What Mormon and Muslim fundamentalists share in common: Romney vs. Obama (Huffington Post)

Officially outlawed in the 19th Century when Utah joined the United States of America, polygamy makes for great ratings in award-winning 21st C  television. (LA Times)

On Broadway: Mormonism makes a blockbuster musical. (NY Observer)

Web 2.0: some of the hottest lifestyle bloggers are Mormons (Good Magazine)

Massachusetts and JFK redux:  Romney and religion. (Huffington Post)

Maureen Dowd: “the elite of the elite in the Mormon Church”   (New York Times)

Where Mitt’s Mormonism is an Achilles Heel: The South. (Media-ite)

Are you seduced by the LDS’s multi-million-dollar like-ability campaign? (Businessweek)

BY PAUL KAIHLA — July 18 is South Africa’s annual Good Samaritan’s day. This year, Nelson Mandela turned 93. And the tradition here is to donate 67 minutes to helping others in honor of the former freedom fighter’s devotion to human rights and reconciliation.

The number 67 is not a random pick; It represents the number of years that Mandela devoted himself to public service and political struggle — 27 of them incarcerated in South African prisons (1962 to 1990) such as Capetown’s equivalent of Alcatraz, Robben Island, as well as five years as South Africa’s first non-white president (1994 to 1999).

The ethos of loving kindness and building circles of support is what inspired the team at Soul’s Code to devote many multiples of 67 hours to found this property in the first place. But in the case of Nelson Mandela Day I was personally inspired after attending a fashion show and gala dinner at Capetown’s City Hall, the Edwardian landmark where Mandela made his globally-broadcast speech hours after former president F. W. de Klerk released him from prison. Mandela is a walking testament “that someone could put the interests of others first without some selfish goal in mind,” Capetown mayor, Patricia de Lille, told us.

There was a lot to celebrate. After decades of apartheid, violence and pariah status, South Africa won! It bears far more resemblance to Canada and Australia than failed successor states like the Soviet Union’s former stans republics. Why do you think that the type of celebrities who once upon time boycotted South African resort town, Sun City, now maintain vacation homes in Capetown, including Bono and Richard Branson?

It isn’t simply sloganeering. Citizens of South Africa walk the talk. For example, flight attendants on South Africa Airways flights today are asking passengers to remember their 67 minutes of do-gooding.

After receiving a favor from a stewardess on the morning flight from Capetown to Johannesburg, I joked that she’d successfully docked five minutes from her quota.

Her coy comeback: “Oh, I’m way ahead of that – I just gave your security guard a free upgrade to business class.”

Robben Island (upper right): Nelson Mandela's island prison for 18 years

BY DAVID RICKEY – Haiti is a fascinating place in its own right, but for me it serves as a kind of microcosm of issues that are evolving around the planet. I just returned from my fourth visit to Port au Prince. Each time I go, I accomplish a little but learn a lot.

I can report that there is progress there. The streets, although still terrible and crowded with the chaotic traffic of trucks, SUVs and motorcycles weaving around each other, are cleaner and brighter. There is an renewed energy and purposefulness.

On May 14th, Haitians witnessed the inauguration of Joseph Michel Martelly – “Sweet Mickey” – a former pop star singer, but with a big heart and apparently a good mind. He is already seeking good changes in education, law and business to get Haiti on the road to recovery and self-assurance. However, every time I visit I learn more about the depth of the problems there. This gives me insight into the larger problem of this human adventure we are all on.

What does the Book of Acts have to do with Haiti?

The Haitian people became “free” in 1804 when Haiti was declared a free republic. But without education or understanding of how social democracy can work, the power that came with leadership inevitably led to corruption.

This continues to dog the entire system to this day. In a free society, an individual can rise from poverty to power, but without an understanding of social responsibility that power becomes an aphrodisiac. Separate from the awareness of “We,” the sense of “I” takes over.

To step back a minute, in the Book of Acts we learn that the early disciples, as they experienced the power of the Spirit, gathered for worship and meals and shared everything they had. Anyone who needed, received from the “pot” of shared goods and services. New converts were attracted to this new social structure, no doubt because it relieved the day-to-day anxiety about survival.

