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Dr. Matthew Welsh – Spiritual Media Blog

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Dr. Matthew Welsh – Spiritual Media Blog

Take On Faith – July 17, 2021

Dr. Matthew Welsh founded the Spiritual Media Blog, which hosts interviews and resources for readers and communities. He joined host Rev. Xolani Kacela for a lively conversation on Take On Faith on KTAL-LP 101.5.

Dr. Welsh shared his story of leaving his law career, earning a Ph.D. in psychology, and going into practice. He also sees patients at the Veteran Affairs Center in Indianapolis. Importantly, the interview covered how mental health and spirituality merge.

Surprisingly, Matt Welsh revealed half of his blog’s content is targeted to people seeking resources for a better life. Most of his guests practice non-traditional spirituality. Dr. Welsh shared how writing his novel helped him deal with important life issues and discover his purpose.

Click arrow above to listen to the audio or click here to download the file.

From Guest’s Website:

Dr. Matthew Welsh J.D., Ph.D. is the founder of Spiritual Media Blog. After graduating from law school Dr. Welsh created Spiritual Media Blog to be a source of inspirational content, media, and entertainment. He began his career in Hollywood working for an entertainment agency, the William Morris Agency, and then as a trial lawyer for the Department of Child Services in Indiana. He realized that he was not happy working as a lawyer. So, he quit his job as a lawyer to pursue his calling to become a psychologist and obtained his PhD in Psychology. He now works as a full-time clinical psychologist. For more information about his private coaching and counseling practice, please visit https://drmatthewwelsh.com.

Dr. Welsh has presented inspirational lectures on how to create a meaningful career to venues across the country including the San Diego Convention Center, international not-for-profit organization Dress For Success, and the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of The Bottom Line, a novel about a young man in college learning how to overcome the male ego. He has also appeared in film as a featured guest for the Spiritual Cinema Circle DVD club, alongside Stephen Simon, producer of Academy Award winning film, What Dreams May Come. His podcast has featured conversations with thought-leaders including Neale Donald Walsch, Arielle Ford, James Redfield (Author of Celestine Prophecy) and William Arntz (Director of What the Bleep Do We Know?).

Dr. Larry Ward

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Dr. Larry Ward

Take On Faith – July 10, 2021

Dr. Larry Ward practices as an ordained Buddhist teacher and ordained Christian minister. He completed his Buddhist studies with the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh at Plum Village in France. He authored the book America’s Racial Karma, which is published by Parallax Press in 2020.

Dr. Larry Ward

During this Take On Faith episode, Dr. Ward and host Xolani Kacela discussed subjects covered in his book. They explored Ward’s experience of race while teaching in China and Africa. Ward discussed the importance of being in the body.

He shared what it means to be African American and Buddhist. His research covers the beginning of racism. Also, the show explored his meditative and prayer life and the reflective work covered in the book.

The conversation covered how spiritual practices can heal the racial divide in America. Host and guest explored neuroscience, trauma, embodied spirituality, and how history and truth impact human identity and emotions.

To listen to the audio, click on the arrow above. Download by clicking here.

From Guest’s Website:

So says Zen Buddhist teacher Dr. Larry Ward.

Shot at by the police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult, Larry Ward experienced the trauma of having his home firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, the home in exile of his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Dr. Ward found a way to heal. In these short reflective essays, he offers his insights on the effects of racial constructs and answers the question: how do we free ourselves from our repeated cycles of anger, denial, bitterness, pain, fear, violence? Larry Ward looks at the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state and finds, hidden in the crisis, a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America’s racial karma.

Centering Revisited

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Centering Revisited

Centering Revisited offers an update to the book, Centering: Navigating Race, Authenticity, and Power in Ministry, edited by Rev. Mitra Rahnema. This video comes from the Centering Revisited webinar/workshop at UUA General Assembly 2021.

The excerpts are from updates spoken by Rev. Manish Mishra-Marzetti and Rev. Cheryl M. Walker.

The 2017-18 UUA Common Read

In October 2015, a group of distinguished UU religious professionals of color gathered together in Chicago to embark on a radical project. The conference was sponsored by the UUMA’s Committee on Antiracism, Anti-oppression, and Multiculturalism. It started with the premise that discussions of race in Unitarian Universalism have too often presupposed a White audience and prioritized the needs, education, and emotions of the White majority. The goal was to reframe Unitarian Universalist anti-oppression work by putting the voices, experiences and learnings of people of color at the center of the conversation. The resulting book, Centering, captures the papers that were presented and the rich dialogue from the conference to share personal stories and address the challenges that religious leaders of color face in exercising power, agency, and authority in a culturally White denomination. Centering explores how racial identity is made both visible and invisible in Unitarian Universalist ministries.

For the free online study guide click here.

Fat Liberation and UU

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Fat Liberation and UU

Rev. Dr. Cynthia Landrum, Rev. Molly Brewer, Rev. Julie Brock

Fat UU Clergy Against Sizeism Caucus Group
Taking Up Space: Fat Liberation and UU examines the following: Fat bodies are often viewed as bad bodies, even in UU spaces. A group of UU clergy will present a theological context that lifts up the worth and dignity of every body, of every size. Through facts, stories, and examples, we will equip congregations to question and transform fatphobia culture.

Sizeism (from https://www.definitions.net/definition/sizeism)

Size discrimination or sizeism is a form of discrimination based upon a person’s physical size, including but not limited to height and/or weight. Sizeism usually refers to extremes in physical size, as in an extremely tall person or an extremely skinny person. This can also be applied to discrimination against the fat and/or obese.

Definition of sizeism (from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sizeism)

: discrimination or prejudice directed against people because of their size and especially because of their weight … this is one way to dismantle the power difference society’s privileges grant us through such institutions as racism or classism or ageism or sizeism.

— Sarah Lucia Hoagland

… Hollywood horror stories about sizeism abound. Carrie Fisher said in 2015 that she had been pressured to lose 35 pounds before appearing in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

— Brooks Barnes

From (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sizeism)

Sizeism is aligned with the social construction of the ideal or “normal” body shape and size and how that shapes our environment. In the U.S. we can observe many public facilities shaped by this “normative” body including; telephone booths, drinking fountains, bleachers, bathroom outlets (sinks, toilets, stalls), chairs, tables, turnstiles, elevators, staircases, vending machines, doorways…to name a few. Design assumptions are drawn about the size and shape of the users (height, weight, proportionate length of arms and legs, width of hips and shoulders).[5]

Body-shaming, more specifically weight-shaming of men and women, is a widely known characteristic of sizeism, shown in the form of prejudice and discrimination can include both skinny shaming[6] and fat shaming.[7]

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