Thoughts: Be the good you want to see in the world….
from our friends at Fractal Enlightenment
Thoughts: Everyone is beautiful….get closer.
As you know, most monks see beauty in everyone, even folks who try to cover it up (can you imagine? hiding from your OWN beauty? or deny it, or do distracting things), or folks who say “Beauty is this, but it’s not that.”
Doesn’t work that way, and you know it.
From the description of this short 4 minute film, posted just last week & closing in on five million friends watching it:
Disabled mannequins will be eliciting astonished looks from passers-by on Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse today. Between the perfect mannequins, there will be figures with scoliosis or brittle bone disease modeling the latest fashions.
One will have shortened limbs; the other a malformed spine. The campaign has been devised for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities by Pro Infirmis, an organization for the disabled. Entitled “Because who is perfect? Get closer.”, it is designed to provoke reflection on the acceptance of people with disabilities. Director Alain Gsponer has captured the campaign as a short film.
Thoughts: Get outside & play. Get inside & play.
Thoughts of peace: Police lay down their arms
Yesterday in Thailand, riot police yield to peaceful protesters by removing barricades AND their helmets in a shocking gesture of solidarity.
From the CBC report: “In a sharp reversal in strategy that followed two days of increasingly fierce street fighting, riot police lowered their shields and walked away from heavily fortified positions around Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s office at Government House.”
Here’s the whole CBC story.
Thoughts: The courage that gratitude requires….
One of the folks who hits it right on the head is also one of my favourite writers, Oriah Mountain Dreamer. She posted this little essay on the courage it takes to be grateful, at times….
It takes a certain kind of courage to allow gratitude to arise within our hearts. We know that in an impermanent world, all that we love will change, is impermanent. To let ourselves love & be loved anyway, to feel & express our gratitude for lives we know are unpredictable means holding our fears about loss tenderly without letting them stifle our enthusiasm for life.
Of course, what feels like shrinking or expanding differs from person to person- we are the only one who can know for sure if we are shrinking our lives to accommodate our fears or finding the courage to let life expand within & around us.
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Thoughts: Teach me
Earth, Teach Me
Earth teach me quiet ~ as the grasses are still with new light.
Earth teach me suffering ~ as old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility ~ as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring ~ as mothers nurture their young.
Earth teach me courage ~ as the tree that stands alone.
Earth teach me limitation ~ as the ant that crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom ~ as the eagle that soars in the sky.
Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself ~ as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness ~ as dry fields weep with rain.
– Ute Prayer
Thoughts: Beauty, colour & the sun as it sets
The appearance of things change according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
Kahlil Gibran
(To see more of Traci Walter‘s amazing artful photography, check out her site at traciwalterphotography.com.)
Thoughts: Us & the ocean & us again
We were fish swimming in the ocean,
unaware of the water and ourselves.
The ocean wanted to be recognized,
so it threw us up on dry land.
We flip after this, we flop after that,
pursuing an ever more elusive happiness.
Is the ocean tormenting us?
Rumi
Healing & sharing: Time to give wings to our good wishes
Just asked my dear friend Lolit in the Philippines what I could post, for my circle of folks who might want to help (from all over the world, so it’s a bit of a wide-spread circle)…she suggested this local (there) site, with lots of options (including good wishes & prayers) to give, to share, to heal…..and she keeps telling me folks there are pulling together to help one another, and are pretty fired up to get on top of this:
Thoughts: Francis & the embrace felt ’round the world
In the lore of monkish tales, most know the story of the original Francesco, who said that his conversion to a life of faith came along after he had embraced & kissed a leper.
This past week, the pope for our Roman Catholic friends echoed his thirteenth century namesake as a photo went viral ’round the world of him embracing a fellow with neurofibromatosis, a condition which has left him with tumors all over his body & face.
I love it when a good idea gets good press.
It’s tempting to look at the picture & say how cool the pope is for doing this. (And, it is cool.) It’s also tempting to leave the inspiration, the lesson & the discussion there.
But the more interesting question is: Have you kissed your leper today? What or who is in your life that you shun, because you’ve decided they’re gross? Can you close your eyes to the tumors & open your heart to the warmth of someone whose healing begins with your touch?
Now that would be cool.
Love you & the way you do,
Brother Ian
Thoughts: Glenna Hall, with a parable of disconnectedness
Most of my steady readers from the San Juan Islands know that the past week has seen the cutting of one of the Internet & phone cables in the islands, leaving many islanders scrambling to connect with each other.
Islander (and former judge) Glenna Hall’s remarks about this have been published in The Atlantic. See what you think.
Thoughts & writings: Liz Gilbert on Jack Gilbert: “We must risk delight.”
You know Liz Gilbert from her book Eat, Love, Pray.
You may know her from her wonderful TED talk about genius & how we ruin it (check it here.)
Here’s a new way to get to know her: She writes a wonderful piece in The Atlantic (published a couple of days ago, here) celebrating her memory of writer & poet Jack Gilbert (unrelated), who wrote of the way we can look for (and find!) what she calls a “stubborn gladness” in the reversals & difficulties we our everyday lives. She cites his lines:
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.
And more. Here’s the essay. You’ll be glad where it leaves your heart. Thanks, Liz.
About Brother Ian
Over the centuries, Brother Ian has been collecting stories & information & discourses for the purpose of elevating the human condition as needed, dissecting it when necessary, and building the case for hope.
In the spirit of noting that organized crime, organized baseball, organized labour, and organized religion tend to engender controversy & occasional discord, I promise to be neither organized or critical of those who are.