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Showing posts with label Other-Centeredness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Other-Centeredness. Show all posts

8.24.2016

Extremely meaningful work, an extremely meaningful mission, is the one and only element that is necessary and sufficient to the highly gratified life, this contrary to all of our cultural toxic wisdom. As with every life-form we........

Extremely meaningful work, an extremely meaningful mission, is the one and only element that is necessary and sufficient to the highly gratified life, this contrary to all of our cultural toxic wisdom. As with every life-form we are inescapably designed to serve the neediest around us, but unlike every other life-form we are f****** clever enough to convince ourselves of the opposite. Hence we are the most medicated species, the most medicated generation in history. And with breathtaking insanity we do all in our power to escape the opportunities to devote ourselves, to meaningfully contribute, to the neediest Among Us. I don't have the time to cite the studies that most clearly point to this other than to say that Victor Frankl's, man's search for meaning, presents the truth clearly for those who are able to see it.

7.03.2016

When I allow the pain of my own concerns to become the focus of my attention then my life is more painful than joyful. When I overcome that and redirect ......

When I allow the pain of my own concerns to become the focus of my attention then my life is more painful than joyful. When I overcome that and redirect my focus to the pain of others then my joy outweighs My Pain by far. They are always both there but the proportions, the joy hugely outweighs any concern I have for my pain. That's the magic of loving.  ''I have learned the paradox that when I love until it hurts, there is no more hurt, there is only more love.'' Teresa of Calcutta

6.26.2016

### Yes, I am usually so scathing , so critical , so pessimistic about the future. Yes. But I think I am seeing a level of Citizen work that I certainly have not seen in fifty years or more. Millions.......

### Yes, I am usually so scathing , so critical , so pessimistic about the future. Yes. But I think I am seeing a level of Citizen work that I certainly have not seen in fifty years or more. Millions of citizens here and abroad turning attention away from selfish short-term pleasures to matters of Greater importance to the collective. This is important at least for themselves and for those around them. Joy is in the attempt to reduce the world's suffering. The individuals devoting more of their lives to this task become a demonstration of the path to those around them.

6.11.2016

*****  Eureka! The missing proof that justice is a necessary but entirely insufficient anti violent goal: throughout my life I have wanted Justice to be a sufficient goal. 15 years ago I was.........

*****  Eureka! The missing proof that justice is a necessary but entirely insufficient anti violent goal:

Throughout my life I have wanted Justice to be a sufficient goal. 15 years ago I was told by someone that didn't like me so much, an African American  female pastor in a prestigious completely White Main Line Philadelphia Church, ''James, you love Justice more than anyone I have ever met.'' ''No,'' I respectfully replied. ''Thank you, and I can't explain just why, I know what you're referring to in me, but that isn't it. I think what you're seeing is that I may love living beings, all of creation, more than anyone that you have ever met.'' I couldn't explain why better than that. I couldn't explain why to myself, but I knew it deep in my spirit.

Several years ago in an extremely deep study of the theological scholar Dominic Crossan on the historical Jesus I almost became persuaded he was correct, when he asserted, as later has also done Harvard African American Scholar Cornel West, that Justice is loving made publicly manifest. Subsequently I realized that that is sometimes true but not necessarily true. Think of those that wield Justice, True Justice out of hatred, out of blind self-righteousness, arrogance, evil. Think of Inspector Javert in Les Mis. 

But that was not sufficient proof that justice is an insufficient goal of the anti-violent warrior.

The proof, not the proof to you, the proof to me, just clicked into place as I pedaled this 200 lb ELFusion vehicle from the Washington Monument to my abode 3 miles away. In the 90-degree heat, dehydrated, mostly uphill and with a debilitating chest cold in its third day.

Several pieces clicked into place.

1. Gandhi said that physical force is a superior choice in the case where one's wife is being raped and the only way that the husband can stop the rape is with physical Force. Gandhi cited this example many times. What clicked into place is that he never said that physical Force was justified in protecting oneself, and he always behaved as though it absolutely was not. This may be an oversight but I think not. Why would that be?

