Listen to This

What is the name for what we're looking at? How about "faith"? Faith that can face down "greed." Greed, after all, is what lies at the core of our problems. Greed is about something-for-nothing. Greed is about I-must-have-more-than-you. Greed is about a craving for power. Greed hordes the world's energy. Greed claims to "own" God. Greed won't listen. Greed doesn't weep. Greed works a Ponzi scheme that ultimately robs the poor because it makes charity impossible. Greed insists on being paid for any favor. Greed puts a price on everything. Greed thinks it deserves to be rich. Greed demands losers. The media won't tell us these things. They can't. Faith does. And faith must.
-Ed Murray (former President and CEO of the Odyssey Network)

Wisdom from the East

Our tendency is to be interested in something that is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make the soil rich and cultivate it well.
~Shunryu Suzuki

Wisdom from the Ancient

I have three treasures, well secured:
The first is compassion;
The second, moderation, never too much;
And third, I say that never would I once
Presume that I should be the whole world's chief.

Through compassion, one gains true courage;
Through moderation, one gains true abundance and strength;
And if our ambition can be only to serve,
Then we give our true talents time to emerge.

Bravado today knows no compassion;
Abundance we have, but without moderation;
And self-importance, always in a hurry,
Rushes head-long towards its own death.

The truly loving are the only invulnerable.
Love resists and conquers even death itself.
Heaven arms with compassion
Those whom it would not see perish.
-Lao Tzu

Every child has known God

Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does anything weird,
But the God who knows only four words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come Dance with Me, come dance."

Hafiz

How can we enter the kingdom of God if we do not become as children?

Sir Thomas Jeremy Gray

 

What I've Been Doing

I have been doing a lot of stuff but I have not taken time to write until now. I don’t have a lot to report tonight. I will say that I am praying for a friend of mine who is reaping a lot of bad stuff for choices that she made many years ago. I want so badly to help her but I know that I am powerless to help in any way beyond being present with a helping ear. Maybe I can do that.

I will not get any more specific than this. Just suffice it to say, I am humbled when I am confronted with situations such as this.

We had a fairly decent Farmer’s Market yesterday. I do enjoy being involved with the Farmer’s Market. It is a great opportunity to meet a lot of really great people. It is also a great place to buy locally grown produce and home baked goods. I hope that more and more people will get involved with it as vendors and vendees. More space and more people…these are needed.

Next Tuesday I am planning to attend a forum on community gardening. This is a theme that is very important to me and I hope that I can share ideas of mine and receive ideas from other participants. It will surely be interesting. I am sure that I will have something to report afterwords.