Mt. Kenya. The Mother’s Union, headquartered in London, is one of the largest women’s organizations in the world. What I experienced in this village I will never forget or stop talking about as one of the best examples of women’s economic empowerment.

The village women had built a bakery from bricks made from their terracotta soil. Through selling their baked goods under the management of Mother Union members, the village women earned their own money for the first time. When the male leaders in the village demanded they turn over the money, the women refused, telling us that the men would use it to build another beer parlor. The women declared with pride and fortitude that they would build a health clinic. When women raise their own money or are given a grant or loan, they give back to their communities building prosperity for all.

Ten thousand women’s small groups and organizations formed in Kenya over the next decade. This should have made the headlines in every news service throughout the world, but it didn’t.

Eventually the momentum of the grassroots women’s movement brought 40,000 women to the UN Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China in 1995. The opening ceremony was held in an outdoor stadium that was overcrowded and overflowing into the streets. Instead of feeling mistreated, we sang in unison a simple, but powerful song that rings in my heart even today, ‘Keep on moving forward, Never turning back.’

A ‘concerned’ Chinese government offered Forum options in Huairou, a small town thirty miles away in a space woefully inadequate for an international gathering. But making do is something women have mastered out of necessity for thousands of years. We had come from around the world to improve the status of women and girls everywhere, so we gathered in Huairou with personal stories of hardships and best practices. Women’s issues were brought to life in songs, dances, drama, art, plays, and, of course, conversations. We did water ceremonies, peace rallies, a Congo line that grew as hundreds of women joined in dancing around the tents, kiosks, and grounds. 

‘Women’s rights are human rights,’ declared US Representative Hillary Clinton at the closing of her official UN speech in Beijing, shattering barriers with her statement. What had been a rather business-as-usual session erupted into applause and a rallying cry for justice. The message was quickly relayed to Betty Friedan in Huairou, where women burst into cheers and laughter, one of our best weapons against patriarchy.

The Platform for Action generated by the UN Fourth World Conference on Women was approved by every member state and continues to be foundational for improving the lives of women and girls globally. Grassroots women from every corner of the world to this day actively strive to address the issues they face, including advocating for the elimination of poverty and violence, education and health, and equality and participation in decision-making, dignity in the media, climate justice, and more. Imagine if governments would create policies, laws, programs, and funding to support these efforts. We might not be living in the nightmare of today’s economic, environmental, and violent political crises.

Women continue to contribute in the people’s movement that resists tyranny and co-creates sustainable solutions. Our news is not told in the mainstream. Instead, it is hidden, almost forbidden, because it conflicts with the shared illusion of patriarchal and hierarchical leadership. The largest movements in human history are made up of grassroots women’s organizations. These organizations are self-governed, community-focused, inclusive, and thrive on a dynamic where information, power, resources, and leadership are shared. Because women are motivated by the ‘personal,’ they are found on the frontlines of climate and health crises, poverty, war, and economic issues where they continue to accrue the knowledge, political will, and wisdom needed to offer sustainable solutions. 

The women, indigenous peoples, and environmentalists who attended COP30 in 2025 in Belem, Brazil are not relying on governments who are beholden to the fossil fuel industry to address the climate crisis. Instead, they have initiated the Global Ethics Stocktake (GES) meant to initiate self-managed community conversations on caring for creation. The power of love and being in harmony with nature is meant to lift up moral values, and inspire boycotting, protesting, buying healthy and sustainable foods, as well as voting for those who support the greater good.

The Women’s Task Force of the Parliament of World Religions will hold a GES online workshop March 11, 2026, in New York at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Information on GES and how to host a circle conversation will be presented. Our goal is that each GES circle will inspire and teach others to host circles and exponentially spread possibilities for resistance, resilience, regeneration, and renewed health throughout the Earth’s human population.

As old structures are being torn apart, democracy, environmental protection, and human rights are being violated. Each day, grassroots women continue to step forward by instilling a moral imperative to share resources, give to those in the greatest need, and care for all life on Earth.

Women’s leadership, in partnership with men, has the potential for co-creating a world where all life thrives. Supporting grassroots women and their organizations by empowering their voices at decision-making tables, is not only the right thing to do but is the best means we have for saving humanity and the planet.

by Faith Spencer

Today’s world is fragmented. Most U.S. adults tend to view life through a lens of political party affiliations and “us versus them.” There’s an evolutionary basis for this. In prehistoric days, loyalty to one’s own group (“us”) helped ensure survival, as did a skeptical and distrusting attitude about outside groups (“them”). Unfortunately, our brains don’t tend to change old habits very easily.

So now, when we check out the news, our minds automatically begin their “duty” of separating what’s good or bad, who’s right or wrong, who’s “us” and who’s “them.” We are all too ready to judge those on the “other side” for their transgressions, even feeling secret delight at their travails and missteps.

Yet the mentality of “us versus them” is a slippery slope, eventually leading to hatred and discriminatory behavior against perceived outsiders. Today’s headlines are dominated by the news of war and armed conflict, underscoring the catastrophic implications of a separatist mindset.

Sometimes this mindset is called “othering,” a habit of segmenting that reduces empathy and prevents genuine dialogue (Curle, 2020). In our everyday lives, this might look like a decision that “all Republicans are selfish” or “all Democrats are immoral,” alongside a resulting tendency to avoid, ignore, or look down upon those who we believe are in those categories.

Psychologist Rick Hanson calls this tendency “It-ing.” In his book Neurodharma he writes, “When we regard people as an ‘It’ to our ‘I,’ it’s easy to overlook, discard, or exploit them” (2020, p. 87).

And it’s not just people we may regard as “its”; we can also consider animals and our planet to be “its”—unimportant and unworthy of protection. This, of course, leads to denying the planet’s or animals’ rights to thrive and be healthy, and to using them solely for our own purposes.

The truth is most of us fall into the trap of thinking negatively about certain people or living in a selfish way without considering all the consequences of our daily actions. I know I’ve personally fallen into the trap of seeing people of a certain political persuasion as “wrong-minded,” which denies their humanity. The truth is, in most ways, they’re just like me, and they have their own reasons to believe as they do.

According to many spiritual traditions, the origin of this segmented, separatist way of thinking is the ego. None of us is immune to its influence. The ego is the part of our human mind that says we are set apart from others— that instead of being held in perfect unity, we are separate entities that must judge and categorize the world for a sense of comfort and control. From this toxic belief in extreme separation and “otherness” comes all the problems we encounter in our world, whether it’s discrimination or the destruction of the environment.

The alternative to this worldview is embracing the idea of an inherent oneness of all life, which the majority of spiritual traditions teach, and toward which many sciences point, including quantum physics. This perspective is the remedy we need for this ailing, fractured world.

The Science of Oneness

When quantum physics was born in the early 1900s, certain mind-bending discoveries convinced many physicists that the world is inherently unified. Physicist Erwin Schrodinger said, “Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.”

Physicist David Bohm said separation was an illusion, one that “cannot do other than lead to endless conflict and confusion.” In Bohm’s 1980 book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, he wrote that viewing the world as separate parts is “in essence, what has led to the growing series of extremely urgent crises that is confronting us today. This is now well known, this way of life has brought about pollution, destruction of the balance of nature, over-population, world-wide economic and political disorder and the creation of an overall environment that is neither physically nor mentally healthy for most people who live in it” (p.2).

Even today, some quantum physicists, such as Jon Hagelin, PhD, and Amit Goswami, PhD, spread the message of oneness. In his blog, Goswami wrote that “science, in the form of quantum physics, has rediscovered the spiritual oneness of everything” (Goswami, 2019). These physicists make it their mission to popularize a new understanding that can lead to a less divided world.

The Spirituality of Oneness

And while it’s true that oneness may seem hard to accept, it isn’t anything new. For centuries, countless spiritual traditions have espoused oneness as the truth of life:

Buddhist teachings convey the interconnectedness of all life, including the concept of annata, which means non-self (meaning that the individual self is an illusion, and we live in an intertwined world of emptiness or śūnyatā).

In Hinduism, Brahman is the divine essence of everything, and each person is bestowed with a part of this essence, called Atman, that connects each person with this greater source.

In Sufism, the goal is to achieve wahdat-al-wujud, which means unity of being.

In Taoism, followers attempt to merge with the harmonizing force of the universe called the Tao rather than following the ego or considering oneself separate from all that is.

In the Jewish Kabbalah tradition, Ein Sof is the source of all things, described as an endless infinite light, and alma de peruda is a term that represents the illusory world of fragmentation or separation.

In Christian mysticism, followers strive for a sense of unification with God, Jesus, and all things through prayer.

And, not to neglect mainstream Christianity, the trinity is an example of oneness—three aspects of one divinity—and Jesus said, “I and my father are one.” What’s more, in John 17:21, Jesus prays for unity among his disciples: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.”

All these traditions offer specific ways to experience a state of oneness. This is important because merely understanding oneness intellectually may not lead to substantial change in our worldview, perspectives, and actions.

As transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilbur explains in his book Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy: “The ecological crisis—or Gaia’s main problem—is not pollution, toxic dumping, ozone depletion, or any such. Gaia’s main problem is that not enough human beings have developed to the postconventional, world-centric, global level of consciousness, wherein they will automatically be moved to care for the global commons” (2000, p.137).

Wilbur adds that acquiring this level of consciousness involves “going through at least a half dozen major interior transformations,” which are found through a “genuine path of interior growth and development” (2000, 137–138). He mentions intensive meditation, contemplative prayer, and active rituals as practices that cultivate this growth.

We can all meditate. We can all pray. By doing so, we can eventually develop into people who automatically want to care for others and the planet, and who treat everyone like an important part of our unified family, regardless of their beliefs or outward actions. We have the power within us to transcend the idea of division and embody the oneness that spiritual traditions teach. It starts with us.

by Maurice A. Bloem, Andrés Martinez, and Nora Khalaf-Elledge

Climate change did not arrive in the Arctic through policy frameworks or global summits. It arrived through memory. Vera Solovyeva is an Indigenous Sakha woman from a small village in the Sakha Republic in northeast Russia, now living in Washington, DC. She’s a climate scientist and Indigenous researcher whose work focuses on the ways Indigenous peoples in Siberia and Alaska experience, observe, and adapt to climate change, and how their knowledge can shape locally grounded, just, and effective adaptation strategies.

“From my childhood memories, I knew that climate change was already starting in the 1970s. The Arctic is the region where warming is happening four times faster than the rest of the world, and my homeland is on permafrost, so the consequences are very vivid. As Indigenous people, we have a lot of knowledge, and we can successfully adapt, but we need help from the government, from the international community, and from science to support us with evidence that Indigenous people can actually manage these problems.”

Vera’s testimony reminds us that what is often dismissed as “personal experience” has long been political, carrying evidence and moral weight well before climate change entered global policy frameworks — lived, remembered, and acted upon within households, communities, and faith infused moral worlds.

Vera’s memory of the impact of warming since the 1970s and her call for respectful partnerships gives moral weight to lived testimony, which can and should reframe policy questions and interventions. An evidence review conducted by the Joint Learning Initiative and Christian Aid shows the impact of climate stress in reorganizing household life, a change that often remains invisible to high-level discussions. The reshuffling of labor, care, and authority operates through what can be understood as gendered moral economies: everyday norms, narratives, and expectations that assign responsibility to women (usually on unpaid tasks) while men have to seek paid work elsewhere. This reshuffling lightens some pressures but frequently increases women’s labor while reducing their voice over resource scarcity.

Economic instability caused by climate change amplifies invisible pressures on women, such as increasing unpaid care and constraining choices, while creating environments where coercive arrangements can take hold and cascade over time. Yet, there is hope. Faith networks can operate as sources of practical relief and spiritual anchoring, which shape meaning, accompaniment, and community resilience where formal systems are absent.

Mainstream narratives should therefore be treated with caution, as they often flatten layered realities, marginalize Indigenous knowledge, and under-record ritual and grief. This renders faith-based care invisible in most policy debates. Faith community inclusion ensures that policy decisions honor gendered household politics and recognize spiritual losses, while co-creating responses alongside local wisdom.

Climate stress affects power relations, protections, and exposure to violence. Evidence synthesized by JLI on faith and gender-based violence shows that periods of environmental and economic strain often heighten risks of intimate partner violence, early or forced marriage, and transactional arrangements, particularly where formal protection systems are weak.

These risks and responses are deeply shaped by religious norms, leadership, and community structures. Faith actors can reinforce gendered power, for example by legitimizing silence, endurance, or male authority. They can also challenge it by reframing harm as injustice and mobilizing protection and care. Across contexts, women’s faith-based networks are often the first line of support, offering shelter, mediation, and accompaniment when formal services are inaccessible.

Climate stress and Gender-based violence (GBV) thus mutually intensify both vulnerability and resistance. Whether harm is compounded or interrupted depends on resources and relational realities: who holds authority and political power; whose voices are trusted; and which moral frameworks guide response. Taken together, these dynamics raise a deeper question about how evidence itself is produced and valued.

JLI’s State of the Evidence Navigator is being developed to surface not only what we know about climate, gender, and economic vulnerability, but also how knowledge is produced, valued, and mobilized. Across JLI’s evidence syntheses, a consistent pattern emerges: global policy debates are often shaped by data generated far from the communities most affected, while local, Indigenous, and faith-rooted knowledge remains underrecognized, undervalued, or treated as anecdotal.

The Navigator makes these power asymmetries visible. It investigates whose knowledge counts, who defines a problem, and which forms of evidence are considered legitimate. When faith practices, values, rituals, and experiences of loss or grief are excluded from evidence systems, policies risk misreading both vulnerability and resilience. This results in decisions about migration, protection, and adaptation that are framed narrowly, detached from the relational worlds in which they are embodied, as primarily technical choices rather than moral decisions negotiated within families, faith communities, and social hierarchies.

Positioned in response, JLI acts as a translator, working across local realities, global systems, and diverse faith traditions to bridge evidence and ethics in ways that support more just, equitable, grounded, and accountable responses.

Political responses to climate disruption, gender inequality and economic insecurity cannot rely on technical fixes alone, as these are experienced first in intimate spaces like homes, relationships and faith communities. Responses depend on inner capacities that shape how power is exercised, knowledge is received, and decisions are made. JLI’s IDG × FAITH initiative is a practitioner-led, evidence-informed effort to co-create faith-rooted expressions of the Inner Development Goals, recognizing religious traditions as long-standing sites of inner formation rather than treating faith communities as recipients of externally developed, secular models. Relational awareness is essential for navigating gendered tensions within households and communities, particularly under climate stress. Across faith traditions, spiritual practices of lament, discernment and accompaniment help communities process loss while sustaining moral agency. Preliminary findings from JLI’s emerging IDG x FAITH work highlight the capacities such as courage to confront hierarchy, humility to recognize our own biases and empathy to take seriously experiences that fall outside of our own contexts.

This is where “put down the duckie” becomes more than a metaphor. Borrowed from a simple children’s lesson about learning in which holding tightly to what feels familiar prevents new skills from being learned, it captures the need to temporarily release what feels safe or authoritative to listen, adapt, and engage differently. Applied to gender, climate, and economic injustice, it emphasizes that political transformation depends not only on new evidence or policies, but on inner flexibility such as the willingness to loosen entrenched habits of authority and re-enter relationships in more just ways. Without this inner shift, policy change risks reproducing existing inequalities.

Additionally, what emerges from our reflections is the need for different relationships with evidence. JLI’s evolving Theory of Change points to three interlinked commitments. First, strengthened religious and development literacy, enables policymakers and practitioners to become better equipped to engage faith-inspired social worlds without caricature or instrumentalization. Second, within inclusive evidence ecosystems, local, indigenous and faith-inspired knowledge is not treated as anecdotal but as analytically vital. Third, mutual learning communities, facilitate the flow of knowledge in multiple directions, ensuring economic injustice to become more grounded, legitimate and sustainable.

Vera’s story demonstrates what is possible when dignity, knowledge and community are taken seriously, as the starting point of policy. Her experience invites us to listen differently, to hear climate data alongside memory, migration decisions alongside moral worlds, and gendered risks alongside faith-inspired resilience.

For Indigenous communities like Vera’s, the personal has never been separate from the political. Power, survival, and meaning are lived through relationships with land, community, and the spiritual world. This directly challenges policy approaches that treat knowledge as detached or purely technical. If the personal is truly political, then our task is to change how we listen and how we know, before we act. Building evidence with communities rather than for them can open pathways of inner transformation which guide outer change, creating real, sustainable justice.

by Amanda Heffernan

Since the summer of 2024, I have had the privilege of partnering with Radio Huayacotla, a Jesuit-founded indigenous community radio station in the Sierra Huasteca of Veracruz, Mexico, on a community-engaged project about the impact of government health policy on childbirth and midwifery in the region. For me, the road to this partnership was paved by synchronicity and shared values, in the context Seattle University’s (SU) Jesuit character. As a non-Catholic feminist midwife committed to migrant and reproductive justice, my relationship to Seattle University’s Jesuit character can feel complex, containing deep alignment with many aspects of Catholic social teaching, especially in relation to solidarity with those most marginalized, alongside differences, particularly in relation to reproductive rights.

When I returned to Seattle from Arizona in 2021 to take a job at SU, I hoped to find a campus community supportive of the migrant justice activism and accompaniment work I had been doing in Arizona. In the spring of my first year of teaching, I heard fellow faculty member, Audrey Hudgins, speak about migrant justice on a panel and sought her out afterwards. By the end of our first lunch, I had agreed to co-lead a student immersion trip to the U.S.-Mexico border, and our dynamic friendship as thought partners, co-instructors, and co-authors was born.

It was Audrey who gave me the word “accompaniment,” – grounded in Catholic traditions of walking alongside the marginalized – as I reflected on the solidarity work I had done with asylum seekers in Arizona. Audrey and I later explored our experiences with asylum accompaniment in an auto-ethnography that was published last year. It was Audrey who first brought me to Huayacocotla and introduced me to the team at the radio station, with whom she had been collaborating for the last five years on a community-engaged project about the impact of the H-2a agricultural visa program.

