Gratitude Behind Bars
"Does gratefulness truly make us happy? How does gratefulness serve us during difficult times? What is your experience of gratitude as a person who is incarcerated and denied so many of the freedoms and privileges associated with happiness? These are some of the questions we explored through Grateful Anyhow, a recent project in partnership with Prisoner Express (PE) that engaged approximately 350 ... posted on Aug 28 2019, 5,793 reads

The Red Oak Tree that Tweets
Deep in a forest of central Massachusetts stands an average red oak tree. Nothing is special about it, except for the fact that it tweets, offering insight into climate change.... posted on Aug 27 2019, 4,571 reads

Chitrakoot's Tree Man: 11 Years, 40,000 Trees
The tragic death of his wife and three children led Bhaiyyaram to vow to live only for others. He began to plant trees on fallow land near his village. No water near, so four times each day he hauled two 20-kilo boxes with a rope slung over his shoulders. Living in a hut he built nearby to guard the trees from thieves, his eleven years of work has produced a plantation of 40,000 trees. ... posted on Aug 26 2019, 8,690 reads

Joe Peace: A Peace Chain Reaction
"I was working at a friend's studio. I walked in and picked up these scraps of clay off the floor and made these pieces about softball size, maybe seven of them. For me they were small because I'd been making larger sculptural pieces. So I made these pieces and said to my friend, "It's a peace chain. I'm going to make it the rest of my life." The year was 1991, and true to his word Joe Murphy -- n... posted on Aug 25 2019, 2,144 reads

Dean Spade: On Normal Life
Dean Spade is an Associate Professor at Seattle University School of Law, a founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (a non-profit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color.) In this thoughtful 2014 interview he discusses the subject of his book "Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical... posted on Aug 24 2019, 2,366 reads

Tinkering with Intent
Delightful, creative and completely engaging, Blair Somerville's work defies description, and evokes a sense of magic. He lives in the remote town of Papatowai, on the South Island of New Zealand, and uses found materials and other curious objects to re-purpose into moving artworks. Blair realized early in life that he didn't need a lot to live, and that money and material possessions were not imp... posted on Aug 23 2019, 2,971 reads

Conscience and Resistance
At 20 Scott Russell Sanders was faced with whether to join the Vietnam conflict or find "a refuge from the pressures of a society obsessed with buying stuff, having fun, and waging war." Influenced by Thomas Merton's essay, "Rain and the Rhinoceros" to make a critical choice which you can read about here, he goes on to explain in this beautiful essay how he has found a life for himself beyond viol... posted on Aug 22 2019, 5,601 reads

Empowering the World One Bicycle at a Time
Knowledge@Wharton and Michale Useem interview Dave Neiswander, CEO of World Bicycle Relief on their unique business model. The desire to help in a world crisis and providing disaster relief has led to this non-profit that designs for purpose. They are creatively combining philanthropy with social enterprise to achieve results.They now provide their Buffalo bicycles, over 450,000 in 19 countries, ... posted on Aug 21 2019, 4,692 reads

It Could Be Worse
In this engaging TED talk, Michael Eselun, an oncology chaplain at UCLA, explores compassion through the lens of a common coping perspective used nearly universally when the going gets tough--"it could be worse."... posted on Aug 20 2019, 10,240 reads

The Power of MLK's Anger
Unlike many who struggle to channel their anger into positive action, Martin Luther King Jr. learned from an early age how he could transform this emotion into something greater. In this compelling article from NPR, King's complex relationship with anger and injustice is explored. "Looking at how King dealt with anger reveals its dual nature--how it can be a motivating force for change, while also... posted on Aug 18 2019, 4,174 reads