For about 10 years Richard Paul Thomas (or on FB) made music around Milwaukee, WI, as part of The Counts, The Polaras, Ron & The Continentals, The Gamblers, The Too Young to Know Anything about Pain & Suffering Singers, and also piles of great music as Susan & Richard Thomas.

The work of the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) is to develop & share the knowledge needed for effective civil resistance, and they are providing the info in more than 60 languages to freedom, justice, & democracy workers all around the world. Hardy Merriman has been President & CEO of ICNC since 2015, and working in the field since 2003. Drawing on the best research and the most promising experience, Hardy and the ICNC are providing the vital educational support to the rapidly growing nonviolent civil resistance movements working to transform the world.

Rolly Brown delivers quality, whether it's his 4x-a-week on-line Curve Flattening Concerts, his guitar instruction, his Bucks County Tai Chi, or his humane dog training info.

Rabbi Katy Allen co-founded Jewish Climate Action Network (JCAN) in 2013 as an urgent and visionary Jewish voice on the crisis of climate change. Growing up on a farm and having worked as a science teacher, she went on to Jewish studies and helped found the One Earth Collective, and leads Ma'yan Tikvah, a congregation in the Boston Suburb of Wayland, on spirituality and nature, which holds outdoor Shabbat services all year long - in Massachusetts. 

Many Spirit In Action listeners eat consciously, maybe natural foods, local foods, or organic foods. Maybe you grow a portion of your own foods, or buy from CSAs and local farms, but if you can't verify the quality of your food first-hand, you may depend on the official federal Organic certification for that assurance. Unfortunately, big business and big money will tend to dilute organic standards and practices, if we let them, so we need help from a public-interest private eye, and that's the role of Organic Eye, an organic industry watchdog, and Mark Kastel is one of its founders. Mark has been through the system, first working for some of the agribusiness giants, before having his eyes and mind opened to vital importance of organic foods and farming, for the consumers, plants, animals, & the planet.

David and Jenny Heitler-Klevans have been doing music together as Two of a Kind for around 3 decades. Rooted mostly in the Folk-Americana genre, they have focused on children & family music, 9 albums of it, in addition to a CD for grown-ups. They've garnered 6 Parents' Choice and 3 Creative Child Magazine awards, and a lot more. David, Jenny, and 2 other musicians perform as Acoustic Blender, and they've recorded a few songs by Amanda Udis-Kessler, another friend of NSR.

Past/current religious/spiritual influences:
Ethical Culture, Jewish, Non-affiliated

Most of us lament the polarization of our society, but George Lakey finds promise in the blacksmith's forge. He's founded and/or worked with so many peace & justice organizations, among them A Quaker Action Group, Movement for a New Society, TraningForChange.org, Earth Quaker Action Team, WagingNonviolence.org, and, most recently, ChooseDemocracy.us. George is author of 10 books, with an 11th, his memoir, due this coming year.

Marci Geller can be sweet, has a gift of poetry & melody, sings and writes beautifully, but most of all she weaves a web of magic and inclusion through her music, taking us on a journey of both depth and elevation. Although she currently plays and records mostly on her own, she "plays well with others", like the couple years she went on tour with Blackmore's Night, where she opened for them & sometimes sat in with the band, and the couple years she played with the acoustic trio, Lucky 13. She currently streams 4 short concerts per week from Stonybrook, NY.

In this episode of the Bible Bash podcast, Liam Hooper does a new thing.

First, Liam invites listeners to draw near to our new co-host, Don Durham, and invites Don to draw near to listeners as well. We learn a little about Don, who is - among other things - a trained organizational change and transition consultant, and strategic coach helping clients be who they want to be and accomplish what they want to accomplish. Don is also an ordained minister who runs a small farm where he grows food to give away and hosts a podcast about what people are doing to end hunger. 

Don and Liam then weave into their conversation a deeper look at the complicated story between Joseph and his brother, especially, Judah. What does the Hebrew phrase, vayigash, mean? And why does the text tell us that Judah, who is already in close proximity to Joseph, draws near to him?

If you are feeling up,  down, or somewhere in between, by the time you finish this episode, you will feel encouraged in the great work you are doing.