During our first meeting in Huayacocotla in the summer of 2024, as soon as I introduced myself as a midwife, staff members began sharing their perspectives on midwifery and childbirth. Angie, a Ñu Hu-language radio presenter, spoke movingly of the vocation of midwifery as a sacred gift from the ancestors, empowering indigenous parteras (midwives) to provide culturally grounded care using traditional knowledges including sobada (massage) and herbalism. Government restrictions, however, have forced many midwives underground and led to a decline in midwife-attended home births. Padre Alfredo, a beloved Jesuit advisor to Radio Huayacotla, explained that Veracruz’ mandate for all births to occur in regional government hospitals that provide a higher level of care means that indigenous women from remote areas must travel weeks in advance of their due dates to await labor in albergues (hostels), often leaving older children behind. Mónica, the radio station’s coordinator, described the difficulties indigenous women face in the hospital system, including language barriers, obstetric violence, and contraceptive coercion. The team said they had been looking for opportunities to address these issues for some time. We decided to collaborate; as a qualitative researcher and midwife, I would join the team to help design and carry out a research plan to inform the Radio Station’s future advocacy and cultural preservation efforts.

After a year of Zoom meetings, I returned to the Sierra for our first week of fieldwork in July 2025. As Angie, Lulu (a Ñu Hu health promoter and director of the radio station’s hostel), Romina (a Jesuit Volunteer Service intern turned radio station employee), and I traveled through the mountains talking to women and midwives, I experienced many moments of slightly surreal wonder. One day in the community of Las Canoas, I watched women gather for a focus group we had convened, each with a small bucket of tacos or quesadillas to share, neatly wrapped in embroidered cloth. Children played around the edge of the circle of plastic chairs as dogs and chickens ran underfoot. Just as the discussion was about to begin, a thick fog rolled up the valley, obscuring the houses and cornfields stretched out below us. As tendrils of fog threaded coolly between us, mingling with the smells of wood smoke and coffee, I remember thinking incredulously, “Being here today is my job?” As an American outsider, the fact that my fellow research team members trusted me enough to bring me into the communities they served, where women trusted us and shared intimate testimonies about their pregnancies and births, felt like an incredible honor. I knew that I was here in part because Audrey had transferred some of the trust she had built with this team to me.

Later that night, we arrived at Lulu’s parents’ home in the small town of Ayotuxtla. We sat in her mother’s small, tidy kitchen, and watched her prepare fresh tortillas for our dinner. Lulu’s father had grown and harvested the corn for the tortillas in his steep, mountainside milpa (farmland). Maize and the milpas it is grown in, are central to the cosmovision of the peoples of the Sierra. Lulu’s mother had boiled and soaked the corn kernels in limewater and ground them into masa using a hand-cranked mill. As we sat and chatted about our day of field work and plans for the next, we watched her grind the masa finer on a stone metate (mortar and pestle), form balls of dough, flatten them in the tortilla press, and cook them over a wood fire, flipping them expertly with her bare hands. As we ate the tortillas straight from the comal (griddle) with a delicious stew of chicken and black beans (also grown by Lulu’s father), I realized that I was taking the earth of the Sierra, transformed by the labor of our hosts, into my body. It felt like a kind of communion.

During our next week of fieldwork in late November, I found myself sitting in another kitchen, this time in a small community in the municipality of Texcatepec, sipping a mug of cinnamon-sweet café de olla (coffee from the pot) and listening to our host recount her experiences of giving birth in the 1980s and 90s, a time of intense cultural and economic transformation within the indigenous communities of the Sierra Huasteca. Her childbearing years were marked by the arrival of extractive industries, NAFTA, and increasing pressures to migrate out of the Sierra. At the same time, the neoliberal logic of new government health and social programs tied benefits to individual behaviors in ways that disrupted traditional collective family and community organization. Local people’s relationship to pregnancy, childbirth, and midwifery changed profoundly in complex relationship to these other cultural and economic changes. These changes were reflected in the reproductive trajectory of the woman we were interviewing as our host’s first baby was born at home, her second with a nurse in the local clinic, and her third in a hospital in the city. Angie sat by my side, recorder in hand, skillfully managing the interview using the list of questions we had co-created with the research team the summer before.

On the last day of fieldwork in November, we visited a government hospital in Metepec, Hidalgo. We stopped by the albergue and spoke with a young indigenous couple who had been awaiting the woman’s labor there for several weeks. The young man left the albergue each morning to find day labor in local tomato greenhouses or construction sites, returning at night. He needed money to send to the family members caring for their toddler and tending his milpa in their comunidad, four hours away in the mountains. The loss of community midwifery in the mountains cut this couple off from their community, their land, and their older child as they awaited their baby.

As we drove away from the hospital compound to return to Huayacocotla, we passed a billboard advertising “Glamping Temazcal”. During our fieldwork, older people had described traditional postpartum care involving rest, special foods, and herbal baths in a temazcal (sweat lodge). A woman’s husband would build the temazcal and tend its fire, while midwives and grandmothers would prepare the herbal baths. Across many interviews and focus groups, people we spoke with said that since birth has moved into the hospital, the temazcal is not used postpartum anymore. And yet, this indigenous practice is made available to tourists.

Later that afternoon, the research team met to plan our next steps. We mapped out a vision for hosting a community gathering later this year, where midwives and other traditional healers can come together to share knowledge with each other and their communities. There are plans to build a temazcal onsite, a gesture of cultural reclamation and community care. We are working on a report to support the radio station’s advocacy with regional health policymakers as well as an academic article. As we move from the information-gathering phase of the project to a more action-oriented one, I remain profoundly grateful for the opportunity to continue to partner with my Radio Huaya teammates as they live out their mission to accompany families in the Sierra.

by Angela Weber

As a reward to myself for reaching a mature age, I returned to my studies. I took a specialization course on third sector management, and then​ completed​ a Master’s degree in Anthropology​ ​all with the objective to better understand the women and their communities within a very poor region in northeast Brazil called Chapada Diamantina. During a 10-year work period there, I found that those women had an approach to their community and its wellbeing that seemed sacred to me.

Afterwards, living in ​​Verona during the pandemic, I realized that what I experienced in northeastern Brazil was a common thread in many women everywhere. ​W​hat I’ve come to believe is ​that there is ​a sacred connection of some kind that ​ can be ​encountered wherever we are, and it has nothing to do with culture, language, or education. It’s a kind of willingness to help, a concern for community that surpasses borders. It seemed to me that it must live within women’s unconscious memories.

With this realization, I began studying the ​​Goddess cosmologies, as a world vision based on culture and its values, from as far back as Neolithic times. That is how I became acquainted with the incredible Nuragic civilization that lived in Sardinia from 3000 to 1800 BC. Although they left no written records, recent archeological findings define them as equalitarian societies, connected with the Goddesses' cosmologies by the testimony of their incredible architectural monuments. The Nuraguic civilization was NON hierarchical. The monuments they left are a testimony of a different kind of societal order. And studying authors like Gumbutas and Goettner-Abendroh, I could start to envision a non-patriarchal social order, based on the same values that I had encountered among the women in Chapada Diamantina, then in Verona.

What is clear from recent archeological research, thanks to a rise in women’s perspectives in that field, is that these Goddess societies seem to be based on an economy of reciprocity, not competition. Their social structures were circular, not pyramidal, based on equality, not hierarchy.

In these societies cosmologies Time was circular, not linear. The circle of life included the notion that the goddess had three aspects: the maiden (spring), the mother (reproductive age), and the crone (sage). Each represented an aspect of life and nature, while the crone had the power of death as well as that of nurturing new life, because new life always comes after death. Life was understood as a non-ending circle, and society’s structures were based on these principles.

Another means of understanding our ancient past comes from ​​the study of shamanism which predates all contemporary religions and generally is embedded in less patriarchal, more matriarchal societal structures. As the Goddess cosmology, it’s a cultural oral tradition to initiates, encountered all over the world, recently being studied and professed by anthropologists like PHD Doctors Michael Harner and Alberto Viloldo.

“Matriarchal societies are egalitarian and women-led spiritual societies with a world perspective focused on nature and human relationships with nature” (Goettner-Abendroth).

They are based on equality not only between genders, but also between all living things. They thrive from a gift economy without accumulation and always enough to share. They are a society based on values that incorporate the sacredness of all living things, defined by ​​Gotten-Abendroth, as mother-centered, based on maternal values that guide the behavior of both men and women. ​Matriarchal s​ociety is built consciously over these values, aiming to meet everyone's needs with the greatest benefit to all.

This can be seen as biological reality transformed into cultural reality, with equality for all, where differences are respected and honored” (Goettner-Abendroth).

All these principles can also be found in Old World myth stories, incorporated with the aim of restoring cosmic order.  

