Thanks for these essays. Today's critique of "mindfulness" and its vulnerability to pseudo-spiritual, easy, feel-good uses that enable moral escapism and avoidance is very timely. I differ with the perception of the Christian virtues invoked by the writer, especially of "meekness." A strict adherence to meekness, or practicing a patient and humble acceptance of blows, was shown to be remarkably powerful in the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. Suddenly meekness revealed its own toughness, integrity, and humanitarian greatness in 1961: the world watched the Freedom Riders meekly accept abuse and violence in their nonviolent protest to desegregate the nation's buses. The practice of meekness proved over and over again in the Civil Rights Movement to be the only effective way too disarm injustice that is prosecuted with violence.
Thanks for these essays. Today's critique of "mindfulness" and its vulnerability to pseudo-spiritual, easy, feel-good uses that enable moral escapism and avoidance is very timely. I differ with the perception of the Christian virtues invoked by the writer, especially of "meekness." A strict adherence to meekness, or practicing a patient and humble acceptance of blows, was shown to be remarkably powerful in the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s. Suddenly meekness revealed its own toughness, integrity, and humanitarian greatness in 1961: the world watched the Freedom Riders meekly accept abuse and violence in their nonviolent protest to desegregate the nation's buses. The practice of meekness proved over and over again in the Civil Rights Movement to be the only effective way too disarm injustice that is prosecuted with violence.