Scoop has an Ethical Paywall
Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Scoop Contributor
Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.
His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.
lefevremartin77@gmail
Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 36]
Martin LeFevre: Jesus Was a Man
Wednesday, 20 December 2006, 4:22 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The silly season is upon us. Silly not because of the celebrations of Jesus’ birth, as anachronistic as that seems in a world devoid of innocence and peace, but because ‘X-mas’ has become synonymous with the mindlessness of consumerism. More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Best Spiritual Movie Ever Made
Wednesday, 6 December 2006, 4:11 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The best film I’ve ever seen with religious themes is “Black Narcissus.” Filmed in 1947, it deftly delves into the clash between Eastern and Western traditions; the conflict between the sensual and spiritual dimensions of human being; and ultimately, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Deleting Memory Awakens Insight
Monday, 27 November 2006, 6:07 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
After a light but all-night rain, the clouds cleared and the sun made a welcome appearance in the early afternoon. People got outside and into the parkland in droves, including me. Meditation was just igniting through undivided, undirected observation when a ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Darfur - The Limits of Diplomacy
Monday, 13 November 2006, 12:36 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The human spirit is deeply damaged when the so-called international community cannot summon the political will to stop genocide. After the Holocaust, the slogan was “never again.” After Rwanda, the reality seems to be, “again and again.” More >>
LeFevre:California’s Global Warming Contradictions
Wednesday, 8 November 2006, 1:37 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The drive out of California’s Central Valley was through the thickest, most noxious and ominous-looking smoke I’ve ever seen. Huge swaths of rice fields had been set ablaze, as well as enormous piles of debris from the almond harvest. What would have ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: No Such Thing as ‘Just War’
Wednesday, 1 November 2006, 11:28 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Two items in the news last week provide overwhelming evidence that the country that established the post World War II order has taken it hostage, and that things have gone off the rails. Both occurred where the ‘global war on terror’ began, in ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Does Man Matter? Part Two
Monday, 30 October 2006, 12:18 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Despite a much greater presence of people on a Sunday afternoon than when I’ve been here during the week, it’s still a supremely quiet place at the mountain reservoir. Over a quarter mile away, some kids at a picnic site across the lake can’t handle ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Does Man Matter?
Thursday, 26 October 2006, 12:30 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Being self-centered by nature (a nature we’re being compelled to radically change), people have always tended to put ‘man’ at the center of the universe. Galileo spent the last years of his life under house arrest because he found evidence that ... More >>
Cultures and Countries Are Things of the Past
Sunday, 22 October 2006, 2:01 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Perhaps the core question with respect to globalization has to do with identity. If this issue can be adequately addressed, then many, if not most of the crises confronting people everywhere (especially in impoverished and conflict-ridden countries) can ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: When Time Stops
Tuesday, 17 October 2006, 11:01 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Overhanging the gorge are great angular outcroppings of volcanic rock--solid and sharp edged protrusions from the gently sloping grasslands behind them. Many have huge slabs balanced on top of them, some looking like they had been perfectly placed ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Global Polity Now
Tuesday, 10 October 2006, 1:15 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Will things change in America if the Democrats win control of both Houses of Congress in November, and the White House in 2008? More importantly, will such a shift restore genuine US leadership as "the sole remaining superpower?" More >>
Martin LeFevre: Mind, Brain, and Meditation
Friday, 6 October 2006, 3:11 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The green waters of the reservoir are like glass. On the surrounding ridges, motionless pines tower over the man-made lake, and reflect off the surface of the water with mirror-like sharpness. More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Will is Never Free
Thursday, 28 September 2006, 11:20 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A neuroscientist named Benjamin Libet made a remarkable discovery at the University of California, San Francisco in the mid-1980’s. Placing electrodes on volunteer’s skulls and forefingers, he asked them to move their finger whenever they had the ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Is The Devil In The White House?
Monday, 25 September 2006, 2:46 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
I’m no fan of Hugo Chavez. He has all the earmarks of a demagogue, and has repressed dissent in Venezuela. But his UN performance, mixing theater with truth, was astounding. Delivering a line with panache that will go down in the annals of history, he said, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Last Pope?
Thursday, 21 September 2006, 12:41 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
So now we (the ‘we’ in this case is most problematic) have a new pope whose diffident exterior masks a doctrinaire interior. The Catholic Church could have embraced worldwide ecumenism. Instead it is, in Pope Benedict XVI, reasserting its medieval claim to ... More >>
Bush & Rumsfeld: They’ve Lost the 'War of Ideas'
Monday, 4 September 2006, 11:30 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
President Bush made an extraordinary statement at his unexpected news conference on August 21st. He said: “the consequence of leaving Iraq before the job is done…[is that] we will have lost our soul as a nation.” The Nazis used that kind of rhetorical ... More >>
Meditations: Consciousness, Evolution & Revolution
Thursday, 24 August 2006, 11:08 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Because human history, which is enfolded in the consciousness of every living person, is so ancient, there is a deep assumption that the basic course of humankind cannot be altered. But human consciousness is in an escalating crisis, and the cycles of ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Return and Become Like Children
Thursday, 17 August 2006, 9:30 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A hundred meters upstream, a little girl jumps up and down and runs small circles in the shallows of the stream. In between these contented antics, she dashes back and forth to her parents sitting on the bank, touching them each time for reassurance. More >>
Martin LeFevre: Faith, Reason, & Insight
Monday, 14 August 2006, 11:30 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
If the events of recent weeks and years have demonstrated anything, it is that the Enlightenment ideals of reason and human rationality cannot hold sway over the realities of belief and irrationality. But that always was a Hobson’s choice, and there is ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Earth Is a Mirror
Thursday, 3 August 2006, 5:29 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s a day that will reach nearly 45 degrees Celsius. There is a feeling, while walking in the late morning through the brown grass in the canyon beyond town, which is at once exhilarating and enervating. One cannot help but appreciate the essential ... More >>