The essence of these myths is: the Goddess represents the cosmos while her consort, who is also a brother, represents the sun. The sun sets every day, but as winter approaches, it sets earlier and earlier, which is considered to be the action of some brother or rival who kills the Sungod-brother-consort. The Goddess desperately seeks him out until she finds him in the underworld. She then takes actions to restore him to life, and they proceed with a Sacred Marriage (spring occurs), and all life is restored till next year. The beauty of this myth can be traced to most known cultures of the Old World, and traces of these peaceful, nature-centered societies can be found today in many traditional cultures.

The Nuragic culture, some 4000 thousand years ago, thrived in the magical Sardinia, where today we find more than eight thousand of their monuments: big circular rock buildings. Some of them were rock chairs defining a space. What’s outstanding is that there are no higher or special chairs, all were alike with the same height, always circular, as the basic structure. Nothing found indicates hierarchy or an elite. There is no palace or special home. All the homes are circular and equal.

In addition, the culture’s legacy includes numerous monuments called “giant tombs” and “sacred wells​.​” The former are collective tombstones, and both formats express female reproductive organs. The sacred wells are stairways that lead to the water (life source). They are covered with rocks but have a circular opening that could represent the umbilical cord, the light to the dark world where all life begins. From the bottom of the well, you can walk up to the light and rebirth. This is represented by the outside rock walls in the format of vaginas opening in birth.

Shamanism of today and the creation myths that come from the past open a window that helps us understand these egalitarian societies that were part of our cultural evolution. They helped me understand what the women of Brazil were still holding sacred in their communities. women all over the world today are dedicating themselves to their communities and the wellbeing of others, telltale signs of Goddess cosmologies. Being caring and nurturing towards all life on Earth is intrinsic to women: a sacred thread throughout human history.

Even inside the dogmas of modern religions, the attunement to nature and to all living beings ​can be felt ​as part of the seasonal movements and features of everyday life. It’s still so rooted in us that it seems natural and basic to be part of the Earth, the cosmos, and all living things. It feels impossible to thrive without all the life forms around us or with us​ ​as equals.

by Ivan Shneerson

I have long struggled to figure out where I belong.

This came to a head during my senior year of college when I, an agnostic and low-observant Jew, chose to live in a Christian living community. Forty-nine young Christian men and me.

Growing up, my family was part of an Orthodox Jewish community. But under Jewish law, Jewishness follows matrilineal descent. Since my maternal grandmother was not Jewish, in the eyes of many, neither was I.

In my new living arrangement, the ambiguity of my identity now confronted me daily. On Friday mornings, I would sit at the long kitchen table for ‘Breakfast & Bible’, where my new Christian brothers cooked and led us through Bible study. That same evening, I would walk down the street to the Rabbi’s home for Shabbat dinner, reciting Hebrew prayers, singing Shalom Aleichem, and gathering over a meal with Jewish friends. Each week, I crossed back and forth between two worlds, welcomed in both but never quite at home in either.

Where, then, did I belong?

When I thought of belonging, I imagined there being a circle with a secure center, a bullseye, where the “real” members of a group resided. Those people shared the same beliefs, customs, and convictions. Some people would orbit closely, while others were far out on the edges.

From my vantage point, the “center” of any community looked like the prize; that place where everyone was in agreement on key ideas and everyone there belonged. If only I liked what they liked, believed what they believed, checked the right boxes, then I would fully belong, I thought.

In the Christian community, there were a few young men I encountered that seemed to truly embody the bullseye. They were admired as men of strong faith and leaders in the community. They interpreted scripture literally, prayed with conviction, and rarely voiced doubt.

I was not like them. Our discussions of faith, Scripture, and theology felt more like debate than dialogue, and I wondered whether I could ever fully belong to a group whose central members had interpretations of belief that felt so different from my own.

Yet the more we talked, the more I wondered if their certainty was something to long for. If every Biblical verse had to be taken without question and every belief had to remain airtight, there was no room to admit even the smallest hesitation or alternative interpretation. While their convictions were strong, their beliefs seemed to carry an odd fragility, as if the whole structure might collapse like a house of cards with the admission of a single doubt. Their centrality seemed less like freedom and more like confinement.

The more time I spent among people who seemed to live at the center, the less certain I became that such a place truly existed. The center, I came to realize, is constantly moving, a horizon that recedes no matter how long you walk towards it. The center is a mirage.

To cling to it is to chain oneself to a moment, or a specific and static set of ideas, and in the process, give up the freedom to grow with new information, to learn. In truth, we are all constantly orbiting around a central set of beliefs and ideas, sometimes growing closer, only to realize that the target seems to shift, and we are once again further away. I believe that in taking our faith seriously, we will see that it ebbs and flows with life events, things we learn, and people we meet.

Even those who seem fully ‘in’ often carry doubts, but never voice them. A devout believer may question a verse and keep silent. A political loyalist may privately disagree with a key policy and never admit it. The circle of certainty is far less solid than it appears.

I have found a unique kind of freedom in sitting in a space of ‘I don’t know’ with a curiosity and openness to others’ beliefs, dwelling between groups, identities, and ideas. Maybe, where I belong is in between.

I have since graduated from the Christian community, and soon I will move into a new place with close friends I met there. The seven of us hold drastically varying beliefs. I plan to continue participating in a small group shaped by Christian practice that is open to personal flair and perspective. Some Sundays I will go to church. Other weeks, I may sit in Buddhist meditation or simply hike in the quiet of nature. I will continue to look for Jewish spaces where I feel fully accepted for my unique identity.

The importance of being comfortable with the in-between extends far beyond my own spiritual life. If more of us could hold space at the edges, allow room for quiet doubts, and understand that perfect conformity is not a goal to strive for, we may create more room for honest dialogue in our political spheres, religious circles, and communities at large. That space might allow ideas of tremendous impact to emerge from just beyond our fingertips.

To those who also live at the fringes, I encourage you to see it not as exile, but as opportunity. You may feel that you do not belong fully anywhere, but you may also belong, in some way, everywhere. In embracing your liminality, you may be open to new ideas, opportunities, and possibilities. Maybe that is the truest freedom of all.

by Brandon LaGreca, LAc, MAcOM

My daughter recently reached a pivotal point in her homeschool curriculum: the study of world religions. Until now, my wife and I had been content to let her experience the sublime through nature, art, and music, instilling a subtle sense of sacredness where others might see only the mundane. Her maternal grandfather, a retired Lutheran minister, complemented this with an appreciation for scripture and Christian prayer, though both grandparents have always respected our family's fluid, non-denominational spirituality. 

That gentle balance shifted when we enrolled her in a local Catholic school’s homeschool enrichment program two days a week. Religion is not a required class for part-time students, but immersion in a community where half the student body and all the faculty are parishioners, naturally prompted questions. We chose this program not for its religious affiliation, but because it offered the best academic and social opportunity available to her at this stage. Nevertheless, it marked a turning point, prompting me to more fully share the layered, living nature of my own spiritual life.

Instead of being preoccupied with the minutiae of belief or whether I am living a virtuous life according to any one religious doctrine, I focus on expressing my faith through daily practices and rituals. Being committed to shared spiritual practices (orthopraxy) rather than shared beliefs (orthodoxy) allows me to find common ground with many religions while still casting a wide net across the landscape of faith.

I meditate like a Buddhist. I practice a simple seated meditation which I learned during a retreat at a Zen monastery: relaxing the body, stilling the mind, and dwelling in the present without seeking to accomplish anything. I later discovered similar teachings at a Tibetan monastery, affirming the universality of this gentle discipline. Though meditation takes many forms across traditions—contemplative, discursive, and more—the Buddhist approach appeals to me for its quiet directness. No visualizations, no recitations, no striving. Simply being.

I pray like a Christian. Whether turning the beads of a rosary, offering intercessory prayers for protection and guidance, or whispering spontaneous prayers in moments of reflection, I continue to converse with the divine through the forms taught in my Christian upbringing. Prayer remains for me not an obligation, but a living dialogue shaped by love and gratitude.

I chant like a Hindu. My heart first opened to devotional chanting during kirtans led by Western yogi Krishna Das, where sacred names are sung in a call-and-response form that invites deep participation. Within Hinduism, this practice belongs to the path of bhakti yoga—the yoga of devotion. When I chant, I often hold a japamala, a string of prayer beads similar in function to a Christian rosary. As my fingers move from bead to bead, I inwardly repeat a mantra, one of many names for the divine. In this way, chanting becomes meditation, and meditation becomes love, stitching the mind and heart together through sacred repetition.

I perform ritual like a Druid. Among other forms of eco-spirituality, the Druid revival invited me to place my spiritual leanings within the greater context of natural rhythms. Honoring the solstices and equinoxes has become a cornerstone of this practice for me. For example, at the winter solstice, I set aside time for introspection, retreating inward to reflect on the past year and spiritually prepare myself for the return of the light. These rituals ground my spirituality not in abstract ideas alone but in the living, breathing cycles of the Earth. In celebrating the turning of the seasons, I enter a relationship of reverence rather than dominance with creation.

And I think like a Taoist. As a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, yin-yang dualism informs every aspect of medicine, diet, and lifestyle, with harmony deriving from the dynamic balance between these two principles. More subtle still is the ineffability of the Tao itself, which stands as a placeholder for the great mystery that defies all naming. In Taoism, I have found a liberating peace with life's unanswered questions, trusting in the unfolding of mystery rather than demanding certainty.

