special child named Binny was the recipient of extraordinary love and care by software engineer Aditya Tiwari. On January 1, 2016, Aditya made history by becoming the youngest single adoptive parent in the country — he adopted Binny. This is the story of his long struggle against the system to bring Binny home. Being blessed with a child with disabilities is an experience that brings unique gifts and challenges. Not all parents are able to embrace both the joy and struggle of raising these special children. Binny was born in a rich family. But they abandoned him because of his special condition. On March 16, 2014, a child was born to a well-to-d... posted on Jun 14 2016 (17,436 reads)

is a great bird resting in the woodlands above the great river with marching bears behind her. A seasoned peace that can only belong to the prairie creates the path on the ridgetop where she can be found. Time—not blood—is the life force animating the bird and these bears. Some 1,500 years ago, these earth mounds were made by the hands of the people who lived here in the Upper Mississippi Valley, ancestors to today’s Ho-Chunk people, also known as the Winnebago. This is the “Driftless Area” where the glacial sheets of ice that stretched across the North American continent during the Pleistocene fell short of this holy site. A Ho-Chunk woman would see these... posted on Jun 17 2016 (8,593 reads)

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 wrongdoi... posted on Jun 19 2016 (17,448 reads)

from "What Are People For" a collection of essays by Wendell Berry I The grace that is the health of creatures can only be held in common. In healing the scattered members come together. In health the flesh is graced, the holy enters the world. II The task of healing is to respect oneself as a creature, no more and no less. A creature is not a creator, and cannot be. There is only one Creation, and we are its members. To be creative is only to have health: to keep oneself fully alive in the Creation, to keep the Creation fully alive in oneself, to see the Creation anew, to welcome one’s part in it anew. The most creative works are all strategies... posted on Jul 18 2016 (33,864 reads)

Moyer was a streetwise, working class white boy from row-house Philadelphia, who — in the turbulence of the 1960s — went to Chicago to work for an anti-racist housing campaign. He wound up joining Martin Luther King Jr.’s national staff as an organizer. I played tag football more than once with Moyer, catching his grin as he mercilessly overwhelmed his opponents through daring and smarts. He might have been the most joyfully aggressive Quaker I’ve known. By the time he died in 2002, Moyer had given significant leadership on multiple political issues, including the national anti-nuclear movement. In California, Moyer went to graduate school to study social m... posted on Jun 27 2016 (16,231 reads)

"vertical" system of justice is one that relies upon hierarchies and power. That is, judges sit at the top presiding over the lawyers, jurors, and all participants in court proceedings. The justice system uses rank, and the coercive power that goes with rank or status, to address conflicts. Power is the active element in the process. A decision is dictated from on high by the judge, and that decision is an order or judgment which parties must obey or face a penalty. Parties to a dispute have limited power and control over the process. The goal of adversarial law is to punish wrongdoers and teach them a lesson. Adversarial law and adjudication offer only a win-lose solut... posted on Jun 30 2016 (22,240 reads)

Lab. One of Computer Aid’s most recent goals is to place another Zubabox in theKakuma refugee camp in Kenya — one of the largest refugee camps in the world with a population of 150,000 people fleeing from 20 different African nations. The group is working with a organization run by refugees within the camp called SAVIC, to deliver IT training and internet connectivity for up to 1,800 young displaced people there. The Lab at night.  All images courtesy SIXZEROMEDIA/COMPUTER AID ... posted on Jul 3 2016 (16,697 reads)

afternoon in Dublin, I found myself running through the airport, convinced I was about to miss a flight for the first time in my life. My anxiety surged at the sight of a long security line, but luckily an airport official ushered me to the front. I didn’t care how the waiting passengers felt about my preferential treatment, and I don’t remember much about the people I encountered during that nerve-wracking afternoon. I was thinking only about my goal: to get home. In short, my empathy for others plummeted as my anxiety mounted—and a recent paper helps explain this phenomenon by linking anxiety to egocentrism. In doing so, it provides yet another rea... posted on Jul 12 2016 (22,479 reads)

Law of Mother Earth (“Ley de Derechos de La Madre Tierra”) holds the land as sacred and holds it as a living system with rights to be protected from exploitation. The law, which was passed by Bolivia’s Plurinational Legislative Assembly in November 2010 is part of a complete restructuring of the Bolivian legal system following a change of constitution in 2009. It has been heavily influenced by a resurgent indigenous Andean spiritual world view which places the environment and the earth deity known as the Pachamama at the centre of all life. Humans are considered equal to all other entities. In accordance with the philosophy of Pachama... posted on Jul 15 2016 (31,818 reads)

recent awe conference, Melanie DeMore led the audience in a group sing as part of the day’s activities. Judging from participant responses, it was clear that something magical happened: We all felt closer and more connected because of that experience of singing together. Why is singing such a powerful social glue? Most of us hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community. There’s little question t... posted on Jul 16 2016 (23,366 reads)

act of gratitude is a living whole. To superimpose on its organic flow a mental grid like a series of “steps” will always be somewhat arbitrary. And yet, for the sake of practice, such a delineation can be helpful. In any process, we can distinguish a beginning, a middle, and an end. We may use this basic three-step grid for the practice of gratitude: What happens at the start, in the middle, and at the end, when we experience gratitude? What fails to happen when we are not grateful? Before going to bed, I glance back over the day and ask myself: Did I stop and allow myself to be surprised? Or, did I trudge on in a daze? To be awake, aware, and alert are the beginning, ... posted on Jul 19 2016 (25,248 reads)

