Every time I start out with one of my blogs, I think I will reach new people; that I will help people to see the benefits intrinsic to travel and experience. I want to share with others some of what I have discovered in myself; and know in others that which comes from opening the door, taking off, leaving home. I want to express healing, release, forgiveness - as it allows your spirits to mingle in.
Settle down or Center Down?
In a recent issue of Spark, on Centering Down, Nadine Hoover writes an essay titled "Life is Enough" about three critical aspects of Friends community which are immediately executable and payout as results - allowing a richness of engagement to replace mundane or experimentally antithetical life.
1. To STOP, see the power of Life beyond ourselves and know that it is good
2. To face directly, release, and heal the human pain and injustice in our lives
3. To experiment with love and truth in our lives and share what we learn
Then, towards the end of her essay, she describes how some of what she finds she can apply herself she learned by observing other cultures abroad, "In Indonesia, they take to this centering down, public lamentation, and community discernment naturally. Their traditional governing town meetings are called musyawarah. Before decisions or actions are taken on major decisions or disputes within a community, everyone is called to attend and given a chance to be heard."
We have to become as 'Public' as possible in the determination to be fair to our peers and family. We can Center Down as opposed to Settling Down - the former referring to centering (or meditation) a clarity of focus on the marvel of 'peace graced upon us;' the latter seeming to refer to the inertia of sluggishness, a general loss of lust for life, which must accompany boredom, moroseness, and sloth.
I lost a cousin almost twenty years ago who would always ask me, "how do you do it?" My response to her was unfair, inconsiderate, 'How do you not?' We are all in different places, different stages, we have different capacities, and we work to support and learn from each other as we can. Travel can occur in our minds, in our souls. It can occur daily in the slightest interactions, between drivers, pedestrians, at the park, in a grocery line, on a phone call... in books, looking at a painting, a photo.
Brittany, my wife, came home from a bus ride after spending the morning in lines for imaging appointments at a big hospital here in Cordoba, Argentina today. "I really enjoy the reaction I get when I give people unexpected doses of unusually grateful happiness and thankfulness." The bus driver, the old lady sitting next to her on the bus, the mammogram technician, an unhappy very pregnant 19 year old, an old grump. "I know what you mean," I said, "I get such enjoyment from just holding the door open for people a little bit longer or more unexpectedly than they have experienced.
Just by coming here, to a blog you are choosing to travel with me and share our experiences abroad.
What pleases me in the first weeks of my publication is not how much the blog went worldwide, nor how 300 friends and acquaintances have come to read it - but the encouragement, comments, and questions which have been raised in just putting it out there. Thank you!
God speed!!
Settle down or Center Down?
In a recent issue of Spark, on Centering Down, Nadine Hoover writes an essay titled "Life is Enough" about three critical aspects of Friends community which are immediately executable and payout as results - allowing a richness of engagement to replace mundane or experimentally antithetical life.
1. To STOP, see the power of Life beyond ourselves and know that it is good
2. To face directly, release, and heal the human pain and injustice in our lives
3. To experiment with love and truth in our lives and share what we learn
Then, towards the end of her essay, she describes how some of what she finds she can apply herself she learned by observing other cultures abroad, "In Indonesia, they take to this centering down, public lamentation, and community discernment naturally. Their traditional governing town meetings are called musyawarah. Before decisions or actions are taken on major decisions or disputes within a community, everyone is called to attend and given a chance to be heard."
We have to become as 'Public' as possible in the determination to be fair to our peers and family. We can Center Down as opposed to Settling Down - the former referring to centering (or meditation) a clarity of focus on the marvel of 'peace graced upon us;' the latter seeming to refer to the inertia of sluggishness, a general loss of lust for life, which must accompany boredom, moroseness, and sloth.
I lost a cousin almost twenty years ago who would always ask me, "how do you do it?" My response to her was unfair, inconsiderate, 'How do you not?' We are all in different places, different stages, we have different capacities, and we work to support and learn from each other as we can. Travel can occur in our minds, in our souls. It can occur daily in the slightest interactions, between drivers, pedestrians, at the park, in a grocery line, on a phone call... in books, looking at a painting, a photo.
Brittany, my wife, came home from a bus ride after spending the morning in lines for imaging appointments at a big hospital here in Cordoba, Argentina today. "I really enjoy the reaction I get when I give people unexpected doses of unusually grateful happiness and thankfulness." The bus driver, the old lady sitting next to her on the bus, the mammogram technician, an unhappy very pregnant 19 year old, an old grump. "I know what you mean," I said, "I get such enjoyment from just holding the door open for people a little bit longer or more unexpectedly than they have experienced.
Just by coming here, to a blog you are choosing to travel with me and share our experiences abroad.
What pleases me in the first weeks of my publication is not how much the blog went worldwide, nor how 300 friends and acquaintances have come to read it - but the encouragement, comments, and questions which have been raised in just putting it out there. Thank you!
God speed!!
No comments:
Post a Comment