Spiritual Exoskeletons and Endoskeletons - Which One Describes You?

This is part of my "grand unified theory" (ala Malcolm Gladwell) about the development of human spirituality. It is based on the work of Jonathan Heidt, James Fowler, Emanuel Swedenborg, Jean Piaget, and many other thinkers in the world of spirituality. (Yes. I believe that our morality is one face of our spiritual development.) This includes Object Relations theory as well.

James Fowler, author of The Stages of Faith (summarized here, though I believe people stay in the earlier stages of faith far longer than this optimistic projection) has built a model of spiritual development that echoes Jean Piaget's stages of psychological development. A developmental model of spirituality makes immediate sense to me, as we already speak of spiritual "growth." We develop physically, emotionally, psychologically, morally, and in all other ways. Spirituality is developmental too; how could it not be?

The main focus of my interest today is the shift between stage three (Synthetic-Conventional) (exoskeleton) and stage four (Individuative-Reflective) (endoskeleton) according to James Fowler. I know for myself that this shift reached a crisis point in my early forties. It dovetailed with a probable mid-life crisis. My trust in and reliance on my childhood faith had taken too many blows. I was being existentially ejected from (birthed from?) identification with that religious denomination. The process took years and was deeply painful. Another soul who was undergoing a similar birthing likened it to the process of becoming a butterfly after one has been a caterpillar.

"This is where things get crazy and kind of disgusting. The caterpillar does not simply rearrange itself into a butterfly or moth. It takes much more than that. The caterpillar starts to digest itself! That’s right, it releases enzymes that start to liquify almost the entire caterpillar. If you were to cut open a cocoon during this stage, a liquid caterpillar smoothie would ooze out." Mike Szydlowski, The Columbia Tribune, Oct. 2021

Goo

We found this analogy apt. It was NOT comfortable. Emanual Swedenborg would say that this shift is from "historical faith" to "living faith."

"There must be, for Stage 4, a relocation of authority to within the self. While others and their judgments will remain important to the Individuative-Reflective person, their expectations, advice and counsel will be submitted to an internal panel of experts who reserve the right to choose and who are prepared to take responsibility for their choices."  James Fowler, Stages of Faith

A Barrier Between Stages Three and Four

The shift from three to four can be very painful, especially if one has been in a denomination that requires its members to stay in stage three. Stage three relies on an outside authority. It relies on obedience and compliance within its membership. This outside authority serves as a spiritual exoskeleton to the membership. All of us require this stage as part of our development. It enables us to grow our spiritual core (endoskeleton), the place from which we can discern, sift, and organize our own authentic spirituality.

All denominations that need stage three adherents see this shift as a threat. Members who question the legitimacy of the teachings and rules threaten the leaders' authority. Eventually, these members vote themselves out of involvement as they realize their inability to change the denomination. Depending on the level of cult dynamics in the denomination, this ejection from the group can be hugely isolating, disillusioning, and painful. One can lose a sense of belonging in an otherwise cohesive and interconnected "family." The leaders generally invalidate the pain of such members and see their departure as "trimming dead wood." (I have heard this spoken explicitly.)

Exoskeleton

In truth, those who manage to launch from such a denomination are the living wood, and can eventually find root within a group that welcomes stage four spirituality. (I have found a home in a Unitarian Universalist congregation.) But many stay alone and isolated, unwilling to trust again or otherwise unable to find a new spiritual home. They are suffering from spiritual trauma and abandonment.

Endoskeleton

This shift from an authority-based faith to a living, inwardly reflective faith is part of our healthy spiritual growth. Our spirits call us to grow to this level and beyond. Unfortunately, many religious denominations see this shift as heresy, disobedience, rebellion, and "falling" from grace. These groups tend to punish, shun, vilify, and cast out such members. No wonder it can be hard to leave!

