JOYFUL WANDERING -- 68

+ Where have I been? Where am I going? It's a mystery, isn't it?

+ The New Faith for the New Earth #tnfftne

I have begun to offer tweets on The New Faith for the New Earth with the hashtag #tnfftne

February 5

+ The New Faith for the New Earth > #tnfftne is essential for all creation > #tnfftne is an idea whose time has come (again).  Ideas go round and round.  They come.  They go.  They come again. so #tnfftne is not a new idea but it is as old as life itself.

February 10

#tnfftne #2  THE NEW FAITH FOR THE NEW EARTH is now here and you are an essential participant right now.  You know what it is as well as I do because we are one.

#tnfftne #3  THE NEW FAITH FOR THE NEW EARTH unites all creatures everywhere with this CREDO > We are intimately, intricately, infinitely connected to a matrix of unconditional, unlimited, uniting Love which is miraculous, mysterious and marvelous.

#tnfftne #4  THE NEW FAITH FOR THE NEW EARTH is: non-hierarchical, free, open, loving, caring, compassionate, healing, energizing, inclusive, humble, non-judgmental, fun, creative, yours, mine.

#tnfftne #5 THE NEW FAITH FOR THE NEW EARTH is happening now.  It is essential.  You know when you see it.  It is all of us creating more and more Compassion, Peace, Justice and Sustainable Abundance.  You can consider more ideas at http://abundancetrek.com

#tnfftne #6 Since THE NEW FAITH FOR THE NEW EARTH is mysterious, it is hard to describe.  Actually it is impossible to describe.  But we have clues.  I have a take on what #tnfftne is and that's what I am writing about.  Sometimes I will be right and sometimes I will be wrong.

aq

#tnfftne #7 THE NEW FAITH FOR THE NEW EARTH is open to correction, revision, new ideas, new visions, new possibilities, new directions.  Let us all be open and committed to discovering new ways to create more compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance for all.

February 15
#TNFFTNE #8 + we are creating the new faith for the new earth which is creating #compassion, peace, justice and sustainable abundance for all breath after breath.

#TNFFTNE #9 + we are creating the new faith for the new earth which is creating #compassion, peace, justice and sustainable #abundance for all thought after thought after thought.

#TNFFTNE #10 + In the essential practice of #stillness you discover who you are, your purpose, your message, your path and there is simply no other way for you learn that. http://abundancetrek.com/stillness.html

+ Your Turn …

Compassionate Politics -- 1

Make no mistake about it: The Electoral College victory of Donald Trump is a tragedy coupled with the continuing Republican control of Congress even though they lost some seats in both houses. It appears to me like the USA is falling apart. This is a huge crisis facing us and it will take a huge effort by concerned citizens to put this country back together again.. We are in trouble.  Make no mistakle about it.

So, I am beginning a series of posts on Compassionate Politics which will, hopefully, contribute to the huge effort needed by concerned citizens to put this country back together again.

Here are a few websites which are movers and shakers for the compassionate politics our nation so desperately needs:

• Robert Reich
• Bill Moyers
• Michael Moore
• Thom Hartmann
• Common Dreams
• Democracy Now!
• People for the American Way
• Sojourners
• Daily Kos
• TruthDig
• TruthOut

I anticipate adding a few more to this list but this will get you started.

JOYFUL WANDERING -- 63

+ updated at 11:57am on Monday, May 16, 2016.

+ This post includes entries from Monday, May 16, 2016 until a date in the future (turns out to be January 16, 2019). Latest entries are at the top. If you would like to contribute, write JW in your subject line and send it to John@abundancetrek.com or put a comment on my Facebook page.

+ Stir offers  I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump
by Jonna Ivin

+ Yes, racism has been and continues to be a very sinful reality here in the USA. This article takes a little time to read but it definitely reveals why I am for Bernies Sanders for President.  He gets it.  The others don't.

The Torture Report Makes Us All Look Bad

The Torture Report Isn’t Just On Bush—It’s On All Of Us

By Jason Stanford

Excerpt > "The belief that releasing the torture report, and not the torture itself, damages our standing and security in the world is so naïve, it’s nearly endearing. It’s based on the wrong-headed idea that the rest of the world was unaware of the contents of the torture report when Americans were the last to know what was done in our name. And it's not the release of the torture report that incites terrorism. It's the torture."

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

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+ updated at 5:17pm ESDT on Tuesday, October 7, 2014. 

+ “In everything, whether it is a thing sensed or a thing known, God Himself is hidden within.”  -- St Bonaventure

+ Spirituality and Practice offers an excerpt on an excerpt on practicing Unconditional Love from the book, It's Up to You: A Practice to Change Your Life by Changing Your Mind by Karen Casey. Read the S&P review.

+ Religion for Life offers John Shuck's recent  interview with Bill McKibben

+ 2 important articles by Robert Reich:

•  “Why We Allow Big Pharma to Rip Us Off”
• “Why the Economy is Still Failing Most Americans”

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+ Robert Reich offers “Antitrust in the New Gilded Age”. Excerpt: “In 1890, when Republican Senator John Sherman of Ohio urged his congressional colleagues to act against the centralized industrial powers that threatened America, he did not distinguish between economic and political power because they were one and the same. The field of economics was then called ‘political economy,’ and inordinate power could undermine both. ‘If we will not endure a king as a political power,’ Sherman thundered, ‘we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life.’” 

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+ In the Gratefulness Word for the Day today we are reminded that silence is often the best policy:

“Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace. Keep silent, refrain from judgement. This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult and outrage and will shield your glowing heart against all evil.” -- St. Seraphim of Sarov

+ Joseph Naft's illuminating Inner Frontier Inner Work this week is on Profiting from our Valleys. 

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+ updated at 11:50am EST on Friday, March 14, 2014

+ Yesterday's Gratefulness Word for the Day:

“If we could see the miracle of a single flower, our whole life would change.”

-- The Buddha

+ Yesterday's Daily Zen: 

If you want to complete the unsurpassable Buddha Way, you must first vow to save each and every sentient being, whose numbers are infinite. If you want to save all sentient beings, you must arouse a spirit of dauntless courage and push yourself forward mercilessly until you can see your true nature as if you are looking at it in the palm of your hand. 

– Hakuin

+ Last week Joseph Naft began a new series at Inner Frontier on The Path of The Path. This week he offers his wonderful wisdom on Handling Peaks. Here is an excerpt: "The spiritual path, our inner work is rightly directed at changing our station, at a lasting transformation of our level of being. The methods of the path accomplish this by training us to enter into and extend our stay in a state corresponding to the next higher level beyond our current station. The intention is eventually to make that next higher state our new station, to enable us to live in that new way. This takes long-term persistence." | Read it all

+ The Gratefulness Word for the Day:

The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.

 -- Terry Tempest Williams in Talking to God: Portrait of a World at Prayer (anthology)

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+ Daily Kos offers: "Peggy Noonan writes the most ironic, un-self-aware column in the history of Western civilization" by Attytood | Read the article

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+ Shambala Sun offers “Love & Relationships: What the Buddhists Teach“ > The Introduction states: “From the profound to the practical, from the basic split between self and other to dealing with your partner’s anger, four prominent teachers and psychologists talked about all the issues of relationships at this year’s annual Shambhala Sun/Omega Institute program, ‘What the Buddhists Teach.’ Here are four essays on the dharma of relationships, adapted from their presentations. Presenters were  The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, Sylvia Boorstein, John Tarrant, and Polly Young-Eisendrath.

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+ Marianne Williamson agrees with Mahatma Gandhi that “Anyone who thinks religion doesn’t have anything to do with politics doesn’t understand religion.” < http://www.marianne.com/

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+ updated at 12:10pm EST on Friday, February 14, 2014

+ Here is the Gratefulness Word for the Day:

“Treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same.” -- Og Mandino in The Greatest Salesman in the World

+ A book on Grace > http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=21998

+ At least a foot of snow here in the Utica area and it is still snowing at 11:42am.

+ This one ALWAYS makes me cry >
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EWvbu5K7MBM

+ I did an online Enneagram instrument and I came out tied for the Four, the Thinker (or the Observer) and the Five, the Artist (or the Romantic).  The other seven types are: The One, the Reformer (or the Perfectionist), the Two, the Helper, the Three, the Motivator (or the Achiever), the Six, the Skeptic (or the Questioner), the Seven, the Generalist (or the Adventurer), the Eight, the Leader (or the Asserter) and the Nine, the Peacemaker.  What are you?

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+ updated at 1:00pm EST on Wednesday, January 22, 2014

+ Thanks to my friend Ralph Clingan I just discovered a fascinating website and Facebook site:  http://connectiontocreative.com/ | http://connectiontocreative.com/daily-affirmation/ | https://www.facebook.com/connectiontocreative

I suggest you go through the 167 photos on the Facebook site.

