Healer, playwright and activist

07/02/19 • 15 min

The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network

Peruvian Miguel Angel Pimentel is a theater director, a playwright and human writes activist, who is also a traditional Andean healer, or “paco.” In this podcast, he shares the thread that unites these pursuits, explains how he views play and creativity as part of his spiritual path and expands on the importance of theater as a means of creating community. Pimentel's current project is the creation of a forum to bring these threads together in his native city of Cuzco, Peru. The community forum he envisions will include both indigenous and non-indigenous people.

Links:

Email: [email protected]
Diversity and Spirituality Network's site
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Links:

Email: [email protected]
Diversity and Spirituality Network's site
Provoked by this episode? Record a response!
Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon!

Previous Episode

An Atheist's Conversion

When he was young, Jess Lederman was an atheist and thought people who believed in God were fools. But one day, his wife heard a radio interview with Francis Collins, the eminent geneticist and devout Christian who like the Ledermans spent the earlier part of his life as a nonbeliever.

Lederman in some respects followed the same path that Collins walked by reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. He delved deeper by reading and the works of George MacDonald, the 19th century Scottish author, who was one of Lewis' mentors. MacDonald's writings had the same effect on Lederman as they had on Lewis. They formed the groundwork for his conversion to Christianity.

In this podcast, Lederman traces his religious journey and the factors that led him to write his new book, Hearts Set Free. The characters in the book wrestle with many of the issues that he's wrestled with: the reconciliation of science and religion, the journey from doubt to faith, and the practical implications of living life as Christians.

Links:

Jess Lederman's site
The works of George MacDonald
Diversity and Spirituality Network's site
Provoked by this episode? Record a response!
Like the podcast? Support us on Patreon!

Next Episode

The Wounded Leader

Ten years ago, Laura Tucker participated in the now infamous Spiritual Warrior retreat in which three people died. These deaths lead to the conviction of the retreat’s leader, James Arthur Ray, of three counts of negligent homicide, and became a case study of the excesses of charismatic leadership. The story of that infamous event is chronicled in the CNN documentary, “Enlighten Us: The Rise and Fall of James Arthur Ray.”

A leadership coach, Tucker here talks about what she learned from the incident, how to recognize authentic forms of leadership, and the forces that might cause well-intentioned charismatic individuals to veer to the dark side.

Although it's easy to ghettoize the Ray's behavior as specific to New Age or self-help communities, Tucker reminds us that inappropriate leadership exists everywhere, and is endemic in political, religious and corporate life. "We all have the capacity to slide down the continuum from authentic leadership to the egotistic, hubristic kind," she says.

In addition to sharing her beliefs about leadership, Tucker here talks about how her practice of self-care helped ease her passage back to post-retreat life, how encouraging others to practice self-care is central to her coaching practice, and her newest project, "The Summer of Self Care."

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