How, then, do I explain this to my daughter, who is growing up in a world often more concerned with asserting religious correctness than with cultivating humility and compassion? One challenge she will inevitably face is the question of God’s will. Some adherents are content simply to practice their faith, while others may feel compelled to convert her, believing it is an act of love or duty. Evangelism is often well-intentioned, but also, by nature, exclusionary.

My answer—to both her and to any would-be evangelist—is to wonder aloud whether it is God’s will that my daughter be Muslim, Jain, Wiccan, or a member of any other organized or non-organized spiritual tradition? I have met and learned from wise elders of many faiths, reinforcing my conviction that servants of God, Goddess, and goodness exist within every tradition that upholds some form of the Golden Rule. Either my daughter will find spiritual meaning and fulfillment through divine guidance, or she will blaze her own trail by the grace of her sacred experiences. Either way, little (if any) credit belongs to the evangelist.

What, then, does it mean to be interfaith? It means I have yet to find a place—whether among human institutions of faith or in nature’s wild sanctuaries—where the divine does not dwell. More than anything, I want my daughter to know that she lives in an inherently benevolent universe. Though humanity’s darker emotions sometimes obscure the light of the Beloved, that light continues to shine—within, through, and all around us.

by Muhammad Sohail, PhD Candidate, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

The Muslim world has faced various social, political, and economic challenges recently. Internal divisions, unstable political and social systems, outside interventions, poverty, and unemployment have posed significant barriers to its influence in current global affairs. Of particular concern is the recent rise in extremism and terrorism within the Islamic world, along with growing Islamophobia internationally. A common narrative often depicts Islam as a source of conflict and violence, portraying Muslims as a backward and ignorant society. The seriousness, complexity, and diversity of these issues require multiple social, religious, and economic approaches. However, these problems can be effectively managed through strategic initiatives, such as the promotion of Islam’s commitment to seeking knowledge, peace, and non-violence through interfaith exchanges between Muslims and International societies in international educational institutions.

International educational institutions are the primary destination for Muslim youth and scholars who pursue high-quality education and post-graduation prospects. Some communities develop perceptions and misconceptions about others behind the scenes, often without genuine engagement or firsthand experience. These perceptions significantly affect interactions with the Muslim world. Often, interfaith encounters and socio-religious exchanges can lead to misunderstanding and foster more hatred among the respective societies if not adequately regulated and managed.

Educated youth and scholars can play a key role in fostering positive mutual relations with other religions and societies by promoting interfaith encounters and socio-cultural exchanges within these institutions. International educational institutions serve as a vital space where diverse socio-religious communities can meet, engage, and reflect on their interactions with the “socio-religious other.” Individuals from different backgrounds, perceptions, and narratives share experiences that are essential for meaningful interfaith engagement. Interactions in these settings, described as "a two-way, if unequal, interaction with potentially long-term effects" and characterized as spaces where negotiations happen, are crucial for these processes.

Muslim communities can harness the power of interfaith encounters and socio-religious exchanges to bridge gaps between Muslims and wider international societies. Muslim societies can develop effective strategies to educate and train Muslim students, researchers, and academicians with authentic knowledge rooted in Islamic principles to seek knowledge, peace, tolerance, and inclusivity before pursuing overseas educational opportunities. Muslim nations can empower their students and academicians to negotiate with international communities to reduce bias and prejudice against Muslim societies through continuous engagement and collaborations at the global level. Muslim students and scholars have a greater opportunity to frequently take on everyday diplomatic roles to promote peace through building positive relations with host communities through participation in local customs, festivals, national and religious events, seminars, and workshops.

To begin, Muslim societies could engage Muslim students and scholars in promoting Islamic values from cradle to grave. Islam clearly encourages the pursuit of knowledge, critical thinking, and intellectual growth. This can be seen in the first revelation to Prophet Muhammad, which stresses the importance of reading: "Read! In the name of your Lord who created man from a clinging substance. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous—Who taught by the pen—Taught man that which he knew not"(Qur'an 96:1-5). Prophet Muhammad further instructed Muslim men and women to seek knowledge, and this priority can be leveraged to reduce tensions and resistance between Muslims and other international societies. Muslims can dispel the negative perception of ignorance associated with them by sharing their deep commitment to knowledge as core to their identity and religion.

Furthermore, Muslim students and educators, could showcase Islam’s philosophy of tolerance, humanity, and universality. Like other religions worldwide, Islam emphasizes the core values of tolerance, compassion, diversity, and religious freedom, preferring attraction to religion rather than coercion. The Quran explicitly states that "There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong." (Qur'an 2:256).

The Quran also advocates for interfaith dialogue. "And do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them, and say, ‘We believe in that which has been revealed to us and revealed to you. And our God and your God is one; and we are Muslims [in submission] to Him” (Qur'an 29:46). The value of diversity and understanding is another core message: "O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another" (Qur'an 49:13). These verses emphasize the importance of dialogue, diversity, acceptance, and universal brotherhood.

Muslim societies can engage in dynamic of interfaith encounters to promote positive engagements between non-Muslims and Muslims through the sharing of the philosophy of Islam and the values of knowledge, humanity, and universality. This strategy will not only cultivate educated youth capable of promoting Islam’s message of peace but also aid in distancing the Muslim world from extremist groups and contributing to the reduction of Islamophobia within Western societies and around the world.

Freedom to Express–And What about Science or Propaganda?

by Bonnie Bowie, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN

The United States Constitution ensures the right to express one’s views and to practice one’s religion without fear of persecution. However, there are times in the past 250 years when these unalienable rights no longer seem certain.

Due to the Immigration and Nationality Act (1965), the United States is the most diverse it has ever been in terms of race and religion. Still, we witness a concerted effort by what is often referred to as White Christian Nationalism, to move the country toward a narrow form of Christianity that has no room for diverse views, people, or religious beliefs (Alberta, 2023).

In addition, this movement has brought into question for many people whether long-held scientific premises, such as vaccinations, food, and water safety and global warming are conspiracy theories while discounting long-standing rigorous and evidence based research studies that clarify otherwise.

In the United States, Scientists and health care providers are traditionally well respected and revered; however, this landscape has shifted considerably over the last ten years, most notably during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many Americans not only thought the pandemic was an elaborate hoax, but refused to comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations such as the wearing of masks, physical distancing, and vaccinations.

During the pandemic, I vaccinated hundreds of people with the then-new mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, and the vast majority were extremely grateful. Early on, an elderly man asked me how it felt to be saving lives that day and I replied, “it feels great”. He replied, “Well, I want to thank you for saving my life today”, and we both became tearful. But I was also yelled at and spit upon by protesters as I walked into the vaccination center in my scrubs.

I am a Registered Nurse with 48 years in the field, and am extremely proud of my profession. Registered Nurses have been voted the most trusted profession for the past 23 years. I am also a research scientist and am particularly proud of the contributions my colleagues around the world make to enhance population health over the past several decades.

And yet, like my colleagues, I am stunned by the lack of trust many people now have in evidence-based medicine, or the integration of the best available research studies and clinical expertise when designing treatment protocols and approaches to population health. This lack of trust and undermining of best practices was most visible during the COVID-19 pandemic when Dr. Anthony Fauci, then Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, was treated with both suspicion and disdain during his leadership tenure.

It is not the freedom to speak out without repercussions that is most worrisome to me. What concerns me is a form of free speech driven by suspicion and misinformation, which leads to the erosion of a public consensus on truth and respect for evidence-based science. Over the past few years, I have watched established scientific facts, such as the acceleration of warming of the planet, or that raw milk could contain dangerous pathogens (salmonella, listeria, and E. coli), thrown aside in favor of non-evidence based opinions parading as truths. And, as these unproven opinions are continuously repeated in the United States, people accept these as facts, even though there is more than sufficient scientific evidence to the contrary.

In his book, The Road to Wisdom, Dr. Francis Collins proposes six categories of untruth: ignorance, falsehood, lies, delusion, bullshit, and propaganda. Of course, as humans, we all get entangled in falsehoods and perhaps contribute to the bullshit at times. Sometimes people are motivated to use falsehoods to save face and other times to protect the feelings of others. However, the systematic spread of unproven truth claims may be free speech, but it is also propaganda that spreads lies and distortions intended to sway a population toward a particular political cause or partisan viewpoint.

Healthy free speech in a democracy seeks dialogue in a nation that values dissent. Propaganda does not hold space for competing views, interprets dissent as unfaithfulness or disloyalty, and undermines actual truths by attacking them.

A good example of propaganda in the US Government is a repeated assertion that vaccinations are not safe for children. No, not true. There is not only a copious amount of scientific evidence establishing the efficacy and safety of all vaccinations recommended for children, but the serious risks of forgoing vaccinations is evident in outbreaks of measles cases in the US, with subsequent morbidity and mortality for children.

