Saints Among Us

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is a saint who prescribes self-compassion. Yes there are saints living among us today. There are people who are compassionate and who have made compassion part of their daily to-do list. They are not run off their feet trying to fix everything but are listening and seeing the sentient beings around them.

When they see things that are not right they think about how they can open the door to make it easier for us to care for those who suffer. The saints are working in medicine, healing, communications and community groups. They are journalists in war torn countries. They are advocates for those who are in prison because they protest oil pipelines to keep their water clean for drinking. They are lawyers who will defend those who have no money to pay for legal services.

Saints today are not perfect and not interested in being perfect or even the notion of perfection. They are tuned into the currency of moments and minutes for the greater good.

Conversations for a Kinder World

As public relations expert and former David Suzuki Foundation board chair James Hoggan writes in I'm Right and You're an Idiot, "polluted public discourse is an enormous obstacle to change." How, he asks, do we "create the space for higher quality public debates where passionate opposition and science shape constructive, mind-changing conversations"? David Suzuki Foundation.

But we don't have to keep replaying the right-wing end-game propaganda.  Right now there are many websites, blogs, institutions who have done the work and who write to inform rather than obsfiscate.  All we have to do is get off our diet of sensationalist drama, forget the gossip, and spend more time reading the stuff that will give you information.  It means more attention to words and ideas but with practice we could restore our attention spans.

Here are some links that are kinder:

I'm Right and You're an Idiot 

David Suzuki Foundation 

Logical Fallacies

Charter for Compassion 

Council of Canadians 

There are also many news organizations that still uphold the importance of journalism and who rely on donations to keep going:

The National Observer

The Tyee

rabble.ca

Three Dimensional World

One way to understand the system is to see how it got here. When did it begin? Division of labour? Industrial revolution? Class systems? Who created it? Was it us - masses? The landowners? The aristocracy? Wealthy merchants? Religion?

At what point did the system become the thing we must serve or die? Must we serve it?

With each century our system becomes more complex with layers and cracks from various interests and now we call it capitalism, democracy, the machine, fascism, globalization, the economy.

Are our minds and hearts becoming more marginalized by the algorithms of finance? We fear we are disposable.

This is not an easy idea to digest.  A gut reaction is to seek revolution, war, hatred, punishment. But not against the most powerful. Against those with the least political power.

But life becomes brutal when we convince ourselves that we can build a just system on hate. We lose touch with our problem solving abilities. However the answer to this problem is the mind and heart that brings the system back into its imagination.

We need to affirm that social systems were created to save life not exploit it. Once we cross that bridge we begin to see that there is a lot of work to be done. Clearly we can't fix it in one lifetime but we can begin to see the future as a co-creation rather than a prison.

Ban Ki-Moon on saving our planet

Saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth... these are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women's empowerment. Solutions to one problem must be solutions for all.

Ban Ki-Moon. https://www.brainyquote.com

Doing the right thing

What does that mean - to 'do the right thing?' The 'thing' we need to do generally is something life changing – affecting us personally – or the lives of others in close relationships with us. Or, it involves a broader social & political decision that will effect the entire planet – in the spirit of Hawking's warning: “[Humanity is facing] a number of [real and existential] threats to our survival from nuclear war, catastrophic global warming, and genetically engineered viruses.” Perhaps the right thing that needs to be done will consist of the sum total of all of the smaller 'right thing' decisions of people like us – decisions which taken together and across the entire planet could really effect world change.

Russell McNeil, PhD (Physics)
Presented November 20, 2016 at First Unitarian Fellowship of Nanaimo

What Does Money Mean To You?

What do you think of when you have money? Is it food or fun or security? Is it something that belongs to someone else which keeps you from doing what you want to do? Is it something you need? Is it what keeps you outside of community? Is it power?  Does it reward you with love?

What is the minimum you need for life to be worth living?

Soup is Magic

There is something magical about soup. You just have to get a sauce pan out, fry up a few veggies, add meat or legumes, water, herbs, spices and simmer until ready. You don't need a recipe. Use your favourite things to make soup. Taste it and add whatever you think it needs. It is your soup after all. No-one besides you is an expert on your soup.

You can share it with someone else. Someone who doesn't or cannot make soup. The most effective way to serve soup is to invite them over to your place.  If you cannot do that you can put some in a tub and take it to them.