As those of us who have left such groups tend to remain isolated, we can be unaware of the huge and growing body of people on a similar path. If only we had a way to form our own, mutually supportive spiritual communities. Yet we tend to be gun-shy of belonging again.

I believe that authentic, unhampered spiritual growth requires that we make this shift. We are designed to think for ourselves based on years of spiritual work and learning from others.  We are built to continue growing spiritually, constantly deepening and adding greater nuance to our understanding. But we also need a spiritual community. Such supportive and non-dictatorial communities exist out there. They are just hard to find. They tend to mind their own business.

Do you rely heavily on outside authorities and some declared text as literally the Word of God? Then you are probably in an exoskeleton stage of spirituality. There is nothing wrong with this stage, but we are meant to evolve beyond it.

Do you think for yourself, incorporating years of experience, thought, and observation into how you understand the human condition and our responsibilities to each other? Then you are probably in an endoskeleton stage of spirituality.

Do you do some of both? Do you feel wobbly and insecure about what to think and whom to trust? Then you are probably in transition.

All of these stages are normal. This model is not to be used to judge others but to assess oneself and understand others.

Christmas 2023

Letter 2023

        Hello friends and loved ones, from snowy Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA. The flurries are flying and the headlights twinkle down on Queen Street as people commute home. It finally “feels” like Christmas, which helps a lot in getting motivated to write.

        This has been another tough year with challenges and shifting plans. We have both struggled with rocky employment situations, and I have also had several health challenges. I had fatigue and lethargy all summer, but managed to get my Organizing business moving anyway. I had a new logo designed and am advertising in local magazines. (I also had several weddings.) But by October, my energy was quite low.

        

        Sam and I enjoyed a visit with Marcia and Barb over our wedding anniversary. I supply-preached at Marcia’s UU church and did some organizing. But my fatigue kept me in bed a lot of the time. Once I was back in Canada my second baby tooth became very painful. By the time they had it extracted the dentist agreed that the extensive infection he found under it might have been what was running me down all summer. Now would I get my energy back?

    Sam and I took a long-awaited trip down to the Bryn Athyn area of Pennsylvania to visit our dear friend, Beryl Simonetti. Paul went on ahead to the spiritual world before we were able to see him too but Beryl was there, as wonderful as ever. We also visited my ninety-five-year-old Aunt Audrey Smith—the last remaining sibling from my mom’s family; as well as seeing Sam’s Aunt Molly McDonough, also ninety five! We had many lovely visits with old friends and family. It felt a little bitter-sweet. But we both have so many relatives and heart-connections there it is usually worth the visit.

     Then I got my first ever case of Covid. I fell ill about three days after arriving home, though I masked on the plane. Jordan caught it for the first time at the very same time, and we were two sick puppies together for the duration. At least we didn’t have to isolate from each other.

    It was a full two weeks before either of us felt “better.”  We are both still coughing a lot. Jordan has pretty intense fatigue ongoing and I have gastrointestinal nonsense going on, both seeming to be holdovers from the plague. But we are officially over it.

    I am again crawling back into the organizing saddle, taking on an assistant and starting to have a steady stream of clients. Fingers crossed!

          On the bright side, in May Sam and I enjoyed a cruise up the Saint Lawrence River! We started in Montreal; visited Quebec City and PEI; Sydney and Halifax, Nova Scotia; (I loved Sydney!) and Bar Harbor, Maine. We ended up in Boston, visiting with Sarah, Sam’s sister who lives there. It was gem of a trip. Such great memories!

    I continue to plug away at my second novel. It may not win a Pulitzer, but my fans seem very happy, and I still LOVE spending time with these characters. I just published chapter Thirty-Four!  Seeing as I made the commitment to publish a new chapter every two weeks a year ago, I am thrilled to realize how well it has worked. I would not have gotten this done without the encouragement of my readers. Woo-hoo!! This is the cover art by artist Drayton Mapp. Subscribe to read along at The Cliffside Chapel Series

    In late spring I started the “Soul Sisters’ Support Group” with Cindy Schnarr. There are currently seven of us, and we try to meet once a month. It is amazing how hard it is to find a time when all seven of us are available. But I need a place where I can be fully authentic and honest with others of a similar mind. It fills an empty place in my soul. I love hearing each woman’s struggles and joys, and we end up doing a lot of laughing. (It is amazing how easy it is to love someone when they are fully authentic!) To these local soul sisters, I love you!

    I have a habit of starting groups like this wherever I go. Many have been under the auspices of a church, but not all. I highly recommend building such a community if you want one and don’t have one.  I would be happy to mentor you in building a safe space that you love.

Blessed are you

who bear the light

in unbearable times,

who testify

to its endurance

amid the unendurable,

who bear witness

to its persistence

when everything seems

in shadow

and grief. Blessed are you

in whom the light lives,

in whom the brightness blazes—

your heart a chapel,

an altar where

in the deepest night can be seen

the fire that shines forth in you

in unaccountable faith,

in stubborn hope,

in love that illumines

every broken thing it finds.

© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons.

From Sam in New York (for now) and I in Kitchener, Ontario, our love and warm greetings go out to you. Pray for the birth of the light. Pray for the resurrection over and over again. The Divine is always waiting to come again and again and again—open, loving, wise, and mind-blowingly kind.

        AliSam

(PS. Sam will be celebrating Christmas with me in Kitchener for the first time since our marriage! Yay!!)

Christmas 2022

Greetings from Canada, home of my (Alison’s) children, my grandchildren, and many years of friends. And greetings from New York City, Sam’s home of over 33 years. We are a two-country couple and making it work. 

Thank you for all the kind and heartfelt notes that came in after last year’s letter. I can say that I am much, much better now, and happier than I have been in several years. My Canadian doctor finally found a medication that corrects my brain chemistry back to nearly normal. This has remained true for a month now, so my hopes are high that I may soon be able to settle into a stable, financially viable life. 

I continue to rely heavily on a stubborn trust in Divine Providence no matter how things look or feel. “Show up; pay attention; do your best; let go of the outcomes.” I have needed this trust or faith as my ability to find work and/or return to school has been weirdly blocked since my return to Canada. Even my therapist and kind friends shake their heads in astonishment at all the things that should be working and are not. After my failing repeatedly to get help with employment, my friend, Dori Ferr, tucked me under her arm like a football linebacker and blasted through some blocks to get me the help I needed. Where I had been trying for ten months, she got me help in two days. The woman she found figured out why the ball had been dropped so badly in my case. It was indeed a series of unpredictable events and miscommunications and rotten timing that had prevented me from getting help since November. “Nobody’s fault. Weirdly unfortunate events and loss of staff,” etc. It has been deeply frustrating, but not due to something I was doing wrong. Phew! Nevertheless, it is now November, and I am still unemployed. I have a good career coach and we are making progress, but I am sixty-one, and a female with a very odd resume. It’s going to take time. I’m settling in for the long haul of knocking on doors and getting no answer. I just need one yes. I just have to keep doing this and upping my game until I get one YES. It will happen. (Even if it is for under $40,000 a year. Sigh.)

I have had the same experience with pursuing schooling. Since November 2021 I have been paying fees and filling out forms online. I heard nothing back about my application until mid-January indicating I needed to apply again. I applied again, filling out forms, paying fees, and reaching out by email and phone. I seemed unable to talk to a real person, to find out what was going on. Sometimes I reached a living person for a minute or two in which they pointed me at (inaccurate) web pages. I entered unhelpful internet loops and found dead ends. “Go to www.____ for the answers you seek.” Www.____ says, “Call this number for the answers.” I call and the line has been disconnected. I go back to Www.____ and see an email. I email that person. No response. I find out many weeks later that that person had abruptly left her job and all the emails were falling into a pit of nothingness. By the time someone living contacted me by email in MARCH, I learn then that I had eight hours left to complete my submission. I kid you not. I go to “finish” my submission and ALL the forms I have already filled out twice online are presented to me to fill out AGAIN as if I never had. It had taken all my emotional energy to get this far, doing everything I was told, paying double in fees, being proactive, and seeking answers, until this. I collapsed in a heap of rage and tears. I couldn’t do it. I did not have the emotional energy or the will to do it all again, as if they didn’t know me—as if I hadn’t jumped through these hoops many times before. I did not even have copies of the original online forms to paste into the “new” forms. I guess they didn’t want my money that badly. I tried other angles of approach to getting this done and learned: 1) I have to pay a bunch of money to a psychotherapy website to (maybe) find out what courses I still need, having already paid a sizable fee to take some “required training” on the understanding that I would get that assessment at the end of the training, OR 2) Most of my credits are too old to count so I might as well start all over, AND 3) no one will actually help me find out what courses are still good and what will be required, so I can decide for myself. I need to march into a building and find a live person who will do this with me. So far it has been dead ends. 

Maybe with the new meds working I will be up to banging my head on that door again. But at sixty-one, I’m no longer sure I want to go through all that effort and schooling again just to have to deal with insurance companies refusing to pay me on the other side. I have heard some horror stories of how hard it can be to make a living as a therapist. So for now, I’m throwing my energy back into organizing. I have a potential new partner coming alongside which should help a lot. Fingers crossed that SOMETHING works to provide me with an income soon. 

Meanwhile, I am working on my second novel in earnest, releasing new chapters of book two biweekly to my cheerleaders and financial supporters. The writing is SO MUCH FUN. Several friends advised me to start a Patreon, despite my doubts, so I finally started one. Patreon gives me about 80% of any money pledged. It’s a dribble of money so far, but the moral support that it provides me is surprisingly potent. My publication goal for book 2 is autumn 2023. I have hired a cover artist, which makes the commitment even more real. Then I start book three. If you want to support my effort in finishing the series and to read finished chapters as they are written, go to my Patreon and see if you can throw something my way. There are some pretty sweet rewards for donors. https://patreon.com/user?u=65399202 Check it out. Love to you whether you can afford to support me or not. *

So it seems I have been granted a resurrection. I feel up to life again, up to trying, up to engaging. Thank you for loving me through this most recent valley. Fingers crossed, or constant prayers, or “Expecto Patronum!” that this wave of functionality continues and grows. Please? 

I’m sure you want to know how Sam is doing. He is soldiering on down in New York City at the job he has had for over twenty-six years. We talk every day via Facetime. He seems content in his job and has friends

with whom he gets out for movies and adventures. He also has dear friends in the building who have been inviting him to join them for meals and gatherings. We will be spending an entire month together, from Dec 6-Jan 3rd, and it will be SO good to be together again. We have been counting the days. As of today, 20 until we meet again! 

I say, “Take your hope and joy within you; keep it burning brightly in your deepest heart. Let no outside news of Herod diminish it in any way. That brilliance was made to pierce the darkest night and lead everyone to safety. With Divine Love, all things are possible.” 

Sam says, “Merry human holidays, you humans.” 

With warm greetings from us both, 

Alison (she, her), 

and Sam (it, that) 

aka ALISAM

Christmas 2021

Dear traveling companions near and far,                                                Dec 29, 2021

Wow. Has it been a year since I wrote anything on my blog?

Well, I guess that makes sense, considering everything.

I’m going to speak from my heart. Brace yourself; here comes some drastic vulnerability.

 

Last year was really, REALLY hard for me. Starting in November 2020, I sank into depression and it only deepened into the new year. My doctor tried changing my depression medications, but the new ones caused new problems. I started having tremors in my hands; I lost my coordination and balance; I just wanted to lie in my bed and sleep. It became increasingly hard to focus on my online job, (which paid very little for the time I was putting in). I needed organizing jobs! But the pandemic roared on.

 

Then in April, I broke my foot. (Thank you, negligent management company.) All my efforts to provide for myself became moot. I descended into a deeper despair than I admitted to myself.

Through denial and self-will, I persevered. By June, my foot still wasn’t healing properly. I had gained 15 pounds. The handful of “imminent” organizing jobs in NYC had never materialized. I hadn’t contributed to our rent since December. I was in debt AGAIN. I felt helpless and stuck, with my health deteriorating weekly (no balance, coordination, or endurance). I was utterly powerless to effect good on my own behalf and saw no reason this would change. I was so frustrated and angry! Thoughts of suicide were circling.

My faith has been through many phases since my naïve and shiny youth. It has been through times of tremendous depth and a sense of closeness to God (wonderful). It has been through a sense of God’s abandonment, followed by a long time in a spiritual desert wondering if any of the past faith had been real. Most recently, while I believe God has everyone’s best long-term interests at heart (think “afterlife”), God also lets us suffer all sorts of earthly misfortunes without protection. I had no sense at all that God would keep me out of the mental hospital or pay my bills.

 

It was during this darkest of times that I got a good hard look at how much pride I have had in my own abilities. I have been creative and persistent. I have risen from catastrophic loss and reinvented my life again, and again, with “my” irrepressible optimism and creativity, and faith. I am strong.

 

But this time I couldn’t rise. I had nothing. I couldn’t get myself out of this nosedive. I was not in charge of my life at all.

Into this desperate space came the words of a dear friend. “You must pray for a resurrection. You must ask for your life back and pray for a resurrection.” I choked up, both at the ridiculousness of the notion (a resurrection for me?) and at the poignancy. I wanted a resurrection with all my heart!

I began praying daily for a resurrection that I doubted would ever come. I cried over my journal day after day, sick and still limping, gaining weight, unable to find regular work, and sinking in debt. I prayed for a resurrection, not even knowing what that meant. I just wanted to live again.

 

As the days passed and tears flowed I came to an important realization: Nothing I had, NOTHING was ever mine. “My” creativity? A fluke of genetics and environment. “My” perseverance? Sufficient privilege plus pure stubbornness and wishful thinking. The peculiar blend of talents and academic ability I had enjoyed? Just what came with along with brown eyes, depression, and a love of theater. I was responsible for none of it. I never had been.

This felt incredibly vulnerable – reduced to the absolute dependency of a newborn. Nothing I had ever done or been was of my creation. It was not of my will, nor from my “powerful manifestation skills,” nor because I “tried harder” than others. Nothing. NOTHING. I was 100% not the creator of any of the good in my life. I have been helped my whole life long even while I took all the credit.

 

Then followed this realization.  If I am not the source of “my” gifts and talents, neither am I the source of my misfortunes. I don’t deserve blame for my current suffering any more than I deserve praise for any successes. By owning my successes, I was also owning my failures, when in neither did I have much power at all.

That release of responsibility for all success and all failure in my life landed deeply in my body. I gained new ease, moving away from quite such desperate EFFORTING in my life.

 

Slowly, my life began to improve. My psychiatric practitioner let me discontinue two of the new medicines. In quick succession coordination, stamina, and balance returned. I could sequence thoughts again. I began to be interested in life again. My broken foot was a little less painful each week. Nevertheless, it was mid-September and I still had no way to make a living. I will never again underestimate the physical and psychological toll of having no income and no way to get one.  

 

Then, on the 27th of October, money from Dad’s estate landed in my account. It changed everything. I paid all my debts. I paid Sam’s debts too, making up for all my missed rent at the same time. I found myself trembling with relief. I cried repeatedly as the tremendous weight slid off my shoulders.

 

I now had a way forward. The inheritance is by no means enough to retire on. But it is enough for me to return to Canada where I can finish my psychotherapy certification without starting from the beginning. I can go into practice and finally earn a living wage. My inheritance is making this possible. My inheritance has produced what feels like a full resurrection.  I feel as though I got an amazing, undeserved miracle (my life back).

