When we live in a practice of gratitude, when we do not take things or people for granted, we truly embody spiritual intelligence. This practice unravels the interdependent relationships between waste/disposability and ethnocentrism/xenophobia–between ecological collapse and humanitarian abuses. Storytelling is a vehicle we can use to attune to hospitality. I will offer participants opportunities to recognize the value of re-“discovering” our innate capacities to think beyond the habitual, thus expanding the possibilities of living our spiritual intelligence, our interconnectedness. We will ask how specific biblical ethics of co-implication (empathy) can develop a profound sense of individual agency and how that empowerment can lead to creative response-ability through collective/collaborative eco-social, spiritual justice.
