Works of Love
A Newsletter of The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love
July 7, 2016
Welcome to the monthly WORKS OF LOVE newsletter, which this month consists of six big announcements. We try to distribute on the 21st of each month, but we skipped June because I was in Sydney for a week doing a keynote address at the huge International Dementia Conference, handling media interviews, and then headed up to an amazing resort spa on the Gold Coast near Brisbane to do a two-day workshop on the big seven questions of the Institute at Hugh Jackson’s Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat. This, along with a program on The Golden Rule and Business Leadership for Fairfax Financial Holding in Toronto, as well as teaching a course entitled Altruism and Bioethics left me completely behind schedule. Now I am back for July and August, with a big United Nations event coming up in mid-August.
Six Exciting Announcements
(1) You can now download for free the entire contents of my book, co-edited with Michael A. Edwards, THE LOVE THAT DOES JUSTICE: SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM IN DIALOGUE WITH SOCIAL SCIENCE. This book features 40 of the leading voices in spirituality and activism alive today, including Pastor Otis Moss, Jr., Rev. Samuel E. Mann, Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, Claudia Horwitz, Jay Early, Sharon Salzberg, Mirabai Bush, Will Keppin, Michael A. Edwards, Ramez Islambouli, and many other equally recognized luminaries. If anyone thought that love can be detached from justice, this book will change your mind.
(2) You can now read a new article by Institute researchers S.G. Post, M.E. Pagano, M.T. Lee, and B.R. Johnson, entitled “Humility and 12-Step Recovery: A Prolegomenon for the Empirical Investigation of a Cardinal Virtue in Alcoholics Anonymous” (Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2016, pp. 262-273). Humility was one of Sir John Templeton’s favorite spiritual virtues, having to do with avoiding self-inflation and allowing space in the room for the love of neighbor. It turns out that humility has a huge role in 12-Step Recovery programs.
(3) You can now read an article that is also just out about the soul, love, continuing self-identity, and what I call deeply forgetful people (individuals with dementia). This gets into a whole new theory of narrative memory storage that goes beyond physicalism. Having written on this general topic for 25 years and having received a recognition from the British Medical Journal for writing “a 20th century medical classic” (The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer Disease, 2000), I felt at liberty to defend those many caregivers who intuit that underneath the chaos or the silence their remains an eternal soul worthy of love and still in some sort of divine image however defined. The article is entitled “Is Grandma Still There?” A Pastoral and Ethical Reflection on the Soul and Continuing Self-Identity in Deeply Forgetful People” (Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling, Vol. 70, No. 2, 2016, pp. 148-153).
(4) We also include for your listening pleasure a recent interview on Better Worldians Radio that focused on our 7th question challenging world religions to abide in their various unique teachings about Unlimited Love.
(5) On June 9 the Institute shared a national award given at the Yale Club in New York City for non-profit leadership by Project Pay It Forward.
(6) The world renowned spiritual documentary film maker Eduardo Dubal came by the office all of a sudden about a half year ago to do video interviews with me on each of the Institute’s seven guiding questions. Each video is about ten minutes long. These have now been edited and can be enjoyed on the Institute’s home page as indicated by the word video next to each question:
- Does the unselfish love of others contribute to the happiness, health and resilience of those who give it? Video
- How does such love prevent illness and contribute to the art of healing? Video
- How can parents and communities raise children who flourish in love for all humanity? Video
- How can more people feel called to their work as a form of creative love? Video
- What do people mean when they self-report a spiritual experience of Unlimited Love, how common is this, and is this experience objectively associated with emotional healing and expanded benevolence? Video
- Do physics and mathematics point to an “Ultimate Reality” or “Ground of Being” that underlies visible reality and the universe? Video
- How can the major religions and spiritualities of the world come to abide in their various conceptualizations of Unlimited Love, and practice love for all humanity rather than merely for those who adhere to a particular set of beliefs? Video
Thanks for Your Interest
Stephen G. Post, PhD, President