Rediscovering The Art Of Reverence

Rediscovering the Art of Reverence - John O'Donohue

 

What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practiced careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation.

 

When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace. 

 

In order to become attentive to beauty, we need to rediscover the art of reverence. Our world seems to have lost all sense of reverence. We seldom even use the word any more. The notion of reverence is full of riches that we now need desperately. Put simply, it is appropriate that a human being should dwell on this earth with reverence. As children we become aware of the word 'reverence' as used to describe the way a person is present in prayer or liturgy. When a priest celebrated the mass with a sense of reverence, you sensed the depth of his presence to the mystery. Though the church was full of people, he was absorbed in something that could not be seen. Ultimately, reverence is respect before mystery.

 

But it is more than an attitude of mind; reverence is also physical — a dignified attention of body showing that sacred is already here. Reverence is not to be reduced to a social posture. Reverence bestows dignity and it is only in light of dignity that the beauty and mystery of a person will become visible. Reverence is not the stiff pious posture which remains frozen and lacks humour and play. To live with a sense of reverence is not to become a prisoner of dull piety.

 

Playfulness, humour, and even a sense of the anarchic are companions of reverence because they insist on the proper proportion of the human presence in the light of the eternal. Reverence is also the companion of humility. When human hubris intrudes on or manipulates the sacred, the consequence is inevitably humiliation. In contrast, a sense of reverence includes the recognition that one is always in the presence of the sacred.

 

To live with reverence is to live without judgement, prejudice and the saturation of consumerism. The consumerist heart becomes empty and lonesome because it has squandered reverence. As parent, child, lover, prayer or artist — a sense of reverence opens pathways to beauty to surprise us. The earth is full of thresholds where beauty awaits the wonder of our gaze.

About the Author: Excerpted from Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O'Donohue.

The Library Of Things

Nothing is yours. It is to use. It is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it. --Ursula K. Le Guin

The Library of Things: Sharing More Than Books

--by Cat Johnson, syndicated from shareable.net, May 25, 2016

What if the next time you needed a sewing machine, or screen printer, or even a GoPro camera, you just went down to your public library and borrowed it?

That’s the idea behind the Library of Things. The visionary project, which is located in the Sacramento library system’s Arcade branch, enables people to borrow goods just like they would a book—by checking them out with their library card.

The project stems from the fact that people don’t need to own all the items they may need—they can access them through the library. Some libraries have been lending tools and toys for decades.

The Library of Things is experimenting with lending all kinds of goods. Among the other items available are musical instruments, video games, a laminator, crafting tools and more. The Library of Things also hosts an in-house bike repair station, a 3D scanner, and a serger for professional quality stitching.

To determine what library patrons wanted in the Library of Things, organizers used an online voting system. In the first round of voting, sewing machines received the most votes so the library bought six of them to lend out.

The Arcade branch is also home to the Design Spot, an area with five 3D printers and computers equipped with design software. The Sacramento library system also offers a prom dress lending program, a seed library at the Colonial Heights branch, and a self-publishing center for aspiring writers.

Funded by a federal grant received through the Library Services and Technology Act, the Library of Things points to the need for libraries to go beyond offering books into offering resources and information of all types.

As Sacramento Public Library spokesman Malcolm Maclachlan told the Sacramento Bee, the project is part of a push for libraries to diversify beyond book lending.

“We’re doing this under a plan to be a resource for more than just books,” he said. “And we’re building off the wider movement of DIY.”

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This story originally appeared on Shareable, an online magazine that tells the story of sharing that covers people, places, and projects bringing a shareable world to life. Cat Johnson is a freelance writer focused on community, the commons, sharing, collaboration and music. Publications include Utne Reader, GOOD, Yes! Magazine, Shareable, Triple Pundit and Lifehacker.

Be The Change: Take some time to check out what kind of programs that are taking place at your local library - you might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. --Lewis B. Smedes

Does Forgiveness Make Kids Happier?

--by Sarah Wheeler, syndicated from Greater Good, Jun 19, 2016

If you’re a parent or an educator, insisting that children apologize is a daily—sometimes hourly—occurrence. Apologizing and naming what we’re sorry for (“I’m sorry…that I called you stupid”) is a major part of our culture’s moral education. We even coach children to really “say it like you mean it” and to “think about” what they’ve done when they’ve harmed someone.

However, we may be forgetting a crucial step in the process of atonement: forgiveness. New research suggests that we should consider focusing not just on the offender but also on the injured child’s response to a wrongdoing.

Plenty has been written about the positive effects of forgiveness on adults. Studies show that the act of forgiving someone can make us grown-ups happier, healthier, and more connected. Major self-help systems, like Alcoholics Anonymous, prize forgiveness as an essential key to healing and living a productive life. As we understand better what it means to forgive, we’re also starting to understand more about the role forgiveness plays in the lives of our children.

