Finding Peace through Spiritual Practice: The Interfaith Amigos' Guide to Personal, Social and Environmental Healing

by Don Mackenzie PhD, Ted Falcon PhD, Jamal Rahman

Overview

If we want to heal our personal and planetary problems, we have to move beyond talking to spiritual practice.

Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon and Imam Jamal Rahman, who have become known as the Interfaith Amigos, believe truly effective interfaith dialogue can inhibit the demonization of any religion. Their work together, which began with the horrors of 9/11, aims to help us see all authentic spiritual traditions as sacred avenues to a shared Universal Reality—when we achieve this, the healing of our shared personal and planetary problems begins.

In this, their third book, the Interfaith Amigos look at the specific issues we face in a pluralistic society and the spiritual practices that can help us transcend those roadblocks to effective collaboration on the critical issues of our time. Focusing on the interconnection of spirituality and authentic interfaith dialogue, they examine:

• How Spiritual Awareness Can Heal Our Own Traditions
• Beyond Polarization: Confronting Our Most Personal Obstacle
• Spiritual Paths to Environmental Stewardship
• Spiritual Paths to Social Justice
• How to Make Spirituality a Way of Life

This book helps awaken readers to the spiritual consciousness within each of us that provides the foundation for much-needed healing. Each chapter includes spiritual practices to aid us in reclaiming the deep spiritual truths of our own being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594736049
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	08/02/2016
Edition description:	1
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Pastor Don Mackenzie, PhD, Rabbi Ted Falcon, PhD, and Imam Jamal Rahman—now known as the Interfaith Amigos—started working together after 9/11. Since then, they have brought their unique blend of spiritual wisdom and humor to audiences in the US, Israel-Palestine, Japan and more. Their first book, Getting to the Heart of Interfaith: The Eye-Opening, Hope-Filled Friendship of a Pastor, a Rabbi and an Imam, brought the Interfaith Amigos international attention with coverage from the New York Times, CBS News and NPR.Their second book, Religion Gone Astray: What We Found at the Heart of Interfaith, probes more deeply into the problem aspects of our religious institutions to provide a profound understanding of the nature of what divides us. Their work is dedicated to supporting more effective interfaith dialogue that can bring greater collaboration on the major social and economic issues of our time.

Pastor Don Mackenzie, PhD, is former minister and head of staff at UniversityCongregational United Church of Christ in Seattle.

Pastor Don Mackenzie, PhD, Rabbi Ted Falcon, PhD, and Imam Jamal Rahman—now known as the Interfaith Amigos—started working together after 9/11. Since then, they have brought their unique blend of spiritual wisdom and humor to audiences in the US, Israel-Palestine, Japan and more. Their first book, Getting to the Heart of Interfaith: The Eye-Opening, Hope-Filled Friendship of a Pastor, a Rabbi and an Imam, brought the Interfaith Amigos international attention with coverage from the New York Times, CBS News and NPR.Their second book, Religion Gone Astray: What We Found at the Heart of Interfaith, probes more deeply into the problem aspects of our religious institutions to provide a profound understanding of the nature of what divides us. Their work is dedicated to supporting more effective interfaith dialogue that can bring greater collaboration on the major social and economic issues of our time.

Rabbi Ted Falcon, PhD, founder of meditative synagogues in Los Angeles and Seattle, is author of A Journey of Awakening: Kabbalistic Meditations on the Tree of Life and coauthor of Judaism For Dummies.

Imam Jamal Rahman is a beloved teacher and retreat leader whose passion for helping people deepen their spiritual lives and cultivate interfaith understanding has inspired audiences throughout the world. He has been featured in the New York Times, on CBS News, the BBC and many NPR programs. He is cofounder and Muslim Sufi minister at Interfaith Community Sanctuary, adjunct faculty at Seattle Universityand a former host of Interfaith Talk Radio. He is author of Sacred Laughter of the Sufis: Awakening the Soul with the Mulla's Comic Teaching Stories & Other Islamic Wisdom and Spiritual Gems of Islam: Insights & Practices from the Qur'an, Hadith, Rumi & Muslim Teaching Stories to Enlighten the Heart & Mind (both SkyLight Paths) and The Fragrance of Faith: The Enlightened Heart of Islam; and coauthor of Getting to the Heart of Interfaith: The Eye-Opening, Hope-Filled Friendship of a Pastor, a Rabbi & an Imam and Religion Gone Astray: What We Found at the Heart of Interfaith (both SkyLight Paths), among other books.

Table of Contents

Introduction: On the Way to Peace 1

1 Discovering the Need for Spiritual Practice 13

Inner Change Leads to Lasting Outer Change

2 Polarization: Our Basic Challenge 36

What Is It and Why Is It a Problem?

3 Moving beyond Past Conditioning 56

Awakening to Authentic Social Justice

4 Overcoming Despair 79

Carrying on in the Face of Overwhelming Environmental Problems

5 In the Face of Failure 105

Dealing with Anger and Burnout

6 Meeting Fear without Violence 133

Transcending Defensiveness

7 Love as a Force for Change 157

Focusing on the Positive

8 Making Spiritual Practice a Way of Life 177

The Daily Inner Work of Peace

Conclusion: Problems, Promises, and Possibilities 210

Acknowledgments 213

Notes 215

Suggestions for Further Reading 218

Index of Practices 220

Editorial Reviews

06/13/2016
This book by the self-proclaimed Interfaith Amigos (Getting to the Heart of Interfaith)—MacKenzie is a Protestant pastor, Falcon is a rabbi, and Rahman is a Sufi imam—promotes a meditative spiritual practice intended to help create inner healing and thus help practitioners promote change in a world suffering from violence and environmental damage. As part of a program to foster a sustainable, lifelong engagement in activist causes, the book includes exercises meant to prevent and heal idealism burnout and despair. Each exercise is rooted in ideas and ideals from the authors’ faith traditions, in many cases deriving from the mystic, meditative strand in each. Meant to stand alone as a spiritual guidebook, the book is nevertheless best understood in the context of the Amigos’ experience of interfaith exploration and the wisdom derived from it. The writing is uneven, but the book is accessible and engaging. It’s likely to appeal to those with interests in interfaith, the causes of peace and environmental activism, and contemplative practice. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly