Category: Re-establishing Connection

Politics, Poetry, and Holy Reading with Laura Martin

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To be good citizens, we must pay attention. We must notice what is happening in our world, in our country, and in our communities so that we can play a role in fixing what is broken. To be hopeful citizens we must also notice what is good and beautiful. In today’s episode, Laura Martin and I discuss poetry as a spiritual practice that can help us pay attention, so that we may “look at all that devastates, all that breaks, and proclaim the greatest of all is still Love.”

Laura shares poems from her new book, Breaking into Light, and we discuss:

  • Voting for the world we hope for
  • The intimacy of poetry and how that can move us to action
  • How grief can invite us into community with others
  • How poetry invites us to pay attention and other spiritual practices that can cultivate our capacity to notice
  • The multigenerational task of pursuing justice and how poetry can help us be in the moment and connect us to the long arc of history
  • The urgency of centering ourselves in the final weeks before the election
  • How poetry redefines strength and calls us to action
  • The importance of the small choices we make to love those around us
  • How an expansive definition of the divine helps us heal individually and collectively
  • Lectio Divina as a practice for holy reading

Poems from Laura that you can use as a spiritual resource this election:

The offerings from all of our guests, and the text of Laura’s poem, Little Benedictions, can be found on our Spiritual Practices for Political Engagement Page.

Connect with Laura through her website or on Facebook, and instagram @lauramartinpoetry.

Connect with me at [email protected] or on instagram @katie.m.cochran.

Politics, Practice, and Discernment with Emily P Freeman

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Politics is full of decisions: Should I vote? Who should I vote for? Should I align myself with a party? What policies should I support? Should I be a single issue voter? How can I contribute? What is my role as citizen? In today’s episode, I sit down with Emily P Freeman to discuss the spiritual practice of discernment in the context of these questions. We also talk about how to apply the wisdom in her new book, How to Walk Into A Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away, to the political spaces we inhabit.

In this episode, Emily and I discuss:

  • Discernment as a muscle we can cultivate
  • The role of grief in discernment and how we can help our hearts break open rather than apart
  • The role of frustration in moving us toward hopeful action
  • The importance of solitude and community in discernment
  • The practice of “point and call” in political spaces
  • How to navigate the hallways of our lives with patience and grace
  • How to remain in imperfect (political) places with authenticity and integrity
  • How to leave imperfect (political) places with courage and grace

Spiritual Practices you can use this Election to discern your next right thing:

Connect with Emily through her website or on Facebook, X, and instagram @emilypfreeman . Also check out The Next Right Thing Podcast and her Soul Minimalist Newsletter on Substack.

Connect with me at [email protected] or on instagram @katie.m.cochran.

How Meditation and Loving-kindness can bring Hope to Politics with Sharon Salzberg

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Meditation is often thought of as a solitary activity and yet it can lay the foundation for hopeful political engagement. In this episode, world renowned meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg explains how mediation promotes agency, skillfullness, and a deeper understanding of the conditions that form the landscape of our political lives.

In this episode, Sharon and I discuss:

  • How meditation teaches us to return to our agency and start again when things feel helpless
  • How meditation can foster compassion and awareness of our interconnectedness
  • How meditation enables us to learn from strong emotions such as fear and anger without having them consume us
  • How intersectionality can enable us to see ourselves in one another
  • The importance of understanding underlying conditions as we seek to respond to the needs of the world
  • The importance of voting and also art as a form of social action
  • How equanimity can help us find balance between compassion and burnout so that we can sustain our engagement in the political sphere
  • How we can look at political action through the lens of intention and skillfulness
  • The Statue of Liberty as an ishta-devata

Spiritual Practices for this Election Season from Sharon:

See our page on Spiritual Practices for Political Engagement for offerings from all our guests.

Connect with Sharon on her website or through the socials @sharonsalzburg (Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, Youtube, Medium, LinkedIn)

Connect with me at [email protected] or on instagram @katie.m.cochran.

Music as a portal for empathy, lamentation, and social imagining with David Gungor of The Brilliance

Music as a portal for empathy, lamentation, and social imagining with David Gungor of The Brilliance

Posted on by kmcochran

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While politics divides us, music is something that can bring us together. The music of the Brilliance, a musical duo made up of David Gungor and John Arndt, does just that. Their songs invite us to see the humanity in all people while wrestling with some of the most acute challenges facing our world: war, violence, immigration, political polarization, hunger, and anxiety. In this conversation, I speak with David Gungor about the transformative power of music and about the spiritual practices he is bringing to this election.

In this episode, David and I discuss:

  • How music transcends language to bring people together
  • How music offers hope by inviting us into other people’s stories and experiences
  • How music accompanies us in our healing process by transforming individual grief into collective grief
  • Why starting with questions is important in politics and in art
  • The role of music and storytelling in undermining stereotypes and inviting people to look at their own assumptions
  • Entering this election with integrity, vulnerability, creativity, and a willingness to see the good in the other side.
  • The back stories of some of their songs including “Oh Dreamer” and “Lake Coatepeque”

Bring this wisdom with you as you engage:

Download the transcript here.

You can find David at www.davidgungor.com, on X and Instagram @davidgungor.

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All of our conversations are offered alongside a spiritual practice that can help you move through this election season in a more intentional, healthy way. Those practices, including the playlist from this episode, can be found at www.thiselection.org/spiritualpractrices. 

If you found this conversation helpful and want to learn more:

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  • Subscribe to our email list. We share a weekly newsletter that provides additional inspiration, practice tips, and resources to heal and ground you this election cycle.

To connect with me