and a half years ago my grandmother was placed in a nursing home where she will live out the rest of her life. She has dementia and so her memory capacity has been marred.   Somehow though she remembers kindness.  She is my constant teacher.  One of things we like to do is walk down the halls in the nursing facility saying hello to the other residents.  We stop say hello and wait for an answer.   We rarely get a verbal response. My grandmother will put her face up real close so she and the neighbor will be looking eye to eye then, she will say hello again as she squeezes their hand.   She doesn't actually understand anymore that most of the residents are... posted on Jul 22 2016 (15,840 reads)

a profound feeling that shifts us outside the box of the routine and familiar and opens us to something much larger than ourselves writes Homaira Kabir. We’ve all felt it – the goose bumps on our arms when standing below towering Eucalyptus trees or the expansive feeling in our chests when watching the sun slowly set in the horizon. Researchers define it as the emotion of awe. Like most positive emotions, it boosts physical health and inspires altruistic action. And yet, awe is more – because it recruits both motivations of the paradoxical human brain. It gives rise to a feeling of fear that is initiated in the more primitive parts of the brain. B... posted on Jul 23 2016 (13,565 reads)

CROOKER’s poems have appeared widely, in magazines such as The Green Mountains Review, Poet Lore, The Potomac Review, Smartish Pace, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod,The Denver Quarterly, and anthologies such as The BedfordIntroduction to Literature, Good Poems for Hard Times (Garrison Keillor, editor), and Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania. Her poetry has been read on the BBC, the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), and by Garrison Keillor onThe Writer’s Almanac, and in Ted Kooser’s column, American Life in Poetry. A highly awarded poet, her prizes include the 2007 Pen and Brush Poetry Prize, ... posted on Jul 26 2016 (11,197 reads)

a story: A man has a burning question. He decides to seek out a famous Hasidic teacher, a man everyone says is the wisest person of his era. For a long time he walks by foot, carrying his question. He gets rained on; he gets hungry. He keeps walking. Finally, he arrives in the village where the teacher lives. The students, though, won't let him into the study house. How can this man's question be serious, when he has just arrived? They've been working for years to be found worthy of the teacher's attention. Finally, the man's question is stronger than his politeness. He breaks in, corners the teacher and asks, "What is the essence of truth?" The teach... posted on Aug 1 2016 (19,348 reads)

one year and one day ago today, doctor-poet Sriram Shamasunder was asked to share a poem on the wedding day of two friends, who in joining their lives together were also making a commitment to combine their energies, gifts and talents in service of the greater good.  Below is the special poem that he wrote and shared that day. Togetherness 8/1/15 somewhere right now so many someones are closing their eyes for the last time and so many others summon a first cry a birth a death an entrance an exit like a train station continuous but To travel together in this life carries a sweetness if only for a little while our travel... posted on Aug 2 2016 (21,099 reads)

medicine is an ecosystem of support for pursuing your own health and well-being. Inside that ecosystem is someone who cares about you. Integrative medicine is emerging from a successful history of treating physical ailments that often eluded Western modalities of care to become an ecosystem of support for health and wellness. Possibly the most visible sign of this development is the increasing attention of integrative medicine to primary care, where prevention and regard for the whole person is most critical. What distinguishes integrative medicine as an approach is that it distances itself from the traditional model of a patient dependent on an expert. Rather, it embraces a g... posted on Aug 4 2016 (16,359 reads)

are inviting a dozen writers such as yourself to meditate upon something they have stolen and upon the motives and consequences of this act, and to share their insights with our readers.” Well, I confess, I got caught.  And now I stand convicted.  At first, that invitation seemed harmless enough: Parabola is planning an issue on “theft:”  “We are inviting a dozen writers such as yourself to meditate upon something they have stolen and upon the motives and consequences of this act, and to share their insights with our readers.”  Fair enough.  I glanced at the deadline, glanced at my calendar, carefully avoided g... posted on Aug 8 2016 (11,987 reads)

this month, Shareable posted a short article about the Little Free Pantry in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Created by Jessica McClard, the Pantry is an easy way for people to share surplus food and household goods, and access items they may need. The response to the post has been incredible. In the first week, over 21,000 people read the article and it has been shared over 700 times on Facebook. Our hunch is that people love the low-cost, direct action approach that McClard is taking to fighting food insecurity on a neighborhood level. As we face overwhelming global issues, seeing a simple, human-scale project addressing problems on a local level is a welco... posted on Aug 11 2016 (15,856 reads)

Hempton is an acoustic ecologist. He has traveled the globe three times recording the vanishing sounds and silences of nature—from the songbird chorus that greets the dawn to the crash of waves on a rocky shore; from the call of a whale in the ocean depths to the drip of rain on a forest floor. After 30 years recording the natural world, he reports that “There are fewer than a dozen quiet places left in the United States. Even in our wilderness areas and national parks, the average noise-free interval has shrunk to less than five minutes during daylight hours.” Hempton makes his home in Joyce, Washington, so as to be near Olympic National Park, the place he calls ... posted on Aug 12 2016 (17,807 reads)