Obama is a remarkable man.  Can you imagine George Bush saying that the irony of faith is that it requires uncertainty?  I don't think so...

I still get a little nervous whenever a U.S. president talks about God - a term that is bandied about and so often very misused. When George Bush talked about God, it was the God of the old testament, a judgemental, old man with a white beard in the sky that picked sides and advocated pre-emptive strikes and bombing bad people. 

 Because of the way the word has been abused, and to avoid shutting people down,  I avoid using the G word.  But  I have begun to reclaim the term, because it does point to something that no other word quite captures. I spell it G~d, tho - allowing for an element of mystery.

 For me, G~d is all that is, was, and ever will be, and in these parts includes the potential and the unfolding that burst into creative evolution some 14.4 billion years ago with the big bang. We are part of this divine unfolding, this totality, the manifest, the unmanifest, vast beyond vastness.  Awe full, awe some, capital L love, capital M mystery. 

Here's a clip of Fierce Light visionary  Van Jones, newly appointed member of Obama's cabinet, speaking on todays economic, environmental and spiritual crises. 

 Spirituality, Action, meet with Gob smacking beauty

by Liz Braun, the Toronto Sun 

Martin Luther King called it "love in action". Ghandi's phrase was "soul force".Canada's Velcrow Ripper calls it "fierce light" -- a combination of spirituality and activism that he sees gathering strength on a global level. This is what his hopeful new movie, Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action, attempts to illuminate.

The death of a friend during a peaceful protest is the catalyst for investigation at the beginning of Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action. Despite this tragedy, Ripper senses a sea change, a growing general consciousness that, "Another world is possible." So can spirituality coexist with social activism?