Summary: Often progressive and liberal political ideology and practice, the aims of which overlap considerably with my own, comes across as opportunistic and shallow, lacking both wholeness and depth. And this morning I've been introduced to Rabbi Lerner and the magazine of spiritual activism, Tikkun. The material in this entry will be extracts from the Core Vision of Tikkun.

After you read the material below try to imagine someone who subscribes to the Tikkun ethos saying, "My corporate charter made me do it!" The socially and spiritually enlightened could not, in good conscience or with intact spirit, make decisions and seek goals that are clearly psychopathic. Nor would they, particularly given the lessons of corporate history (e.g., English and Dutch corporate entities which excused, permitted and allowed inexcuseable acts in the name of profit), in good conscience enable a governmental licensing process which creates and empowers corporate entities.

"We affirm the obligation to actively resit injustice and refuse to take part in it even when we can't prove that our resistance will produce change. In solidarity with the oppressed, we wish to see the democratization of economic and political institutions and a redistribution of wealth so that all people can share equally and sustainably in the benefits of the planet. We hope to have the courage -- in the traditon of the Jewish prophets and interpreters of Torah, In the spirit of Jesus and the early Christian communities of resistance to Rome, in the spirit of Muhammed, in the spirit of the activists of the labor & civil rights and feminist and gay rights movement -- to speak truth to power. "

"At the same time, we will challenge the lack of a spiritual dimension in the agendas of our allies in the progressive social change movements. That gap has allowed the Right to prsesent itself as the force that cares about spiritual issues. And the Left's failure to address spirituality has led many to believe their hunger for a larger framework of meaning and and purpose must be separated from their involvement with social transformation."

"Social change activity gets focused on a narrow political agenda that lacks the depth that can inspire sustained commitment or nourishing involvement. Imagine an international group of people who would see themselves as allies to each other in advancing this way of thinking, people who are unashamedly utopian and willing to fight for their highest ideals, yet unashamedly humble in knowing that we don't know all that we need to know to do the healing that needs to be done."

"Imagine that this group would help each other in our individual as well as group activities, affirming what is good and brainstorming with us about how to create a movement that gives equal priority to our inner llives and to social justice, that takes loving and caring as serious goals for social healing, and that rejects the utilitarian and materialistic assumptions of the contemporary world and actively forstgers awe and wonder in its participants. Imagine that you could be part of creating that."

"You can--by helping us create the TIKKUN Community. The TIKKUN Community starts from this fundamental recognition: The sources of external injustice, suffering, and ecological numbness are to be found not only in economic and political arrangements, but also in our alienation from one another, in our inability to experience and recognize ourselves and each other as holy, in our inability to respond to the call of the universe which bids us to deeper levels of consciousness and love, and in our inability to overcome our own egos and see ourselves as par of the Unity of All Being."

"We need a spiritual consciousness along with a political consciousness if we are to heal and transform the world. Some of us in the TIKKUN community are atheists or secularists, some of us belong to traditional religious communities, some of us are just beginning to work out our relationship to Spirit. But all of us understand that we need a movement that can address spiritual needs."

"It is our contention that social change and inner change go hand in hand. We are building a movement in which we can talk about love and caring for each other -- and this is the only way we can overcome the old left/right dichotomies and dead policy debates that fill academic journals, leftie magazines, the insipid television confrontations between shouting talking heads, the vacuity of so many of the speeches at leftie anti-war demonstrations, and the rhetoric of elected officials. For too long these predictable slogans and divisions have paralyzed American politics and made most of us feel like withdrawing into a purely personal life. At this moment, we are particularly excited by and supportive of the upsurge of social justice activism aimed both at promoting environmental sanity and at challenging the destructive impact of globalilzation. But we hope to play a role in deepening those and other social change movements to integrate into their core the kind of spiritual awareness that can make it possible for them to reach a much wider audience and thus be able to actually achieve their social justice goals."