How, then, can we address the waves of propaganda that are so prevalent in these unprecedented times? I consider myself fortunate to be a professor at a Jesuit university, where critical thinking is a foundation for our approach to education. Engaging students in the process of analyzing evidence, both pros and cons, to come to an informed conclusion, is an essential tool for discernment throughout life. Students at my university are encouraged to analyze and evaluate sources of information as they create their own arguments.  

Even as this is true, freedom of expression in the United States endows us with a moral responsibility. We must acquire and cultivate the skills to build bridges that communicate across divides, with those whose opinions differ from our own.  

Author Monica Guzman, in her 2022 book – I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times – has several useful suggestions for closing this communication gap. Be curious of others; ask yourself what information you are missing, seek to understand the other perspective, and strive to achieve an INTOIT (I never thought of it that way!) moment.

Until we can engage others in productive discourse around important issues by which we can listen with curiosity, we will not be able to erode the arguments that fuel propaganda. The current divisions in our country are disheartening, but I believe they can be addressed through effective communication and by also realizing anew the central importance of scientific evidence, and the difference between what we know through evidence and what we assert from hopeful speculation, but which may harm us instead. Truth, while strained at times, remains our most valuable instrument. Our means of getting there includes free expression through discussion and dissent, with a focus on the well-being of our country, and the care of our shared future.

Header Photo: Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

Freedom of Religion and Democracy’s Conscience

by Professor Dr. Trung Pham, Seattle University

After the Vietnam War, my father spent six years in a re-education camp. He endured forced labor, malnutrition, and ideological indoctrination. One day, he carved a small Madonna statue as a gift for a friend, who asked him to present it simply as a mother-and-child figure. A communist officer discovered its true meaning. As punishment, my father was confined to a dark cell for ten days, his legs chained until they swelled.

Why would a small religious carving provoke such fear? Because freedom – especially religious freedom – threatens authoritarian regimes. Politics can imprison bodies, but faith empowers the human spirit with hope, identity, and resilience beyond the State’s control.

I live today in a different context: American democracy, where religious liberty is enshrined in law. Yet my father’s story reminds me that freedom is fragile, never guaranteed, and always contested.

History shows that freedom has taken three distinct forms: freedom for, freedom of, and freedom from religion.

• Freedom for religion is the spiritual dimension I have in mind. It is the freedom to seek truth and live in response to God. This freedom springs from human dignity. No one should be forced to act against their conscience or be prevented from following it. Martyrs and witnesses throughout history embodied this freedom, choosing fidelity to their faith even at great cost.

• Freedom of religion is a civil right, by which one may practice one’s faith without coercion. This principle emerged after the Reformation, gained strength in the Enlightenment, and is foundational in the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

• Freedom from religion is equally important: no one should be compelled to adopt or practice a faith. The French Revolution and the modern rise of secularism are two historical periods that remind societies to protect pluralism and prevent state-imposed religion.

Together, these freedoms form the foundation of modern democracy.

Democracy itself rests on the conviction that every person possesses inherent dignity and worth. From this flow the freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and religion, which are interwoven. Remove any of these freedoms, and the others also unravel. In particular, religious freedom safeguards conscience and prevents any government from dictating the deepest convictions of the human heart. Without it, democracy becomes empty rhetoric.

Some critics argue that religion should remain private, fearing it may impose dogma. But history shows otherwise. Faith communities have often been democracy’s conscience. The American Civil Rights Movement, led by preachers like Martin Luther King Jr., drew its power from biblical imagery and moral conviction. Movements for the abolition of slavery, campaigns for peace, and humanitarian efforts worldwide have also been fueled by faith. Far from threatening democracy, religion has often strengthened it.

Faith also enriches public debate. Political institutions deliberate policies and laws, but religion asks deeper questions: What kind of people do we want to be? What responsibilities do we owe to each other? How do we ensure justice and compassion for future generations? These questions remind us that freedom is not merely about self-interest, but about the common good.

Of course, true freedom is never absolute. It must be cultivated through education, spiritual discipline, and virtue. Freedom is not simply the ability to choose between similar options, like one brand of soda over another. Absolute freedom involves deciding what is good, life-giving, and just. Religious liberty does not excuse intolerance, nor does it justify imposing belief on others. It calls for humility, respect for pluralism, and dialogue across differences. Authentic faith nurtures patience, hospitality, and forgiveness – virtues that sustain civic life in times of tension.

History warns us that democracies weaken themselves when they suppress religion. Authoritarian regimes often start by targeting faith communities because faith fosters resilience and hope beyond the State’s control.

According to Open Doors’ World Watch List 2023, more than 360 million Christians – about one in seven worldwide – face high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. Yet, democracies are not immune to danger. They risk harm when religion is exploited for political gain. For example, contentious issues such as abortion are often framed in religious terms and used to divide voters in American elections. Conversely, when democracies embrace true religious diversity, they become stronger by fostering resilience, creativity, and solidarity among citizens who learn to live with difference.

Expressing freedom is not only about claiming rights; it is about using freedom to build communities of dignity and justice. Religious liberty, both as a personal right and as a public good, ensures that difference does not lead to division, but to more profound solidarity.

When religion and democracy work together, freedom is transformed from self-interest into shared responsibility. It becomes a path to human flourishing, where people of all beliefs, or none, can work together for justice, compassion, and peace.

Reflections on Freedom, Religion and Healthy Democracy

by Professor Dr. Angeliki Ziaka

From the Birth of Democracy to the Silence of Crisis

In the land where democracy was born, I began my journey. Greece, often referred to as its cradle, became for me a place of study and teaching in theology, the history of religions, and philosophy, fields that generated values and ideas which decisively shaped the modern world. Yet outside the classroom, reality was evolving differently. Over the past fifteen years, the country has faced successive economic and social crises that tested the resilience of both citizens and institutions. Democracy, as in many other parts of the world, did not remain untouched. It was pressured by austerity, insecurity, the refugee crisis, and a sense of limited space for dissent in public life. Within this shifting landscape, the very notions of freedom and democracy, and the ways in which religiosity finds expression in public space, seemed to require constant defence, revealing at the same time the need for new forms of dialogue for a healthy and inclusive society.

Amid these domestic challenges, my search for broader perspectives led me beyond national borders, towards a space where local struggles are placed in conversation with global voices.

Encountering the World in the World Council of Churches

Against this backdrop, I sought to understand the interdependent global whole with its fragmented localities. The world of the World Council of Churches, which now hosts me in this new stage of my journey, introduced me to another dimension of the public sphere: a space of polyphony, an expansive yet tangible horizon of ecumenical encounter, dialogue, and interreligious exchange, with the Council’s 356 member churches from around the world forming its main body. Here, people from every continent – including church leaders, theologians, laypersons, representatives of religious communities and organizations, young people, and activists – all share their experiences and struggles.

The multiplicity of voices I encountered within the WCC made clear that religiosity, far from being an abstract or private concern, emerges as a vital language in contexts of suffering and resilience.

Religiosity as a Language of Hope and Resistance

The voices of faith-based communities, often charged with the pain of injustice and the memory of long struggles, are not abstract philosophical constructs; they are testimonies of people striving for freedom and dignity. In this context, religiosity emerges as a language of resistance and hope, a reminder that the value of human life cannot remain merely an object of institutional regulation but must be embodied in acts of justice binding both rulers and the governed.

Faced with such demands, the theological discourse of our time risks becoming empty if it does not respond to the needs of people and Creation. And those needs are many and urgent: Africa continues to struggle with the legacies of colonialism and the limits of human dignity; Asia contends with socio-economic inequalities, the climate crisis, restrictions on public space, and the transformative impact of technology on surveillance, labour, and the economy; the Middle East bleeds before a global stage hesitant to heal its wounds; the Pacific islands, slivers of land rising only a few meters above the ocean, live with the uncertainty of gradual disappearance, as rising Ocean threaten to erase entire places of memory and culture; Latin America once again seeks the strength of liberation theology as the voice of the oppressed amid ongoing upheavals; Europe and North America tread on fragile economic and political ground, where democracy and human rights are under strain, overshadowed by the spectre of a war between fellow Orthodox Christians within Ukraine and Russia.

These broad regional dynamics are echoed in personal testimonies, which bring the global picture into sharper human focus.

The Many Faces of Religion – What I am Hearing

In this global landscape, many voices resound. A pastor from Johannesburg reminded me recently that faith, when linked to political action, can become a foundation of resistance and a defence of the rights of the oppressed: so, it was in the struggle against Apartheid, and so he interprets the present struggle of the Palestinians to preserve their land and their right to life.

From Colombia, a mother broke her silence to recount the tragedy of “state killings” that took her daughter’s life, while denouncing the guilty inaction of church leaders.

A Latin American theologian emphasized that liberation theology remains alive precisely because it puts practice before theory and is tested daily in the streets of the marginalized.

A Buddhist nun explained to me the meaning of karuna, not to drown in another’s pain but to stand firm as a support in the face of loss.

An Indian man took me by the hand and led me safely to the temple of Kali, amid a crowd vibrating with the intensity of the primordial — where life and destruction meet beyond the boundaries of intellectual categorization.

