Nuggets From Shanta Premawardhana's Call Posted by Diana Badger, Sep 18 2021 Last Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting Awakin Call with Shanta Premawardhana. Growing up in Sri Lanka, Shanta Premawardhana realized early that received theology – deriving from text, scripture and tradition – could be limited in guiding how to live, compared to the theological questions that arise from the contexts of people’s daily lives. “What shall I eat tomorrow? How shall I find health care for my child? Those are in the end theological questions,” he says. “At that point, it doesn’t matter what is your faith.” Shanta is President of the Chicago-based OMNIA Institute for Contextual Leadership, which has trained over 3500 peacemakers organized into 158 Interfaith Peacemaker Teams in Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. OMNIA seeks to dismantle top-down "received" theologies of exclusivity and superiority, and build bottom-up "contextual" theologies -- turning the mission paradigm upside down where those on the margins teach those in the privileged center. Below ... Read Full Story

A Beautiful Story Of Love Posted by Rosemary Cairns, Sep 15 2021 I first heard this story back in 2014, when it was told on CBC, and just heard it again the other day. It is as powerful now as it was then, this story of two men - an Iraqi and an Iranian - who ended up saving each other's lives. When there are times when we wonder if prayers are heard, or if our acts of kindness have meaning, this story reminds me that the universe has an order we can't often see. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/enemies-and-angels-opposing-soldiers ----- Originally posted in KarunaVirus Pod.

Shanta Premawardhana: Learning From Society's Margins Posted by Diana Badger, Sep 15 2021 This week's Awakin Call guest: 'Shanta Premawardhana: Learning From Society's MarginsReflection questions: How do you stay proximate with and learn from those living on the edges of society? What might you learn from the marginalized about economic justice, about faith, about resilience?

Karuna News: It's All About The Food Posted by KarunaVirus , Sep 15 2021 Newest issue of our newsletter is out!This week, our Karuna News headlines are all about food. We witness the magical coming together of people all around the world over a shared meal, or in the case of prisoners in Italy receiving ice cream from the Pope himself! Across the pond from Italy, survivors of Hurricane Ida in New Orleans are treated to home-cooked meals by local chefs, nourishing their bellies and hearts with warmth on dark days spent without electricity. Further away in India, we learn about local residents’ efforts to turn food waste into power energy, and then we travel back back to the West Coast of the US where we learn about neighbors joining hands to clean their streets of trash in a movement that is now spread across LA. These are little glimpses of the sprinklings of compassion that are being served in generous helpings and expressed through the spirit of community service.Read the full newsletter here ...