Shopping for Salvation in a Brand New World
George Gonzalez asks “Will the revolution be commodified?” Continue Reading →
Tag: oprah
In the News: Elvis, Thoreau, Oprah, and more!
A round-up of the week’s religion news. Continue Reading →
I'm Not Religious, I Just Love Meditation
Amy Levin: While the image of Oprah endorsing transcendental meditation is about as banal as a priest offering the sacrament, the Queen of the New-Age spiritual marketplace has sold spirituality to those in her pews again. Oprah’s bricolage-like church offered this week’s sermon via her show Next Chapter on the OWN network: transcendental meditation is awesome, readily available for consumption, and so culturally adaptable that even a city in the middle of corn country is bursting with enlightenment.
I’m Not Religious, I Just Love Meditation
Amy Levin: While the image of Oprah endorsing transcendental meditation is about as banal as a priest offering the sacrament, the Queen of the New-Age spiritual marketplace has sold spirituality to those in her pews again. Oprah’s bricolage-like church offered this week’s sermon via her show Next Chapter on the OWN network: transcendental meditation is awesome, readily available for consumption, and so culturally adaptable that even a city in the middle of corn country is bursting with enlightenment.
The Gospel of Sacred Candy Hearts
By Amy Levin
Did Santa bring me a boyfriend this year? Smooches for all red, juicy collagen-chocolate filled lips. This v-day I’ll find my soul mate so my full heart becomes a half and we eat goodies like lollipops and lexapro. I think I found him on OkCupid; he buys me roses from Wal-Mart that I place in my hair and promise to never take it out and so I play Regina to sing me to sleep:
The flowers you gave me are rotting and still I refuse to throw them away.
Some of the bulbs never opened quite fully
They might so I’m waiting and staying awake.
Things I have loved I’m allowed to keep
I’ll never know if I go to sleep.
He’s Jewish! He’s Jewish! Spread the Good News! His name is Karl Marxstein and we exchange and exchange and plan to celebrate Valentine’s day with a bottle of Manischewitz and my mother’s Groupon but instead I watch Carrie Bradshaw marry herself while Charlotte shows me how to be a Jewish housewife. I use Oprah’s prayer book but it’s really a cookbook for the best guilt-free valentines special and I really feel like a woman. Continue Reading →
Yoga's Bondage
Amy Levin: For most of us, it’s hard to wrap our heads around yoga – yes, this thing everyone is talking about, but also the details about how it got here, where it came from, and what the big deal is. Yoga has become such a part of our vernacular, and yet we seem to stumble over describing it.
Continue Reading →
Yoga’s Bondage
Amy Levin: For most of us, it’s hard to wrap our heads around yoga – yes, this thing everyone is talking about, but also the details about how it got here, where it came from, and what the big deal is. Yoga has become such a part of our vernacular, and yet we seem to stumble over describing it.
Continue Reading →
Oprah's God
On Wednesday, May 25th, Oprah ended her daytime television show after 25 years. No gifts nor guests graced her final broadcast. God and Jo Piazza were watching.
by Jo Piazza
For an hour last Wednesday afternoon Oprah Winfrey stood center stage in her Chicago studio, no guests, no surprises, no free cars—just Oprah.
If you’ve ever doubted that Oprah has spent the past 25 years cultivating a ministry of O, Wednesday’s finale of her long running talk show should have convinced you otherwise.
“Everybody has a calling. Everybody is called. My great wish for all of you is that you carry what you are supposed to be doing forward. Start embracing the light that is calling you and use your light to serve the world,” were among the sentiments Winfrey preached, heavy on the eye contact, in what can only be described as divine lighting that can make a 57 year old woman’s skin look so smooth. “You’re responsible for the energy you create for yourself and the energy you give to others.”
I was perhaps more sensitive to looking at Oprah through the lens of religious experience than I would have been on an average Wednesday, having recently finished Kathryn Lofton’s Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon. Continue Reading →
Oprah’s God
On Wednesday, May 25th, Oprah ended her daytime television show after 25 years. No gifts nor guests graced her final broadcast. God and Jo Piazza were watching.
by Jo Piazza
For an hour last Wednesday afternoon Oprah Winfrey stood center stage in her Chicago studio, no guests, no surprises, no free cars—just Oprah.
If you’ve ever doubted that Oprah has spent the past 25 years cultivating a ministry of O, Wednesday’s finale of her long running talk show should have convinced you otherwise.
“Everybody has a calling. Everybody is called. My great wish for all of you is that you carry what you are supposed to be doing forward. Start embracing the light that is calling you and use your light to serve the world,” were among the sentiments Winfrey preached, heavy on the eye contact, in what can only be described as divine lighting that can make a 57 year old woman’s skin look so smooth. “You’re responsible for the energy you create for yourself and the energy you give to others.”
I was perhaps more sensitive to looking at Oprah through the lens of religious experience than I would have been on an average Wednesday, having recently finished Kathryn Lofton’s Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon. Continue Reading →
Oprah’s God
On Wednesday, May 25th, Oprah ended her daytime television show after 25 years. No gifts nor guests graced her final broadcast. God and Jo Piazza were watching.
by Jo Piazza
For an hour last Wednesday afternoon Oprah Winfrey stood center stage in her Chicago studio, no guests, no surprises, no free cars—just Oprah.
If you’ve ever doubted that Oprah has spent the past 25 years cultivating a ministry of O, Wednesday’s finale of her long running talk show should have convinced you otherwise.
“Everybody has a calling. Everybody is called. My great wish for all of you is that you carry what you are supposed to be doing forward. Start embracing the light that is calling you and use your light to serve the world,” were among the sentiments Winfrey preached, heavy on the eye contact, in what can only be described as divine lighting that can make a 57 year old woman’s skin look so smooth. “You’re responsible for the energy you create for yourself and the energy you give to others.”
I was perhaps more sensitive to looking at Oprah through the lens of religious experience than I would have been on an average Wednesday, having recently finished Kathryn Lofton’s Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon. Continue Reading →