2. Gandhi was not about his own life, ultimately he was not about the life or even the Dignity of the wife being raped, nor of the husband. He was about achieving an infinitely larger good, a prevailing Justice for All of humanity, indeed for all of creation. In being about winning that greater good it is necessary to tap into the ultimate power in the universe which he described as Soul Force, truth Force, the love of a mother for her child. He cited the love of a mother for her child as the ultimate power that he tried to tap into. He never said the love of a mother for justice. He never said the love of a mother for herself. Why? Because neither of them are as powerful a moral Force for the engagement of the mass of passive onlookers as the love of a mother for her child, which involves self-sacrifice.

3. That shows the third proof which you can prove to yourself I suspect. Ask yourself which moves you more, the mother protecting herself, or the mother sacrificing her life for her child? I did not ask if you were unmoved by the mother trying to protect herself. Of course you are, of course you should be as am I. But which moves you more? The Mother Out of Love sacrificing or risking her life for her child! The Ultimate Force in the universe that the anti-violent, loving, nonviolent Warrior devotes their very being to embodying for the joy of it, because they can't do otherwise, tapping into is that Force which can only be activated in the onlookers, you in the question I asked you a moment ago, can only be tapped into in the onlookers when they witness someone offering or giving their life for a cause Beyond and greater than themselves equivalent to a greater good for another or a greater good for others. The Selma Marchers were putting their body In Harm's Way for their children, for their race, for their brothers and sisters.  The Freedom Riders, Alice Paul and her sisters,  the tens of thousands of Egyptians in Tahrir square, Malala, the school children in Soweto. And finally, number

4.  The anti-violent Warrior  the loving Warrior,  cannot tap into the ultimate power within them self  for justice, neither Justice for everyone, or just just for their self.  We don't work that way. We're not built that way. It's a function of our DNA.  Justice is a motivating force. It is not as motivating a force  as the heart connected to the well-being of another(s)  and thereby being engaged to protect the life or the Dignity of the other.  'Man hath no greater love than to lay down his life for his brother.' The ultimate need, the ultimate motivating force, of the healthy human being is meaning,  the potentially great meaning to the life of another. The definitive work on this is Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for meaning.  Whether one  got out of the death camp alive in Nazi Germany he observed was not a function of how healthy and strong the individual was coming in. It was a function of how desperately important  the inhabitant perceived it to be that they survive  so that they could get out to help someone else,  the wife,  or in the case of Frankel,  a much larger Community by publishing his psychological treatise.

The ultimate motivation that mother nature gave us was not  the desire for self-preservation, or for justice, even for justice  for the larger group.  It is to protect the very lives and dignity  of others.  Yes, she gave us the desire for justice, and the drsire to protect oneself. But if that's all she gave us, we essentially socially dependent species from the very beginning, then we would not have survived through the Millenia.  She gave us the ultimate motivation  of caring more about the group then about our own lives.  This is the only Force sufficient  to enable the anti violent Warrior  to go as far and as deep with as much courage and selflessness as an Alice Paul, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali,  and the others that we Revere have to go. This is a huge step for me.

In part I departed from the Democracy spring action a month ago because I sensed it was only about Justice. I do love justice, immensely, but I knew even then Justice is not enough. It's too little too late. Part of my long hesitation to get involved in support of what Bernie Sanders was doing was because although my soul realized that he was going for a much greater good for and all of creation , many most or near all of his followers were simply pursuing Justice and in large part Justice for themselves. I'm not opposed to that per se. I don't deny their right to do so. But I knew deep in my soul it was too little too late.

Now I have the proof I was looking for. The pursuit of justice as an end goal now is way too little way too late. These are the final nanosecond on the clock and they are ticking down.

1.28.2016

***** There are two basic ways of making a life for oneself: 1. Being lovable, adorable, desirable, pleasurable... for the purpose of consuming; 2. Lo........