There was a sense of serving a higher purpose, but soon a hierarchy developed, and factions started to rival one another for power and control. What was missing then is missing now, not only in Haiti but globally.

It is too easy for individuals, groups and nations to rise to power and forget that there is a deeper spiritual truth calling us to share and trust in a wisdom that seeks to shape us into compassionate humans.

The smallest ones are the forgotten ones

I can see the tension in the orphanages I have been visiting.

On one hand, I watch the children care for each other. An older child will immediately go to a smaller one who is having trouble and comfort or help in a way that is quite heart-warming. On the other hand, fights will break out as the children vie for my attention or a chance to get lifted up over my head or get their picture taken. “Me next! Me next!” erupts and turns into chaos.

When there is a sense of scarcity, the Ego seeks its own survival, and when there is a sudden “richness,” of wealth or simple attention, the Ego seizes the opportunity to assure its own survival. That very process depletes the source (me, in this case). Greed controls the flow, or the chaos just wears me out. As a result there is no longer enough to go around.

I strongly believe there is a wisdom that guides this unfolding consciousness that has lead to our evolution as humans. I call it God. Although it is a mystery, it is one that I trust, having experienced too much of it to deny its presence. If we can only learn that there is an intention seeking enough for everyone, an intention that all can be happy, satisfied, fulfilled, we will awaken to this reality.

In a parable about heaven and hell, hell is a huge banquet with every conceivable food arrayed on long tables. The trouble is, the forks are each four feet long. All of the people are unable to feed themselves. As for heaven, it is a huge banquet with every conceivable food arrayed on long tables. The forks there, too, are each four feet long. But in heaven, everyone is feeding someone else.

You get the point.

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder and counselor in San Francisco who does a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Follow David on Twitter.

BY DAVID RICKEY — Back in 1963, Bob Dylan wrote “The Times They Are A Changin’,” and they were. The 60s were a time of chaos for those holding onto the old ways, and a time of hope for those seeking the new. Buddhists say that change is the nature of things, but change as we now see it (much like in the 60s) can be pretty disquieting.

As I write this, the so-called Middle East is in unprecedented turmoil with rebellion spreading like a contagion with no clear sense of where it will take us. Beyond that, the world’s economic structure is precarious at best. Every clarion of hope is countered by new reports of dire predictions. Even the weather has become cause for global concern with rampant flooding and extensive long-term drought.

One of my favorite hymns is “If Thou But Trust In God To Guide Thee,” but what does that mean in the context of 21^st-Century confusion? If change is the nature of things, can we find God by embracing change? I believe we can if we alter our understanding of God and of ourselves.

Change leads the flock

First, we must abandon the idea of a distant God who is judgmental, looks down upon us with a disapproving scowl and demands us to “Repent!” Instead, if we embrace a divine essence that is woven into the very fabric of creation, into the laws that guide and nurture the evolution of life and possibility – and if we understand our very Self to be a physical expression of this divine essence – we can find a basis for real hope.

This relatively new understanding, promoted by spiritual teachers like Eckhart Tolle, and physicists like Bernard Haisch and John Polkinghorne, tells us that rather than being separate from God, we are indeed God, expressed in physical substance. Our purpose is to advance the evolution of consciousness by our actions. From this perspective, any change is part and parcel of why we are here.

Right this minute, divine essence is hard at work in two major ways:

The upheaval in the Middle East, for one, is an amazing confluence of human and technological evolution. People are rising up and claiming freedom in dramatic ways and, at the same time, the evolution of mass communication, via cell-phone, Internet, social media and television, has radically changed the environment in which this upheaval happens. Witness how the actions of dictators are both circumvented (young people circumventing attempts to stifle communication) and broadcast to a watching world. Truth is getting out despite attempted oppression.

On the other hand, the consequences of our past choices – personal and corporate greed and the disregard of our interdependence with nature – are coming back to us in karmic lessons. We are forced to think differently about who we are and what we do with and to each other and the planet.

On the surface, current events can seem bewildering and hopeless. But if we look beneath the surface, we’ll see the workings of divine intelligence nudging and nurturing us along in ways that can give us great hope, if only we embrace the process. In my own experience, this divine presence can look something like a sheepdog, bumping and circling, guiding, chastising and protecting me as I stumble through changes in my own life. This is the basis of my trust.