We have always planned to retire in Canada. It seems I’m making the move early and building a place for us there. Sam can’t follow me yet. His workplace just slammed the door on working from another country. Still, we can visit each other. We will be a two-country couple starting Jan 31, 2022. It’s going to be hard, but it is the only path forward that I can see.

 

Sam’s job has remained steady throughout the shut-downs, re-openings, and re-shut-downs, which is a huge blessing. In October we attended a long-planned family reunion with my kids and their families in Muskoka, Ontario. This was near Canadian Thanksgiving and one month before my 60th birthday. It was also over Sam's and my 5th wedding anniversary. We had a LOT to celebrate! The colors were stunning. Sam really took to the Muskoka region (finding craft breweries) and fit in well with the family.

 

Granddaughter Andrea presented me with a portrait. It has my top-knot, my glasses, and even the string I keep on my glasses so I don’t lose them. I am officially a grandma and no denying it.  

I spent two weeks in my hometown caring for my dear “adoptive” parents, Paul and Beryl Simonetti, who had both descended abruptly into disability. It felt wonderful to be there and care for them. I felt needed and also valuably helpful as the family adjusted to disabled parents, doctor’s visits, stair-lifts, and a search for assisted living.

 

As soon as I got home we set out on a Caribbean cruise, a treat from Sam’s sister. Before we flew home we spent several days with my sister Marcia and her wife in Florida. It was so good to see them in their new home.

Do I have a spiritual message to share? I will leave you to draw your own this year. Maybe prayers don’t change God, but these ones changed me and carried me from June - October. Can money be an answer to a prayer? It has given me freedom and dignity. It has given me hope and a future. That feels like an answered prayer. I feel like I was granted a resurrection, which is a gift of incalculable worth.

 

Thank you for listening. Thank you for reading all the way through this!

 

We send wishes that all created beings might find freedom from want, the dignity of autonomy, inclusion, comfort, and joy this coming year regardless of what any viruses are doing! 

AliSam

The new address for Alison 

as of Feb 1, 2022, will be 

57 Queen Street North, #712

Kitchener, ON. 

CANADA   N2H 6T7

Christmas 2020

(recommended listening)

I am reflecting on how many more people this holiday season will be experiencing a blue Christmas. From the simple sadness of staying separate to forestall death, to the terrible realities of those who have already lost loved ones to this pandemic; from the financial uncertainty, lost jobs, lost health, and lost homes, to the mobile morgues all across the country – very few of us are facing the holiday to which we have been accustomed.

I counsel many people who lost “Christmas” long ago, due to childhood abuse, or family rejection, or the loss of religious belonging and faith. Many try to erase all meaning from the season as if that will remove the pain of the losses. Others try to pretend they don’t care about the holidays, yet end up angry at others’ joy and playfulness, and attack the meaning others find in the season. (Like a true Grinch. Did anyone ever ask how the Grinch’s heart got so small, to begin with? Such anger is not uncommon and is even an understandable response to the degree of loss. Anger is a stage of grief.)

Still others seek to rebuild some new meaning around new traditions, in order to find more robust and resilient meaning and to reclaim the holidays in some new way for themselves. They build chosen families where they can find the comfort, inclusion, and joy which their original families can’t offer them. This is a path of hope and creativity and acceptance. 

As a lifelong Christian, who has had her own traumatic loss of religious belonging, and journeyed through agnosticism and atheism, I’m reflecting on how much of the Nativity story is NOT about comfort and joy. Indeed, the poignant and sometimes dreadful aspects of the Biblical narrative can provide so much space for belonging, resonance, and tenderness for those of us in mourning and uncertainty. One does not need to believe that an actual Jesus, son of God, was born on earth to a virgin to find metaphorical resonance in the great narrative, any more than one needs to believe there is an actual Santa Claus to find the season joyful. The story captures our hearts and makes a place for communal self-recognition if not always celebration. 