***** There are two basic ways of making a life for oneself: 1. Being lovable, adorable, desirable, pleasurable... for the purpose of consuming; 2. Loving, Serving, Sustaining, providing, building, creating, being creator, being giver and sustainer of life... so that others less fortunate have the basics of decent living to consume. The first is what we idolize in Western influenced culture. We idolize taking, having, consuming, taking pleasure, being consumption. The second we flee with all of our might, in terror, in horror, in ridicule, in disdain. The first is literally the cancerous lifestyle, unsustainable, terminal 2 the environment and all but the most powerful. The second is sustainability itself, the life process embraced, lived, made manifest. Jesus literally died to lead us to the second and away from the first, as have all the saints of every religion and no religion at all, of the one true religion, Loving. I never understood the revered work, The Great Gatsby, until these epiphanies came flooding to me through the night. I hope to learn to better understand and articulate this.

1.02.2016

I think that the human caused evils of the world are infections. And those infections awaken antibodies, good people that devote their lives to fighting the infection. The question in 2016, and I'm afraid it's not much of a question, is, are there enough antibodies that will come alive fast enough, and devote their lives completely enough? It seems clear to me that the answer is No. But the answer will become clear with each passing day.

I think that the human caused evils of the world are infections. And those infections awaken antibodies, good people that devote their lives to fighting the infection. The question in 2016, and I'm afraid it's not much of a question, is, are there enough antibodies that will come alive fast enough, and devote their lives completely enough? It seems clear to me that the answer is No. But the answer will become clear with each passing day.

11.18.2015

***** Truly, I have pretty much concluded that among the things I have been wrong on for most of my life, incorrect on, is the notion that during Jesus day he had many followers, if only for a hundred years or so. I no longer think this was true. I don't think anyone got him then, oh, there were probably a few. And no one has gotten him since. Well, I mean, Martin Luther King did, a handful of others, but tens of thousands, millions, a billion or more today? Not more than hundreds at most.

Truly, I have pretty much concluded that among the things I have been wrong on for most of my life, incorrect on, is the notion that during Jesus day he had many followers, if only for a hundred years or so. I no longer think this was true. I don't think anyone got him then, oh, there were probably a few. And no one has gotten him since. Well, I mean, Martin Luther King did, a handful of others, but tens of thousands, millions, a billion or more today? Not more than hundreds at most.

6.09.2015

In 1987, a 74-year old rickshaw puller by the name of Bai Fangli came back to his hometown planning to retire from his backbreaking job. There, he saw children working in the fields, because they were too poor to afford school fees........


In 1987, a 74-year old rickshaw puller by the name of Bai Fangli came back to his hometown planning to retire from his backbreaking job. There, he saw children working in the fields, because they were too poor to afford school fees.

Bai returned to Tianjin and went back to work as a rickshaw puller, taking a modest accommodation next to the railway station. He waited for clients 24 hours a day, ate simple food and wore discarded second-hand clothes he found. He gave all of his hard-earned earnings to support children who could not afford education.

In 2001, he drove his rickshaw to Tianjin YaoHua Middle School, to deliver his last installment of money. Nearly 90 years old, he told the students that he couldn't work any more. All of the students and teachers were moved to tears.

In total, Bai had donated a total of 350,000 yuan to help more than 300 poor students continue with their studies. In 2005, Bai passed away leaving behind an inspiring legacy.

If a rickshaw-puller who wore used clothes and had no education can support 300 children to go to school, imagine what you and I can do with the resources we have to bring about positive change in our world!
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6.08.2015

Lol: this has been an extremely creatively productive morning for me - caffeine. First time I have afforded myself a cup of coffee in a long time.....

Lol: this has been an extremely creatively productive morning for me - caffeine. First time I have afforded myself a cup of coffee in a long time. It does not happen to be self indulgence. It is not a personal luxury, which I detest. There is a coffee shop that for years and years has been kind to the work that I do and I find it a joyful duty to once in a blue moon afford a cup of coffee in their shop.