We are human beings who have been blessed with some wonderful aspects of the human experience, but we are also very, very aware of how difficult it is to be a fully realized human being. We could stumble as our fellows do, and, of course, we do. But we earnestly seek to live in a manner that is mindful of our place on the planet. We pray that we will make progress in this journey. We will record s
ome of our adventures here, but some of our journey will only be recorded in our memories. Clearly we intend that our journey will involve the sharing of compassion and love and kindness generously with the friends we make in our journey. Our links and resources are organized by "themes", presently we have seven themes: sufficiency, memory, mystery, meaning, women, peace and resources. Sufficiency - Collaboration, not competition, is the royal road to the wholeness that hallmarks healthy systems in the world. Collaboration calls for empathy and solidarity, and ultimately for love. We are part of the same whole and so are part of each other. (Ervin Laszlo)
Memory - “Memory” is the basis for both pain and rejoicing: We cannot have one without the other, it seems. And, “We are not very good at recognizing illusions, least of all the ones we cherish about ourselves.” (Thomas Merton, Source: New Seeds of Contemplation). Mystery - “Mystery” is a word we can use for the world we seek thru faith, spirituality & religion. It also helps identify our puzzlement about “the human condition”. Meaning - "A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how." (p.127 of Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning")
Women - We have a growing awareness that whereever the world is growing more peaceful, whereever it is healing, women are playing an important role. Some of us are concluding that the empowerment and protection of women in places that are hurting should be a very high priority. We haven't been able to stop violence and abuse in Darfur, in Rwanda, in the Congo, in Somalia, in Zimbabwe, in Haiti; maybe our effort should go to ensure that those who are likely to have the will for rebuilding can do so. Peace - Dr. Martin Luther King's Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict. (July 13, 1966, The King Center)
Resources - These are a bigger field of resources available to our themes. Beyond this lies the world wide web providing vast additional resources. The work of politics is the ordering of society and the regulation of power to permit human flourishing while simultaneously restraining the most Hobbesian human instincts. There could be no greater irony: For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty — statecraft). Because if we don’t get politics right, everything else risks extinction. We grow justly weary of our politics. But we must remember this: Politics — in all its grubby, grasping, corrupt, contemptible manifestations — is sovereign in human affairs. Everything ultimately rests upon it. Fairly or not, politics is the driver of history. It will determine whether we will live long enough to be heard one day. Out there. By them, the few — the only — who got it right. (Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, December 29, 2011)