Feel the nudge, take the guidance

When all seems chaotic, I try to step back and realize there is an unseen process going on that is infinitely trustable: It is the reason behind the universe and me as a part of it. But I cannot be passive. In whatever situation I find myself, I am learning to ask the question, “What would Evolution do?”

Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see.” Evolution directs us to envision a better future, then to be that future. By remembering that my purpose is to contribute to conscious evolution, I can move forward without concern about what happens to “me,” since I am only a part of this amazing process. I have the whole of divine wisdom backing me up, not to save me but to work through me.

That kind of courage is exactly what propels the protesters in Egypt and Libya, who know they are serving a larger and higher purpose. They are risking their own lives, not to be labeled Martyrs and receive some reward, but to witness (in the true, Greek sense of the word) a higher truth. Along the way, each of them will undoubtedly also find his or her own reason for being.

Times are again a changin,’ and we are being called upon to be that change. But we are not alone. We carry the wisdom and potential of the whole universe with us.

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder and counselor in San Francisco who does a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Follow David on Twitter.

BY DAVID RICKEY — Americans play a role in the political crisis in Egypt. Politically, we find ourselves wanting to support the emerging democracy, but fearing what the loss of Mubarak would mean for our own security. This is a perfect example of how Karma plays out in our world. I believe that the whole Middle-East conflict is a Karmic result of our own choices.

Our economy has prospered partly as a result of how we have been able to exploit the riches of other countries (the exploitation of others, as demonstrated in the huge divide between the “haves” and the “have-nots” has been the major fuel for both our economic prosperity and subsequent financial melt-down).

We have supported leaders who have stabilized countries like Egypt, without regard to their treatment of their own people. Or we have worked to overthrow leaders who threaten our access to the resources these countries possess. This political game has worked for us economically, but the evolutionary principle of self-determination is now changing the game, adding a very powerful new dynamic.

Having cake vs. eating it

Karma is, fundamentally, the way the universe works with human evolution to advance consciousness. It’s not about punishment so much as about the lessons we need to learn. Humans seem to need painful crises as motivation to advance consciously. Carl Jung called this the “Tension of Opposites.” In the case of Egypt, our desire for democracy is in tension with our desire for economic growth. It’s fascinating to watch the Obama administration wrestle with trying to balance the two desires.

We have unconsciously created that tension, as Jung describes it, to force us to seek a more enlightened resolution. Here’s what typically happens: we might resist the next step, but the force of evolution will take it for us and give us an even more painful lesson. The insights we gain from this painful lesson are what eventually lead to a higher level of resolution.

There is a cause for optimism, resting in another sub-plot in Karmic unfolding. The rise of alternative energy sources offers both a way to move beyond dependence on the Middle-East energy resources and a way to increase local job creation. Oil Companies — those that haven’t evolved enough to embrace the possibility — resist alternative energy, and here again is that Tension of Opposites. The Karmic process is pushing us by giving us greater insight and initiative to find this higher resolution.

Let Karma do its thing

Embracing Karmic unfolding is always a win-win situation. This is because the purpose of Karma is positive evolution. Karma always intends growth, both personal and societal. It doesn’t eliminate the pain, which is really the pain of releasing old belief patterns, false visions of how things work. Karma is our friend, albeit frequently a harsh taskmaster.

The US “solution” in the present situation in Egypt is, I believe, to support the protesters and not interfere in the evolving conflict. Rather, we should step back and re-evaluate our own intentions and possibilities. Meanwhile, Karma will unfold. As with the financial crisis we are already in, new insights into how to work together on a global scale are seeking to emerge into our consciousness. Our job is to let go of old fears and false visions.

The ego, both personal and corporate, always resists change. Jesus’ insight that “those who seek their life will lose it and those who [are willing to] lose their life will find it” fits perfectly here. If we hold onto old patterns we will lose. If we are willing to risk loss we will find new life.

David Rickey is an Episcopal priest, Soul’s Code co-founder and counselor in San Francisco who does a weekly ministry at a residence for the elderly in northern California. Follow David on Twitter.