You see, the mourning of all the mothers in the region of Bethlehem whose infants were torn from their arms and slaughtered (Matthew 2:16–18) is also a part of the Christmas story, and points to the horrors enacted by those seeking to preserve and maintain power even at the cost of the lives of the most innocent and powerless. 

The homelessness of the couple seeking somewhere to give birth also illustrates the inhumanity already in the world, the very world into which the Divine (goodness, compassion, wisdom, gentleness) was trying to be born. They were excluded. They were not considered worth the inconvenience required to find them any space. Instead, the world was either indifferent or murderously hostile to this vulnerable message of comfort and joy. How hard is it even now to welcome some collective kindness and vulnerability and softness into our shared experience? 

Only simple guardians of innocence (shepherds) are able to hear the good news: that a big change was coming. This baby would be the living embodiment of wisdom, compassion, healing, and social justice—so desperately needed as much then as now. 

This savior is precisely coming to those grieving and rejected, lost and abandoned, hunted and shamed. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they WILL be comforted.” That is a promise. The story isn’t over yet. This story is about the promise of justice and radical kindness. You see, the comfort and joy, the light in the darkness, the hope after great struggle and despair is just one part of the whole story. Whether we are experiencing homelessness or displacement, rejection, and hostility, great mourning or anger, and despair, we are in the story too. And those experiences are the reason for the story. If all was brightness and joy all the time, there would be no need for a savior. 

Nothing much has changed in humankind, which is why the genuine story continues to resonate. The Christmas story is not so much about whether something amazing happened 2000 years ago, but whether you and I and our world TODAY is ready to welcome great joy for all people. Today? Now? Do we include all people in our desire for comfort and joy, be they straight or queer, atheist or orthodox, similar to us or radically different from us? Or do we still think God loves some people (us), more than others (them)? 

And so, in 2020, do we include those who are mourning? Do we let each other feel what we need to feel, and still love each other completely? Do we ask how we can support someone who is grieving or hurt or rejected this time of year and ask what would feel like a blessing to them? What would give them a tiny bit of comfort and joy despite everything? 

To welcome and acknowledge (all feelings and) all cultural holiday traditions this time of year is deeply Christian in my imagination. As it is deeply Jewish, and Muslim, and pan-African, and Buddhist, and Hindi—indeed, the deepest wisdom of all the great traditions point to the same values of inclusion, non-abuse, hospitality, equality, and compassion. I don’t need to throw out the Christian story because some Christians try to make it invalidate all others. It includes a deep look at all the aspects of humanity, horrifying as well as redemptive, and it was never meant to be exclusive. And so this bruised and battered Christian is finding new and comforting meaning in the nativity story this year. May you find new and comforting meaning this year too, no matter where, how, and through what medium you find it. 

Namaste, aloha, amen, peace be upon you, and all other acknowledgments of shared humanity,

Alison & Sam

We are well! (fingers crossed) Sam continues at his job with Penguin Random House Publishing, and we remain hunkered down in New York City, making the best we can of some very hard times. Sam's father, sisters, brothers-in-law, nephew, and nieces also remain unscathed. There are many things for which we can be grateful! 

Alison has a new, part-time job analyzing data for the Center for Mind and Culture as part of the Hardy Religious and Spiritual Experience Project. We are hoping this will begin to fill in the financial hole left by the collapse of her organizing business, Moore Magic Organizing. Her children and granddaughters are all thriving despite the pandemic, as are her siblings and spouses. Still, we will both miss seeing our family over the holidays. On the fun side, Alison was a guest on two separate podcasts this year: the Fundamental Shift podcast in December, and  So, You're Canadian, with comedian Dave Hill back before the ceiling caved in on us all.

To one and all, may 2021 be ever so much better than 2020! 

AliSam