Saturday, June 24, 2006

Teachers for Tolerance

I ran across an old blog entry elsewhere and found this url on tolerance that is think could be useful in teaching peace or a non combative approach to problem solving and learning. Of course, peace as I've discussed here and elsewhere has more than one connotative meaning. Inner peace is something I am searching for in the hopes that if most of us seek it we will spread the balm of peace to others and so on.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Progressive Spirituality?

A Girl playing with dollies and angels /spirits surround her. A lovely notion far removed from the daily politics of Life in the US. All too often we forget the other worldliness that we learned about in churches or from other cultures whose connections to the spirit of plants, animals, air, natural phenomena.
Much discussion from the political progressives do not address the human need for a spiritual dimension in our public discusssions. A report on the reasons for the more "humane" progressives will not win politically even though it does a brilliant job of addressing discourse analysis and the ways that politicians use language against people of strong convictions for the betterment of humans on this planet. Nary a word of spirituality is mentioned for it is no longer seen as essential for modern or postmodern life. Yet at unseen levels we seem to hunger for spirituality and so this kind of discourse while useful on some levels lacks the healing uses for which language can be used.


The HuntingtonPost's entry by Kathleen Reardon is a very good example of what I mean. Reach article through title of this post.

Sail Away

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Sometimes images of the ocean and a slow moving sail boat help me to relax and think of the important things in life. The ocean lends itself to action or meditation. Since writing and participating in professional discussions often rattle any sense of inner peace, I thought to upload a picture of a sailboat to this blog as a reminder of gentler human pursuits.

I have been away from the Pacific Ocean beaches for a long time and have memories of the sound of water lapping at small areas where it was trapped by boulders. In my mind's ear I hear the seagulls and the larger sounds of the ocean with waves crashing-sometimes gently on the shore.