+ Democracy Now! offers an excerpt from a new documentary being featured at the Sundance Festival. Go to "Alive Inside: How the Magic of Music Proves Therapeutic for Patients With Alzheimer’s and Dementia." Here is a portion of the report:
Could a pair of headphones change the lives of millions of Americans suffering from Alzheimers and dementia? "Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory," a new documentary at the Sundance Film Festival, follows a social worker named Dan Cohen who has launched a campaign to bring iPods and music therapy to nursing homes. One of the central characters he works with is a 90-something Alzheimer’s patient named Henry Dryer, who was featured in a video posted online that went viral in 2012, with nearly 10 million views. The clip begins with video of Dryer looking largely unresponsive to the outside world. Then he was given a pair of headphones to listen to Cab Calloway, his favorite artist. The music energizes him, awakens him and helps bring back old memories. We play clips from the film and speak with Cohen about his project, "Music & Memory," which he hopes to expand around the world. We are also joined by Michael Rossato-Bennett, the film’s director and producer.

+ January is Poverty Awareness Month.  Spirituality and Practice offers information, inspiration and illumination with daily posts. It is not too late to get informed, inspired and illuminated. | See the list. 

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+ updated at 4:36pm EST on Monday, January 20, 2014

+ Daily Kos offers "Most of You Have No Idea of What Martin Luther King Actually Did" by Hamden Rice. Excerpt: 

He ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south.

I'm guessing that most of you, especially those having come fresh from seeing The Help, may not understand what this was all about. But living in the south (and in parts of the midwest and in many ghettos of the north) was living under terrorism.  

It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus.  

You really must disabuse yourself of this idea. Lunch counters and buses were crucial symbolic planes of struggle that the civil rights movement used to dramatize the issue, but the main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth's.

It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment.  

This constant low level dread of atavistic violence is what kept the system running. It made life miserable, stressful and terrifying for black people.  

White people also occasionally tried black people, esp 

+ The Theological Wanderings of a Street Pastor offers "Pregnant with God." Here it is:

I beheld the fullness of God in which I beheld and comprehended the whole of creation, that is, what is on this side and what is beyond the sea, the abyss, the sea itself, and everything else.  And in everything that I saw, I could perceive nothing except the presence of the power of God, and in a manner totally indescribable.  And my soul in an excess of wonder cried out: “This world is pregnant with God!”  Wherefore I understood how small is the whole of creation – that is, what is on this side and what is beyond the sea, the abyss, the sea itself, and everything else – but the power of God fills it all to overflowing.

-St. Angela of Foligno (1248-1309)

Passage retrieved from http://datinggod.org/2010/10/01/the-world-is-pregnant-with-god/

+ Here is today's Daily Zen:

During the moment of illumination,

When I see the original face of mind,

A limitless compassion arises.

The greater the illumination,

The greater is the compassion.

The greater my compassion,

The deeper is the wisdom I feel.

- Garmaba

+ Here is today's Gratefulness Word for the Day: "If you have a strong mind and plant in it a firm resolve, you can change your destiny." -- Paramahansa Yogananda

+ Spirituality and Practice offers resources for MARTIN LUTHER KING jr DAY.

+ Today's S&P poverty month resource is an excerpt from Meal by Meal: 365 Daily Meditations for Finding Balance through Mindful Eating by Donald Altman > The excerpt begins: “"For some, leftovers are associated with poverty. For others, they signify a treasure that is not to be wasted. It seems that people either love leftovers or hate them.” Read the entire excerpt

+ Today's S&P spiritual reading is an excerpt from What You Will See Inside a Hindu Temple by Dr. Mahendra Jani and Dr. Vandana Jani > Dr. Mahendra Jani and Dr. Vendana Jani provide a succinct overview of what goes on in a Hindu temple. | Read an excerpt on devotion in Hindu homes.

+ Inner Frontier is beginning a new Inner Work series on MIND AND THOUGHT. Here is an excerpt from the introduction: “Because of their range and flexibility, our thoughts give us the illusion of freedom. But the truth is that our thoughts are bound by their patterns and by memory. Their central pattern is that they refer to a non-existent self, our ego, that we believe we are. Our thoughts create our ego in the same way that a novelist creates a character.” | Read the Introduction

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+ updated at 11:53am EST on Wednesday, January 8, 2014

+ On FB, Robert Reich posted the following:
"I'm freezing in Chicago. Meanwhile, in Washington, Republicans say they won't extend emergency unemployment benefits unless their cost is offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget. But they won't even consider offsetting the cost by closing tax loopholes for the rich -- such as the "carried interest" loophole that gives hedge-fund and private-equity partners an annual $11 billion tax subsidy, almost twice the cost of extending unemployment benefits. Put this in a larger context and see the pattern: (1) Not only do they oppose extending unemployment benefits, but (2) they oppose any jobs program to put the long-term unemployed to work, (3) they want to cut food stamps, (4) they refuse to raise the minimum wage, and (5) they're determined to kill off unions. Connect the dots and you have a calculated strategy to keep wages as low as possible -- forcing large numbers of Americans to choose between working for peanuts or having nothing at all. Republicans are pushing this strategy because lower wages give their big-business patrons fatter profits (at least in the short term; longer term, they reduce overall demand for goods and services). The strategy is already succeeding: Real median household incomes are now 4.4 percent below what they were at the start of the so-called recovery, and corporate profits are up. Democrats, including Obama, should be calling them out on this strategy. Why aren't they?"

