April, 2005

Contents

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| editorial |
On Suffering
Alan Race, Jim Kenney, Seshagiri Rao

| paradigm |
Responses
Ursula King, Rosan Yoshida,
Brian Walker, John Hick, Kusumita Pedersen

| creative encounters |
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)
global visionary for our times
Ursula King
The Terrorist Challenge to Islamic Leadership
Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi
The United Nations as a Spiritual Institution
the vision and commitment of Sri Chinmoy
A. Walter Dorn
Reflections on the Interfaith Movement and the Quest for a Global Ethic
Harold Kasimowi
The Faces of Fundamentalism
Ron Miller and Reilly O’Conner
Fundamentalism
A. Rashied Omar

| sacred spaces |
The Story of a Hospital Prayer Room
Georgiana Heskins and Imrana Ghumra

| voices of youth |
The Mentor
Mariah Neuroth

| practically speaking |
Healthcare and Spirituality
spiritually sensitive care of the terminally ill muslim patient
Cindy Visscher

| focus on the interreligious movement |
Unwelcome and Welcome Truths
a statement from a dialogue group of Jews, Christians and Muslims

| in review |
Mysticism for Us All
three books by Wayne Teasdale: The Mystic Heart, A Monk in the World, Catholicism in Dialogue
Marcus Braybrooke
Reviews
Briefly Noted

| poetry |
Ten Oxherding Quatrains
Jim Foy
Love Does That
Meister Eckhart

| prayers and meditation |
A Hungry Boy and Girl
Modern prayer from Los Angeles, USA
Traveler’s Blessing
Traditional Gaelic Blessing

| patrons and editorial board members |

In 1961, Teilhard de Chardin’s Hymn of the Universe was posthumously published by Harper and Row. The following excerpt celebrates the human relationship to the material spheres of the universe.... Steep yourself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery waters, for it is the source of your life and your youthfulness ....

Never, if you work to live and to grow, never will you be able to say to matter, “I have seen enough of you; I have surve yed your mysteries and have taken from them enough food for my thought to last me for ever.” I tell you: even though, like the Sage of sages, you carried in your memory the image of all the beings that people the earth or swim in the seas, still all that knowledge would be as nothing for your soul, for all abstract knowledge is only a faded reality: this is because to understand the world knowledge is not enough, you must see it, touch it, live in its presence and drink the vital heat of existence in the very heart of reality.... Purity does not lie in separation from, but in a deeper penetration into the universe. It is to be found in the love of that unique, boundless Essence which penetrates the inmost depths of all things.... Oh, the beauty of spirit as it rises up adorned with all the riches of the earth!

The original art work that appears on the front and back covers is “Noogenesis” by Lonnie Hanzon, a celebrated artist from Denver, Colorado, and a member of the Insight Editorial Board.

The term “noogenesis” was first used by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It means the growth or development of consciousness--the coming into being of the “noosphere”, that sphere or evolutionary stage marked by the emergence or preeminence of consciousness, the mind, and the complex and transformative web of interpersonal interdependence.