#1000Speak: Blogging for Compassion




FORGIVENESS SUCKS, SO LET'S TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT

I know the platitude, that forgiveness isn't for the other person, it's for you, and I kinda believe that, but then again, I don't believe it at all. To forgive is to absolve the person of what they did, and I'm just not going to do that.




PARIS, RYDER TRUCKS, AND WHY YOU REALLY ARE THE BOSS OF ME

These past several months at work I was plagued by someone with no authority constantly telling me how to do my job. Once or twice a week, I'd get an email from this woman telling me that I hadn't done such-and-such a thing. She is a private contractor, not an a fellow employee and certainly not my superior, with zero training in what my job duties are. Irritating as hell, oh yes. "Bite me" (or worse) I'd mutter every time I received one of those emails. Delete. Ignore.



THE POWER OF C.R.A.P: YOU NEED THIS

We cannot decide where our compassion must fall and where our compassion is best applied if we cannot take the time for honesty, not only in telling the truth but in discerning the truth. With so many hot-button issues that many of us feel strongly about, it is more important than ever that we think before we feel.

Read the full original post here.


Szczepan1990, Public Domain

POOF! YOU'RE A TREE

I struggle horribly with acceptance. Like so many, I'm a lot more forgiving and accepting of others than I am of myself. (Well, except for bigots and Kardashians. We've got nothing to talk about.)

Read the full original post here.





EVERY CONNECTION COUNTS

Connection waxes and wanes, like the phases of the moon. Too much is a leash; too little is slow death by starvation. Finding the right connection -- the right strength, the right medium, the right touch -- can take years to learn, or it can be effortless, like two jigsaw puzzle pieces locking together. The love any one of us feels for the others in our lives can never be duplicated by any other two people, making love infinite in its variety, for all the billions of loves between all the billions of people.

Read the full original post here.
 
 
 


WHEN LESS IS MORE


Where I spend a lot of my time studying or researching and writing papers or blogging, there is a beautifully simple view out of my window. It's a tree, a maple tree, four stories high and full, with spreading branches and myriad leaves. The tree spreads over the entirety of my window, with the corner rail of the deck visible at the bottom. My view is filled with leaves made shimmering by the breeze, with flashes of azure in between, birds flitting in an out, and a few flowers accenting the lower corner, petunias and pansies and snapdragons looking sleepy in the sun. I don't need to see anything else.

Read the full original post here.



 
WALKING YOU HOME

"We're all just walking each other home." ~ Ram Dass

It's easy to be compassionate when it involves a cause we care about, something we have a personal stake in for whatever reason. I'm an endless well of compassion for targets of bullying or abuse. I've been there. Poverty and homelessness are causes that come naturally to me as well. Bigotry, as I said.

But those things aren't a challenge. And what I can't help feeling about #1000Speak is that while it should be humane and uplifting and inspiring, it should also be just a little bit hard. It's like the parable about the rich man and the beggar who both give a silver penny: which one gave more?

The answer, then, is to look in a place where it's not so easy.

Read the full original post here.
 

 Daniel Racovitan, used under Creative Commons license


I'M IN! #1000SPEAK


I'm in!


Why do I think this can make a difference?

On a mass level:  In 1993, The Global Peace Initiative conducted a strictly controlled experiment, where 800-1400 volunteer Sidhas engaged in mass, simultaneous meditation in Washington DC, accompanied by other unofficial participants from all over the world. Crime dropped by 23%, attributable to nothing else but the meditation. Before the experiment, the police chief had been quoted as saying that the only thing that would make crime drop by 20% was 20 inches of snow. Ta-daah! Meditation...even stronger than Mother Nature?

Or part of Mother Nature?

More and more, science is learning that thoughts are things. They have force, they have power, they may even have mass of some sort. When we persist in looking at the world a certain way, that is what we will see. When we optimistically expect that everything will be all right on a consistent basis - everything is all right. Some people call this luck. Some call it faith. Others call it magic, real magic, not bibbity-bobbity-boo stuff.

I call it...reality.

It doesn't have to be meditation. Not everyone meditates, but everyone practices their own form of sending will and desire out into the Universe. It is a prayer, it is a candle on an altar, it is a spell. It is a wish on dandelion fluff, or a lucky shirt, or a personal ritual, or a smile for a stranger, or a random act of kindness. It is that fervent "Oh pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease" accompanying a midterm or a biopsy. It is a blog post.

When we focus our thoughts and our will and send them out with intent and purpose, it creates a ripple of energy throughout the aether. When we join with others to focus energy and intent on a common goal, the results can be wonderful and amazing.

It makes my heart melt a little that #1000Speak exists.

I'm in.

Tarcio Saraiva, used under Creative Commons License

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