Einstein has had a good month, all things considered. His century-old prediction, that the very fabric of space and time can support waves travelling at light-speed, was confirmed by the LIGO collaboration. More, the bizarre and horrifying consequences of his theory of gravity, the singularly-collapsed stars that came to be called ‘black holes’, have been directly detected for the first time.
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The discovery of gravitational waves, announced on 11 February 2016 by scientists from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), has made headline news around the world. One UK broadsheet devoted its entire front page to a image of a simulation of two orbiting black holes on which they superimposed the headline "The theory of relativity proved".
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Albert Einstein’s greatest achievement, the general theory of relativity, was announced by him exactly a century ago, in a series of four papers read to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in November 1915, during the turmoil of the First World War. For many years, hardly any physicist—let alone any other type of scientist—could understand it.
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For all families, spiritual books are an important way to transmit values to children. In multicultural families, the need is particularly complex. On our own PaperTigers site, you’ll find reviews of All the Way to Lhasa, Shiva’s Fire, Sky Sweeper, and even Ruth Nason’s series of books, prepared for the U.K.’s Religious Education school program, on visiting spiritual centers of various faiths. You can also search PaperTigers for books with spiritual content.
Out on the web, the Quakers’ website offers an annotated list of books emphasizing love, forgiveness and hope across cultures and religious traditions. Penguin Books publishes a list of mostly Christian and Jewish titles, plus one book on the Ramayana. Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has written several books for children emphasizing kindness and other spiritual values; he’s published by Parallax Press. Nicole Harvey of the Asian Art Museum, where many multicultural San Franciscans turn for materials, recommends several widely available titles: Kindness: A Treasury of Buddhist Wisdom for Children and Parents, Ayat Jamilah: Beautiful Signs: A Treasury of Islamic Wisdom for Children and Parents, and Daughters Of The Desert: Stories Of Remarkable Women From Christian, Jewish, And Muslim Traditions.
That’s just a start! We’ll return to this important topic again with more resources and further perspectives.