+ Richard Rohr offers "The Contemplative Alternative." Excerpt: “What we are enjoying now is a renaissance of the contemplative mind, the one truly unique alternative mind and heart that religion has to offer the world. Without this new mind, most doctrines, moralities, dogmas, and church structures will almost certainly be misunderstood, misused, and mishandled. Small people make everything small.” | Read it all

+ Robert Reich is very wise, intelligent, informed and compassionate. Recently he offered "The Year of the Great Distribution." It begins: “One of the worst epithets that can be leveled at a politician these days is to call him a 'redistributionist.' Yet 2013 marked one of the biggest redistributions in recent American history. It was a redistribution upward, from average working people to the owners of America.” | Read it all

+ “Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul.” -- Mahatma Gandhi

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+ Eighth Day of Christmas + First Day of 2014 + "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." + 1 January: The Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Before the Second Vatican Council it was also observed as the Circumcision of the Lord. 

+ Breathe deeply. Breathe fully.
Be still. Be silent.
Be centered. Be grounded.
Lighten up. Loosen up.
Let go. Let God.
Celebrate. Enjoy.
Be glad all over!

+ This is provocative. Most of us have lost income and wealth since 2009 including most of the people who voted for Obama.  The system must change.  The wealthy must not be allowed to continue to destroy the middle class. > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcH6kGd3XQs&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ&index=7

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+ Seventh Day of Christmas > S & P Christmas Quote > Gift, Sharing, Joy > I think we need a new word — "comjoyment" — as a companion to "compassion" to remind us that our greatest gift to the world may be in sharing what gives us the greatest joy. -- Sam Keen in Learning to Fly

 < http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/quotes/quotes.php?id=20440 | More Advent & Christmas Quotes are at http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/blogs/maps.php?id=20474

+ Seventh Day of Christmas >“I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world--present and in awe.” -- Anne Lamott

+ Seventh Day of Christmas > Day 7, 31 December: Pope St. Sylvester. In Scotland this day is known as Hogmanay. In Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and Slovenia, New Years Eve is still referred to as Silvester. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Days_of_Christmas

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+ My friend Barrett Lee offers some wonderful wisdom about praying in "Praying Toward Yes," a new post in his great blog, The Theological Wanderings of a Street Pastor.  Excerpt: "Wow.  The prayer of Adoration.  This is where prayer begins: with the felt sense of awestruck wonder at life, the universe, and everything.  I mean, have you seen this place?  It’s amazing.  We’ve got protons, nebulae, the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, evolution, trees, mountains, sunsets, sex, Van Gogh, Shakespeare, Mother Teresa, single malt scotch, and the Beatles.  If you’re not saying 'Wow' to life at some level, then you’re not really paying attention.  All of this stuff is really here and it’s connected."

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+ updated at 3:07pm EST, Friday 11/8/13

+ Here is what Robert Reich just posted on Facebook as he reflects on the recent elections.  He is very wise and informed and compassionate.

Always listen for the day-after adjectives, which give a clue as to how candidates and issues will be framed in the future. In talking about Chris Christie's win in New Jersey, the Washington Post writes of "pragmatic, as opposed to ideological, governance." But in describing Bill de Blasio, the media uses the adjectives "left" or "left-leaning."

In an era when almost all economic gains are going to the very top, when poverty is increasing, and when median household incomes are dropping even with two wage earners, to be in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy and providing better schools to everyone else should not be considered "left." I'd call this pragmatic. By the same token, to be against raising the minimum wage -- as is Chris Christie -- is not a sign of "pragmatism." I'd call this ideological.

Here’s more from Reich on this topic.

+ I think you will enjoy hearing and seeing http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/love-is-all-2/

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+ Democracy Now! offers "Single Payer Prescription for What Ails Obamacare" by Amy Goodman & Denis Moynihan. Excerpt: "The ACA rollout occurred as Republicans shut down the government in their attempt to defund Obamacare. But their strategy backfired. Had there been no shutdown, all of the attention would have been on the disastrous rollout. The fundamental issue, at the core of the health-care dispute, is typically ignored and goes unreported: The for-profit health-insurance industry in the United States is profoundly inefficient and costly, and a sane and sustainable alternative exists—single-payer, otherwise known as expanded and improved Medicare for all. Just change the age of eligibility from 65 to zero."