Thanksgiving Address
Says Robin Wall Kimmerer,"You can't listen to the Thanksgiving Address without feeling wealthy. And, while expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society,...
View ArticleWhy You Should Write That Thank You Note
"Students of mine in a political philosophy course at Indiana University are reading Daniel Defoe's 300-year-old Robinson Crusoe, often regarded as the first novel published in English. Marooned alone...
View ArticleThe Inward Migration
"As the world falters, threatening native ecosystems and Indigenous lifeways, acclaimed Australian Aboriginal author Alexis Wright turns inward to the dwelling place of ancestral story. From here, she...
View ArticleAlison Thompson Responds with Heart
"I first met Dr Alison Thompson in Sri Lanka in 2005, when we were both involved in Sri Lanka's tsunami recovery effort. She immediately struck me as someone down-to-earth and highly motivated to get...
View ArticleAgent of Illumination
"Some years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritated with one another, with...
View ArticleActivating Moral Discomfort & Spiritual Community for the Earth
"The Rev. Fletcher Harper believes that he felt God while mourning his fathers death on a solo camping trip in Montana. A violent hailstorm struck one night, and he sought shelter in the lee of a rock....
View ArticleJust Be Nice
In this brief and moving glimpse into his life, Morne Pretorius shares how the experience of a car accident ten years ago which left him in a coma for a month, has impacted his perspective on life,...
View ArticleHow to Have a Community Conversation
"A Community Conversation is a form of group dialogue that often addresses issues of local or larger concern. Participation is usually open to all, and may lead to some form of action, consensus or...
View ArticleThe Gift of Lewis Hyde's
"Gifts pass from hand to hand: they endure through such transmission, as every time a gift is given it is enlivened and regenerated through the new spiritual life it engenders both in the giver and in...
View ArticleThe Man Who Planted Trees
"Who says a single person can't make a difference? This Academy Award-winning short film, based on a story by Jean Giono, was created in 1987 by renowned animator Frederick Back. It beautifully...
View ArticleRoss Gay: Inciting Joy
"Now that weve defined joy, and concluded it is important, there are two guiding inquiries in this book. First, I mean to investigate what practices, habits, rituals, understandings you know, the stuff...
View ArticleFostering Self-Organization
"When working in collaboration with others, where theres no single person in charge and the way forward is unclear, it can be hard to know when to lead and when to follow. In these situations, you may...
View ArticleThanksgiving Blessings
From the team at Gratefulness.org comes this rich compilation of, "blessings, prayers, and invocations from diverse traditions, for meal times, gatherings, and Grateful Living."
View ArticleUncommon Gratitude
"When I receive a gift I am acutely conscious of both the gift and the giver, and gratitude spreads through me. This gratitude coalesces into a wish to give something back. I long to please my giver,...
View ArticleThis Land is Their Land
"Most of us who are not Wampanoag or American Indian will never fully grasp the raw emotions indigenous people associate with Thanksgiving.[...]If how we tell history is one of the ways we shape our...
View ArticleNipun Mehta: A Deeper Thanksgiving
On a recent episode of the podcast Gray Matter, renowned broadcaster, Michael Krasny, talks with ServiceSpace founder, Nipun Mehta. "As a small sampling of the conversation's many gems, we touched on...
View ArticleSatish Kumar: In Service of Humanity and Mother Earth
In 2020, a dialog was held at Plum Village with environmental, and multi-faith peace activist Satish Kumar. What follows are two excerpts from that evening, the first titled, "Activism -- Caring...
View ArticleDanusha Lameris: Intimacy with the Marrow of Life
Danusha Lameris's poems have been called "wise, direct, and fearless" (American poet Dorianne Laux). She began writing poetry, as she believes many people do, from a place of heartbreak, and not...
View ArticleThe Rights of the Land
"Before first light we board a bus and at last light we return, just as the October hills of central New York shade to burgundy and the lights come on in dairy barns for evening chores. Teachers,...
View ArticleDon't Treat Your Life as a Project
"The idea that we narrate our lives to ourselves, and that doing so is part of living well, is sufficiently commonplace that its most vocal critic, the philosopher Galen Strawson, could describe it as...
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