From Israel comes the anguish of a people trapped in political deadlock, while a Palestinian theologian stressed that the struggle for justice is continuous and does not exclude concern for Israelis.

A young Iranian voice observed that many international institutions, bound by today’s politics, resemble ‘united thieves’ more than guarantors of peace, progress, and democracy.

An American pastor described the polyphony and the challenges of his country’s churches, tested by political polarization, restrictions on free speech, and the seeds of intolerance.

Finally, the voice of a Muslim from Geneva explained to me how mere coexistence is not enough: we must learn from one another, nurture hope together, and struggle side by side for the dignity of all.

Together, such diverse voices point to the urgent need for democratic spaces that are not merely procedural, but deeply relational and healing.

Democracy as a Place of Encounter and Healing

If democracy is to retain any hope of remaining alive, it requires recognition that it does not assume a single form but is expressed differently depending on the historical, social, and cultural context of each people and every individual. Democracy remains healthy and dynamic when it embraces these pluralities: when local experience is allowed to converse with the global, and the global, in turn, is translated into care and respect for local needs. Only then does democracy cease to be an abstract concept or an instrument of political imposition, becoming instead a true space of encounter, understanding, and healing. Yet both democracy and religion remain vulnerable, easily distorted when detached from their highest purpose.

The Shadows Threatening Religion and Democracy

Religion, of course, is not without its shadows: it can become an instrument of power, a tool of exclusion and fanaticism, a cover for nationalist or ethnocentric ambitions. Likewise, democracy risks degenerating into an empty shell when social inequalities bar full participation or when the profit of the few is imposed over the needs of the many. Yet when both religion and democracy return to their highest purpose – that of serving human dignity and common life – they can function not antagonistically but complementarily. Religion then offers a language of love, forgiveness, and hospitality, an ecumenical discourse that transcends boundaries and unites, beyond colonial mindsets. Democracy, in turn, provides the public space where such values can be embodied, as the fruit of centuries of struggle, and become a common good.

Precisely in this tension lies the possibility of rediscovering freedom as the shared ground where religion and democracy meet.

Freedom as Common Ground

At the World Council of Churches, I realized that democracy becomes common ground when it is forged through coexistence and dialogical polyphony. As both political form and social vision, democracy draws its strength not only from institutions or markets but above all from the active participation of citizens who dare to speak, to listen, and to act for the common good – beyond color, religion, ideology, language, or economic status.

In this process, religion, when faithful to its calling, becomes a foundation of reconciliation, responsibility, and protection for the whole of Creation. Across the world’s religious and Indigenous wisdom traditions, the divine is understood as a source of justice, harmony, compassion, and care for the vulnerable and Creation. Together, these voices affirm that human life and the Earth, our common home, bear witness that no one is superfluous within the sacred cycle of life. In this way, democracy and religion meet as complementary spaces for the defence of every human being and the safeguarding of the community of life. A healthy democracy, it is clear, cannot endure without this shared testimony.

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 of mystery that permeate the island. After a 10-day study abroad program through the University of Washington, I am leaving with various gems to take back with me to the states.

Nature’s Wisdom

The natural beauty of Iceland is almost incomprehensible. Icelandic lichen covers the terrain, and around the landscape, trees slowly die from the sulfur rising from deep underground. The island nation sits in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and is shaped by geysers, volcanoes, and geothermal lakes. On any given day, you can expect a mix of rain, snow, and sunshine.

As I was walking through some of these areas, I could feel the raw force of Iceland’s nature. During our Golden Circle tour–a popular route that takes you to three scenic landmarks–the final stop was the Gullfoss waterfall. Standing before that roaring rush of water, I felt small. Not in a diminished way, but in awe. There was a quiet indifference between us. I was unimportant and that somehow felt humbling and beautiful. Nature wasn’t asking anything of me; it simply was.

The presence that nature held didn’t fade after I left Gullfoss Falls. Over the ten days I spent in Iceland, I came to see that nature is not simply admired–it’s respected, protected, and even written into the country’s vision of itself.

In 2011, Iceland introduced a draft for a new constitution, and among its proposed elements was the idea that nature should be protected–not just because it’s nice, but in practical and lasting ways. One article stated that Iceland’s nature forms the foundation of life in the country—and that everyone has a responsibility to respect and protect it. Another declared that natural resources not owned privately belong to the nation as a whole and can’t be sold or mortgaged. Although the draft was never formally ratified, its spirit lives on in the people of the country. Many still recognize and honor its principles–if not legally, then intuitively.

Psychogeography

During a free afternoon, a small group of us took part in a drift–a directionless walk also known as intentional wandering. The exercise comes from psychogeography, a field that studies the psychological effects of place and movement and how different environments may impact our emotions and sense of connection.

When we walk, we are often in a hurry to get to a certain place. But a drift doesn’t have constraints. During my walk, I wrote my observations in a journal and used the app Strava to visually chart my route. As I walked towards downtown Reykjavík, I first found myself taking the side streets.

I noticed a black cat creeping on the sidewalk, its dark body contrasting eerily against a yellow building. I passed by a hair salon and through the window saw a young boy crying while getting his hair cut, his dad easing his pain. Eventually I made it to a main street called Laugavegur where hot chocolate sounded nice. I found a café and sat at the bar, eagerly waiting for my hot beverage.

There is something deeply embodied in the ways we walk, almost like there’s an ancient truth behind the way our legs carry us through streets, down avenues. These human experiences that made up my ‘drift’ were quietly pleasing and unexpectedly rich. Even though I was just walking the streets near my hotel, the lack of destination felt freeing. The natural world is all around us, we just need to look up.

The Anthill

Sitting inside the House of Collections Museum in downtown Reykjavík, my classmates and I were tasked with an interesting activity. We stepped into the roles of a democratic constitutional assembly where we discussed our most important values in an attempt to understand what we all really want. And what we often really want are often the same things: love, acceptance, belonging.

Having learned that Iceland used a similar approach when drafting its proposed new constitution, it made sense that the country consistently ranks among the happiest in the world. Through this activity, we tapped into a sense of collective wisdom.

At one point, our speaker showed us an image of an anthill, reminding us that multiple working together are far more powerful than a single ant. It might seem like a silly metaphor at first, imagining hundreds of ants working in harmony, but the image holds but a deeper point. We can’t do everything alone, we need each other. And part of that means letting go of control, and replacing it with trust, collaboration, and grace.

Iceland is an inspiration for many countries. It shows us what’s possible. Its respect for nature, its natural wonders, its strides in gender equality, and its overall sense of safety—these were things I didn’t take for granted, and feel lucky to have experienced.

Header Photo: Pexels

Shaped by Story

Stories shape our understanding of the world. They teach us who we are, where we come from, and what we value. The stories we tell—about our families, our histories, and our struggles—carry the weight of experience and the power to inspire. They remind us that we are not alone in our journey.

Particularly today — during a time when the chasm of division feels like its ever-widening, when differing perspectives often seem insurmountable, and the foundations of human decency feel like they’re unraveling — reflecting on our own stories and deeply listening to the stories of others is essential. The stories we tell, the narratives we weave, and how we listen will determine the path that leads us forward the future that awaits us.

The overarching theme this year for TIO is leadership. True leadership is not just about making decisions; it is about understanding, about seeing beyond one’s own experience to recognize the humanity in others. Now more than ever, we need leaders who are willing to listen. Stories bridge the divides between us, making space for empathy in a world that much too often encourages isolation. They show us that while our paths may differ, our aspirations for dignity, justice, and connection are shared.

When we are present for each other’s stories, we build a foundation for a future that is not shaped by fear or division, but by understanding and collective purpose. The stories that lead us forward are not just the ones we inherit—they are the ones we choose to listen to, amplify, and carry with us into the future.

As you explore the articles in this issue, we hope you will be inspired to reflect on your own story, how it has shaped who you are, and how you can use your gifts and wisdom to help create a future rooted in dignity, justice, and shared humanity."

Header Photo: Pexels

Authoring our Shared Anthem

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. He called it his “anthem.”  To a passerby, I’m sure it looked as though Miguel was verbally assaulting me, but I knew better, because I was up close, listening to him. I learned later that most people have walked away from him while he tries to share. He says they can’t take his intensity. I confess to you, reader, that I spent much of those 20 minutes debating how I might get away but ultimately defaulted to deep prayer for this kind but tortured man.

Anthems are stories, typically defined by their uplifting nature, revealing a triumph over adversity. Miguel’s story got to the triumph, eventually, after a lengthy, winding procession through darkness. It was his life. The pains of acute trauma, giving way to years of chronic struggle, finally finding some light and new life.

Years later, I am thankful that something kept me anchored there on the sidewalk with Miguel. His anthem reminds us that our story is not over until it’s over. For Miguel, his painful youth has ultimately given birth to his deep desires for his daughter to have a better life than he had. He is now willing to sacrifice deeply so that she does not have to suffer like he did.

My name is Deacon Frank DiGirolamo, ordained with the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle. Since 2012, I have been a voluntary street chaplain with Operation Nightwatch, providing non-judgmental presence on the streets of Seattle. Affirming the dignity of everyone I meet, I’ve been blessed with the honor of listening to many “anthems.”

