Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast. I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, executive editor of Emergence

Magazine, located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Mewalk people of present-day

Marin County. Each week, we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams is a sensei in the Japanese Zen tradition and the founder of the Center for Transformative

Change. She is the author of Being Black, Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace,

and Co-author of Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love and Liberation.

In November of 2018, I spoke with Angel about her philosophy

of radical Dharma and the widespread crisis of story among mainstream religious institutions

on how they are mostly failing to offer us a new way forward. Angel believes the role of faith leaders is to help people know themselves

within the tribe of our collective humanity and to challenge us to reach beyond singular narratives

and examine our complex histories.

One of the things we've been exploring here at Emergence Magazine is the notion that at the heart of our current ecological, social, and political crisis potentially lies a deeper spiritual crisis.

This seems to be something that over the last few years, folks from faith-based traditions and some spiritual teachers, including yourself, are recognizing and beginning to talk about.

As a teacher within the Zen tradition, I'm curious to hear your perspective on what you think the role of faith-based and spiritual traditions is in responding to this underlying spiritual crisis?

I think the role is to partition. I think that's the thing that comes to mind, first and foremost.

And when I say partition, I mean, I think more of us have to learn how to speak to people within our

faith, and then also have to learn the language of speaking to people beyond our faith,

so that we're not recreating the sense of division and separation and a delineation between

like, we're this and you're or by by accident right by not being able to

speak to people outside of our faith right it's it's really a calling in moment it's like it's a

calling in to our collective belonging not just our individual belonging along the lines of our faith.

It's not a moment to just call Jews in if you're a rabbi.

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