Edgar Villanueva is back on Spirit In Action with an importantly updated edition of his book, Decolonizing Wealth 2nd Edition: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance. As a member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina and with his experience serving several philanthropic foundations, giving away $25 million a year, Edgar has piercing insights as to the pros and cons of those claiming to help the less fortunate, and he sees the deeper ways that philanthropy is part of the problem, and the way forward to some real solutions.
Kathy Baughman McLeod, SVP, Atlantic Council & Director, Adrienne Arsht - Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center reveals the many risks that come with extreme heat. She also provides multiple solutions, including innovative ways to use insurance to change the way we build and respond to extreme weather.
Guest-host Patricia Stansbury (AKA Sunny Gardener) shares interviews with 2 different guests. First up is Duron Chavis and building Resiliency Gardens is Duron’s life work. Learn local food systems & how they intertwine with justice, prudence and hard work. Part 2 is a visit with Joseph Rogers. He has been part of the Virginia Defenders of Freedom, Justice and Equality since the year a domestic terrorist killed a woman with his car on the streets of Charlottesville at a Unite the Right Rally. A 7th-Generation Virginian, his ancestor Martha Ann Fields was enslaved when she was born in Hanover County.
Whether it's supercharged indie rock, bittersweet pop, or something completely new, Brian Kelly/Oceanography will expose your heart. Brian can powerfully channel Roy Orbison and his song, Crying, and he can make you think you're with Neil Young, but mostly he's himself, and that's an excellent thing. Along the way he played and sang with the Butte County All Stars, Food, and with Silence The Bird. Brian is located in Oakland, CA, bringing music to the wider world.
Past/current religious & spiritual influences: Catholic, Transcendental Meditation, Non-affiliated
Bonnie Koloc was a major presence in music, especially folk music, on the Chicago scene in the early 1970's, along with John Prine and Steve Goodman, one of the big 3 folk musicians there. She was a constant presence on the stage in those years, churning out 4 albums in 4 years, singing not only folk but jazz and blues. Eventually she wondered away from Chicago, including stints with other forms of art, like musical theater and visual art. Her travels finally brought her back home to Iowa where she's had the happiest years of her life. Bonnie Koloc joins us from Decorah, Iowa.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences: Catholic, Gregorian Chant, Earth-Centered, Non-affiliated
Jessica Smucker is today's SOS guest, and she believes the best way to change the world is to channel our pain into connection. Jessica is one very captivating person, both musically and otherwise. She worked on movies, is a published poet & a social justice warrior, came into music through a rock band called The Sleeping World, and she knows all the two-letter words in Scrabble, so don't even think of challenging her. Raised Mennonite from Amish grandparents, she's been enriched by and moved beyond them to her own path. For a fun, quirky new song of hers, check out Let's Get a Tree.
Past/current religious/spiritual influences: Mennonite
In These Walls Between Us – A Memoir of Friendship Across Race and Class Wendy Sanford helps us all travel with her a path away from white supremacy, white privilege, and micro-aggressions, to true interracial friendship, by witnessing Wendy's journey of growth & self-examination. Wendy first met Mary Norman when Mary was hired as a domestic worker for Wendy's family during a summer vacation in the mid-1950's, and the ensuing decades provided constant lessons of insight and refinement.
In mid-August, Liam and Don were joined by Portland Maine’s Poet Laureate, Maya Williams. Maya is not only a creative, gifted spoken word artist and poet, they are also a suicide survivor, theological thinker, and utterly enchanting person.
In this episode, Maya shares their poem, “Judas and Suicide,” and offers us a thought-provoking and spiritually penetrating reframing of the traditional religious views of suicidal ideation and suicide. Maya, Don, and Liam then talk honestly and openly about this sensitive topic, as Maya offers us a glimpse of a God who is present in our suffering and accompanies us, rejecting human views of sin and drenching us in grace and loving understanding that the world is, sometimes, a hard place to be.
Before closing, Maya offers us another poem to consider.
Read about Maya and read Maya’s work at https://www.mayawilliamspoet.com/
Maya’s other text:
Andy Douglas is author of Redemption Songs – A Year In The Life of a Prison Community Choir, a piercing look inside US prisons, and he is also author of a memoir The Curve of the World: Into the Spiritual Heart of Yoga, about his 7 years in Asia as a devotee and monk with Ananda Marga. Redemption Songs is a powerful & personal book, about the US prison industry, but also, especially, about Andy Douglas's experience of singing in a choir of prison-insiders and prison-outsiders.
How does an American Hindu approach the climate crisis? What ancient values and teachings apply to modern life in America today? And how does this relate to LGBTQ issues and public health? Hari Venkatachalam connects his faith, work, heritage, and even his sexual orientation to living in a climate-changed world.
In the episode Hari reveals how extreme weather, which affects everyone, disproportionally impacts LGBTQ homeless youth. Citizens Climate Radio host, Peterson Toscano, explains,
Up to 40% of youth living on the streets in the United States and Canada are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary. Many of them avoid going to shelters because they assume they will received the same discrimination and hostility they escaped. This is especially true for transgender and gender non-binary young people. This puts them at extra risk during extreme weather events.