The streets are filled with stories, and they are embedded with a lot of suffering, for sure. However, in the midst of even the most tragic stories, I have consistently heard strong themes of hope. Many faiths speak of a multi-phase path to ultimate truth. In the Christian tradition, there is a recognition of a three-fold path to God. It begins with purgation, continues with illumination, ends with ultimately finding unity. In plain speak, perhaps Miguel just needed to unload some stuff that night. To let God and me, his brother, carry some of it. It was a privilege to be with him. In the grand scheme, it made room for God to enlighten both of us and provide a new foundation for our relationship going forward.

I now serve as the executive director for Nightwatch, and our various ministries (from street chaplaincy to hot meals, emergency shelters, senior housing, and basic medical care) place me in contact with members of multiple, intertwined communities: our clients experiencing homelessness and our volunteers, neighbors, donors, and collaborators in the service sector. Nightwatch recognizes our opportunity to be a vehicle for the broader community to listen to each other’s “anthems” and, in the long run, to begin authoring our shared story of triumph over adversity.

Moving Forward Together

The theme of this issue of The Interfaith Observer is “Stories That Lead Us Forward.” I am honored to have been invited to share my perspective.

To begin, I would suggest that in the theme of this issue the word “Together” is implied. I can’t imagine any story of progress being an individual thing. In fact, when people ask me what I believe is the big, long-term solution to homelessness, I always lead with things like “relationship healing; forgiveness; apologies; reconciliation, and a recognition that we need each other.” These things are peppered throughout the many thousands of stories I’ve heard throughout the years. Some highlights in these stories:

• A yearning to move from grudges to forgiveness. “Peter” sits with me at our meal center, close to tears. A frail man in his 70’s, he quietly shares that he longs to forgive his step-father for something that happened 65 years ago. The lack of his ability to forgive, he says, has him “in shackles.”

• Transitioning from rejection to community. The most common, deep hopes I hear involve things like “sitting around a big table with family, everyone smiling, and enjoying a big feast together.” Everyone seems to want this. No one seems to think they are worthy.

• Valuing relationship over finances. “Steve” sits at the waterfront all day, openly weeping. Dollar bills are dropped at his feet, but that’s not what he truly wants. After many hours, one lady sits down with him for five minutes and says “hello.” His eyes light up in recounting the moment, “THAT five minutes was worth a million bucks!”

• Moving from abandonment to adoption. In the back of our nightly food line, we pleaded with a young lady who had just been revived from an overdose – trying to encourage her to receive medical evaluation while she recovers. “You are loved. You are worth living.” She is unable to receive the offer, but several bystanders say, “Wow! You are loving her. We don’t tend to get that out here. People are always just cruel.” Another man is moved to tears as we remind him that he is loved, “Thank you… It’s literally been years since anyone has told me that.”

The line for our nightly meals is always long. Food insecurity is a reality, and we must continue our meal services. However, relationship insecurity is far more of an issue. It lies at the heart of everyone’s story of adversity, regardless of one’s housing status.

I love how those two things naturally go together. Food and relationship. What does it look like to gather people for common nourishment? Perhaps it begins with literal tables, and then expands to anywhere we can see, know, and hear each other.

Our clients at Nightwatch hunger for more than food. For more than an emergency bed night. And our collaborators, especially the faith communities, long for more than just service hours. They yearn to do far more than cook and provide food. Both groups desire to participate in welcoming the other who is currently a stranger. We all long to be reconciled.

One of the most encouraging situations Nightwatch has been invited into is the opportunity to host our emergency overnight shelters in loving communities. We have begun to operate these places of rest & revitalization within faith communities. Beyond the practical amenities of food, laundry, showers, storage lockers, case management and medical care, the biggest amenity by far is the opportunity for long-separated brothers and sisters to begin listening to each other, and to start writing a story together. By being truly present with each other we are collectively finding hope and healing, laying the foundation for new chapters in our lives.

Being Part of a Shared Anthem

A final event from the streets comes to mind. It is simultaneously chaotic and inspiring. Literal and metaphorical.

I call it “From Death to Life, with the Help of Friends.”

A young man experienced a drug overdose on the late-night street outside of our meal center. 911 was called. Meanwhile, a crowd of friends and strangers rushed in with great urgency. It is quickly apparent that there is not much official training in first aid, but the group feverishly tries their best. They help each by offering and receiving suggestions of how to proceed. They repeatedly called the downed man by name amid the chaos. Seconds seemed like minutes. 911 had not yet arrived. They feverishly continued their efforts to stabilize him. Then, the return of a pulse!! All of the emotion ripples through the crowd. There is relief and rejoicing. All because friends and strangers rushed to help the one most in need.

We all have traumas, adversities and even various types of addictions that we use to numb our pain. How beautiful to be seen, known, loved, feverishly helped, and called by name in the midst of our chaos.

Stories aren’t neat and tidy. There is conflict, adversity, antagonists, and protagonists. The Psalms from scripture famously include deep lament as well as joyous praise.

Perhaps such is life on this journey toward reconciliation.

Inspired by Miguel and many others who have openly shared their stories and invited me into them, I encourage us to rush toward every opportunity to listen to each other deeply. Listen through discomfort and resist the temptation to flee, appreciating that the story is never over until it’s over and that we need each other to finish it. All so we might someday, united with Miguel and each other, proclaim loudly, “Wow! We are authoring a shared anthem!”

Header Photo: Pexels

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. But there was one place where the monsters could not get me. Every night, I would tip-toe my way to my dad’s room and slide into the nook on his twin bed in between his back and the wall. His boisterous snores (the reason why my mom sleeps in a different room) would rock me to sleep and scare all the monsters in the night away. When I would wake up, I would be alone, starfish-ed out on the bed in the space where my father had been.   

In the countryside of St. Louis, Missouri, there is a small warehouse where thousands of metal parts for airplanes are cut each day. For the past two decades, here is where my father would go after leaving the house at three in the morning. Not only is he the first to enter, but he is also the last to leave. Although my dad does not speak much to me about his workday at the factory, I know it has taken a toll on him.

Over these years, his muscles have been hardened by the intensive physical labor, causing painful foot aches and cramps. His hands have grown thicker and scratchier; layered with calluses scared over small deep cuts. While he would never admit to it, I know my father is, most of all, tired from so many years of little sleep; his eyelids fall, and his head drops into sleep at every chance of stillness. Yet, ask anyone at the company and they will tell you that for most of those twenty years, Alberto Torres has been employee of the year. 

Two things are true about my dad. He has spent many hours at work, but he has also made time for me, for he has always been a constant present in my life. When I was in grade school, he was my volleyball teacher. Every Tuesday and Thursday he would get home around 3:00pm and we would immediately leave for the gym where he would teach me and the other girls how to serve or execute different plays. In high school, he would drive me to practice, even after I got my driver’s license. My dad is a great worker, but most importantly, he is an amazing father. 

Sowing Seeds for the Future 

Juan Torres was a taxi driver in the small city of Michoacan Mexico, but one day he took his wife and his children with him to California where he joined the Bracero Program. It was the middle of the 20th century, and the Vietnam War was causing labor shortages in the United States due to the incarceration of Japanese Americans and the military draft. In response, the United States took pages from its earlier history and re-started the Bracero Program in California from 1940-1960s. In this time, hard workers, like my grandfather, uprooted their previous lives in Mexico and went to work long days on agricultural fields without receiving many of the government contractual benefits, such as housing, insurance, or even a minimum wage.1  

Eventually, my grandmother and her children went back to Mexico, while my grandfather stayed in California to work. During this past Christmas, I heard my dad and his three siblings reminiscing about this period. Even though my grandfather was absent for most of their childhood, they looked back on their father’s choice as one filled with sacrifice. My aunt, who is the oldest, told me that in December, my grandfather would drive from California to Michoacan. In anticipation, she would wait for hours at the window, in hopes of seeing his car drive up. When he eventually did, the entire back of the car and trunk was filled with toys and clothes. In the passenger seat sat the family’s dinner for the night, a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.  

A Lineage of Gratitude 

My dad has many catch phrases, possibly too many to name. However, there are two sayings which he says the most frequently, “dale gracias a Dios-ito”/ “Give thanks to God” and “We are Mexi-CANS, not Mexi-cant’s.” There are many physical traits in which the Torres family line passes, yet the most important products of the Torres generational wealth has been gratitude and tenacity. Both my grandfather and my dad have shown up for their families, day in and day out. Their work is hard and grueling, yet their attitudes toward their work are nothing but grateful. 

My father’s story and the story of my forefathers is not original. Many Mexican Americans can trace their lineage back to the bracero program2. This “echale”/ “get after it” gene runs through the blood of many Mexicans living in the United States. Every day, countless immigrant fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers are working hard and long days in American companies, homes, or fields. Each one of these people sacrifice themselves for the betterment of others. Immigrants are often called “job-takers.” Yet every immigrant I have known is a giver. The string which ties all these generations together is one which proclaims the ability to work as freedom; to have a job is to have a job and that is a blessing. 

Header Photo: Medium