In the Footsteps of Gandhi: Conversations with Spiritual Social Activists
For Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the activists interviewed here, politics and religion are "a seamless garment," and in various ways, this is true for all the people in this book of conversations. Some of them began with a spiritual path that led them eventually out into the world; others began by working toward social change and found that the spiritual dimension of their work deepened as they went along. At this point, the two strands have become so closely braided together as to be nearly indistinguishable. Catherine Ingram has chosen some of her personal heroes for these interesting conversations, a varied collection of people, each concerned with a different aspect of humankind's endlessly diverse suffering. We hear from the Dalai Lama about China's takeover of Tibet, from Cesar Chavez about the California farmworkers, from Mubarak Awad about the Palestinians, from Joanna Macy about the despair in all of us at the laying waste of the world. Some speakers are more eloquent than others - Gary Snyder, unsurprisingly, since he is a poet, as is Thich Nhat Hanh - but there is something moving or invigorating about each of them. Gandhi's powerful nonviolence is their inspiration, and it is heartening to hear from people who have the courage and humility that a deeply non-violent approach to social activism requires. --FromIndependent Publisher--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition.