January 24, 2012: The Tree of Life
Director Terrence Malick’s new movie is a meditation on traditional Christian questions about evil, suffering, grace, and beauty, says Calvin College professor of English Roy Anker.

Director Terrence Malick’s new movie is a meditation on traditional Christian questions about evil, suffering, grace, and beauty, says Calvin College professor of English Roy Anker.
Using ancient Chinese spiritual principles, says Raymond Lo, a feng shui grand master in Hong Kong, “we can establish where is the good energy and where is the bad energy.”
“It’s a spectacular opportunity for cross-cultural associations that are peace-based, that are based in the holiness of this land,” says Steve Lozar, a council leader of the Salish Tribe in Montana.
Read four poems by Brother Paul Quenon, who entered the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky, in 1958.
The widespread crisis in Japan is marked by ongoing relief efforts and acknowledgment of the impermanence of life.
The dwellings built during the Jewish festival of Sukkot "remind us that in some ways all of life is really temporary, and life is very fragile," says Dani Passow.
View a picture gallery of 21st -century sukkahs that explore themes of the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles such as shelter, hunger, sustenance, hospitality, and the temporary nature of all that surrounds us.
Photography, according to Abbot Barnabas Senecal of St. Benedict's Abbey in Atchison, Kansas, is an exercise in monastic mindfulness, and he says his pictures express "being aware of the presence of God with you and in the world."
Abbot Barnabas Senecal, a Benedictine monk, reflects on the Psalms, prayer, photography, and the Benedictine desire "to seek God daily."
"What do we mean when we call a place sacred ground?" historian and religion scholar Edward Linenthal asks of the 9/11 crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

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