beCAUSE is an occasional publication of the San Antonio peaceCENTER. Each issue is packed with thought-provoking stories, poems, essays, songs and hand-on activities, suitable for use from middle school through adults.
beCAUSE is neither right nor left, not liberal or conservative. They do not tell you what to think or believe, but rather encourage deep thinking about the core issues that affect us all.
Each four-page issue is centered on a theme and can be reproduced on a copy machine: copy and use them!
Conversation
This issue was originally published in the Fall of 2007 in conjunction with “Soul of a Citizen: a community conversation about faith and politics.” (this version was updated in September, 2016, for the Cultural Conversation held at the UTSA Institute for Texan Cultures.)
download Conversation beCAUSE (pdf file, 4-page, 1MB
Peace & the Environment
We challenged peaceCENTER intern James Benzschawel from Texas Lutheran University to look into the intersection of peace and the environment — his issue of beCAUSE opened our eyes.
download Environment beCAUSE (pdf, tabloid-size, 750 KB)
Corporate Social Responsibility
peaceCENTER intern Malak Yusuf from Boston College investigated corporate social responsibility and assembled her findings in this timely issue of beCAUSE.
download CSR beCAUSE (pdf, 4-page, 800 KB)
Love
The peaceCENTER’s Tibetan Lamas in Residence have enriched our understanding of compassion, and this edition of beCAUSE, explores love and compassion from many perspectives.
download Love beCAUSE (pdf, 4-page, 800 KB)
The Golden Rule
The Golden Rule issue was originally published in the Spring of 2003 as this country started bombing Iraq and community conversations revolved around determining: “who is our neighbor?”
download Golden Rule beCAUSE (pdf, 4-page, 1.4MB)
Human Rights
In 1998, during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the peaceCENTER handed out tens of thousands of slick little UDHR booklets. When the news started to leak out about the torture allegations at Abu Ghraib we went to the storage closet and discovered that the cupboard was bare — we had handed them all out! We produced this issue of beCAUSE to re-open a conversation about human rights.
download the Human Rights beCAUSE (pdf, 4-page, 1.5MB
Truth
This issue was originally published in the Fall of 2003 when the country had started war with Iraq and many of our community conversations revolved around the nature of truth and lies.
download Truth beCAUSE (pdf file, 4-page, 2MB)