Researchers in the Netherlands set out to learn whether children’s ability to forgive others was related to their psychological well-being. They asked older elementary school students (ages 9-13) to think about a time when a classmate did them wrong. The children then completed a questionnaire measuring how much they had forgiven the classmate and performed a task where they could give that classmate credits towards a gift, a behavioral test of forgiveness. They also took surveys to determine their psychological well-being, including life satisfaction, happiness, and self-esteem.

After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that both types of forgiveness were positively associated with overall well-being, with one caveat: The classmate who committed the offense had to be considered a friend. With non-friends, there was no relationship between forgiveness and well-being.

What might this mean for the children we teach and raise? Although this study didn’t show a causal relationship, it did suggest a connection between forgiveness and well-being. It may be that when a child cannot forgive a friend, their friendship deteriorates and this impacts their happiness. This effect would be less relevant when dealing with someone whose friendship matters less. In this way, forgiveness may help children maintain strong relationships. On the flip side, it may also be that children with higher psychological well-being are more able to forgive.

As adults, we have to help children tease out the nuances of their relationships, including when it’s important for them to practice forgiveness. Here are some ideas that may help:

Model forgiveness for children in your own life. Talk explicitly about when and why you forgive others and tell them clearly when you are forgiving them for something. Point out examples of the complexities of relationships and the role forgiveness plays in maintaining them.

Help kids through the steps of forgiveness. When a child is wronged, walk them through the process of acknowledging that harm was done and sitting with those nasty feelings for a bit; then, make sure they share their concerns with someone else—like a parent or another friend—before moving on. Help them see that it’s okay to feel hurt, and identify people they can talk to.

Teach kids what forgiveness really means. When processing problems, explain to children that forgiveness is something we do not only for others but also for ourselves, so that we can let go of our anger and make space for more enjoyable feelings. When kids forgive, they aren’t condoning the harm done, but choosing to move past it. Programs like Restorative Justice, which is gaining popularity in schools, could help.

While more studies like this one may further illuminate the relationship between forgiveness and well-being for children, for now it might be worth our while to move beyond “I’m sorry” as the be-all and end-all goal of conflict resolution. To raise happier children, we should take steps that lead to a lot more “I forgive you’s.”

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This article is printed here with permission. It originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC). Based at UC Berkeley, the GGSC studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society..

Be The Change: Remember that forgiveness is something that does not necessarily come easy -- it takes commitment, effort, and strength. 

Sourced From www.dailygood.org

That Friend Walking Behind Me

That Friend Walking Behind Me - Parker Palmer

 

Imagine that for many years a friend had been walking a block behind me, calling my name, trying to get my attention because he wanted to tell me some hard but healing truths about myself. But I -- afraid of what I might hear, or arrogantly certain I had nothing to learn -- ignored his calls and kept on walking.

 

So my friend came closer and called my name louder, but I walked on, refusing to turn around. Closer still he came, now shouting my name. Frustrated by my lack of response, he began to throw stones and hit me with sticks, still wanting nothing more than to get my attention. But despite the pain I felt, I kept walking away.

 

Since calls and shouts, sticks and stones, had failed to get my attention, there was only one thing left for my friend to do: drop the bomb called depression on me. He did so not with intent to kill, but in a last-ditch effort to get me to turn toward him and ask a simple question: “What do you want?” When I finally made that turn -- and began taking in and acting on the self-knowledge he’d been waiting to offer me -- I took first steps on the path to wellbeing.

 

Thomas Merton's name for that friend is “true self.” This is not the ego self that wants to inflate us. It’s not the intellectual self that wants to hover above life’s mess with logical but ungrounded ideas. It’s not the ethical self that wants to live by someone else’s “oughts.” It’s not the spiritual self that wants to “slip the surly bonds of Earth” and fly nonstop to heaven.

 

True self is the self with which we arrived on earth, the self that simply wants us to be who we were born to be. True self tells us who we are, where we are planted in the ecosystem of life, what “right action” looks like for us, and how we can grow more fully into our own potentials. As an old Hasidic tale reminds us, our mission is to live into the shape of true self, not the shape of someone else’s life: "Before he died, Rabbi Zusya said: 'In the world to come they will not ask me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

 

Memo to myself: Stay on the ground, turn around, ask and listen! True self is true friend -- it’s a friendship we ignore at our peril. And pass the word: friends don’t let friends live at altitude!

About the Author: Parker Palmer is a writer, speaker and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He is the author of Let Your Life Speak. The above excerpt is from his article, Down is the Way to Well Being.