Optimism in the Dark Night, by Gayan Macher
story is about the creation of a song.  Its title is Earth on Fire, Hearts on Ice.  The song was born out of anguish and anger about our despoiling of the natural world. In the end it had become a prayer. I am hopeful by nature.  But I needed to get some things off my chest, things weighing heavy on my heart.    And it has been a healing balm to make this song.  I imagine it must have felt this way to black slaves releasing their sorry in their soulful gospel. In the process of writing this song I was made to look deeply into the nature of optimism in the face of dire facts.   Is optimism naïve, simplistic? &nb... posted on Jun 12 2016 (14,366 reads)

Life Comes From It: Navajo justice, by Chief Justice Robert Yazzie
"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 (22,373 reads)

Thinking Outside the Box, by Elyse Wanshel
is an idea that really delivers. ZubaBox is a shipping container converted into a solar-powered internet café or classroom for people in need living in remote areas — including refugee camps. Inside the Lab The interior of the box can accommodate up to 11 individuals at a time and gives people in traditionally marginalized communities a sense of inclusion while widening their opportunities. “The ZubaBox is used to break a cycle of exclusion and gives [people] a space that they deserve to improve their learning experience and achieve their goals,” Rajeh Shaikh, marketing and PC donations manager at Computer Aid International — ... posted on Jul 3 2016 (16,789 reads)

Why We Should Teach Empathy to Preschoolers, by Shuka Kalantari
the fall of 1979, Yalda Modabber had just moved from Iran back to her birthplace in Boston. Her timing was bad: Just weeks later later, a group of armed Iranians took more than 60 U.S. citizens hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Iran. As a result, her fellow students bullied her ruthlessly. Golestan Education's Yalda Modabber “It was nonstop for two years,” says Modabber, who has dark curly black hair and a warm smile. “That period in my life was so hard that I blocked it out. I don’t even remember my teachers’ names. The entire class turned on me.” Modabber is now the principal and founder of Golestan Education, a Persian-language prescho... posted on Jul 8 2016 (33,176 reads)

How Anxiety Reduces Empathy, by Kira M. Newman
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 (22,561 reads)

Paying Attention, Discovering Joy: A Conversation with Barbara Crooker, by Margaret Rozga
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 (11,278 reads)

The Big Idea Behind Integrative Medicine, by Alan Briskin
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 (16,390 reads)

Buddhas on Death Row: A Bridge of Art & Friendship, by Moyo
on Death Row was born out of the collaboration of two pen friends, based in the United States and Finland. Their names: Moyo and Maria What follows is the transcript of a letter Moyo typed out to Maria from Death Row.  Using the pages of a discarded atlas for stationery, he answers her questions regarding his relationship to art, shares his perspective on solitary confinement, and conveys with dignity and eloquence, the transformation that the human spirit is capable of even in the midst of darkness... I was always fascinated with art and how others were able to make pictures but my idea of art before and well into my incarceration ... posted on Aug 9 2016 (15,860 reads)

Can Science Help You Become Wise?, by Jenara Nerenberg
Tippett is the creator and host of the award-winning radio program and podcast On Being, which features a combination of scientists and spiritual leaders taking on today’s biggest and most pressing questions. Tippett was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and the BBC in Berlin in the 80’s before studying divinity at Yale and launchingOn Being for NPR. In 2014, the White House awarded her a National Humanities Medal for “thoughtfully delving into the mysteries of human existence.” Her new book is called Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living: The question of what it means to be human is now in... posted on Aug 15 2016 (12,124 reads)

Reclaiming Friendship: A Visual Taxonomy of Platonic Relationships to Counter the Commodification of the Word 'Friend', by Maria Popova
C.S. Lewis believed, “like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself … has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” But the poetic beauty of this sentiment crumbles into untruth for anyone who has ever been buoyed from the pit of despair by the unrelenting kindness of a friend, or whose joys have been amplified by a friend’s warm willingness to bear witness. Illustration by Maurice Sendak from a vintage ode to friendship by Janice May Udry I often puzzle over the nature, structure, and function of friendship in human life — a function I have found to be indispensable to my own s... posted on Sep 1 2016 (14,897 reads)

Love's Footprints, by Bonnie Rose
colleagues who know about Pet Grief said “Get a paw print from Stella before she dies.”  Determined to honor her passing exactly right, I vowed “I will get that footprint.”  Stella and Bartie's feet. Photo by Bonnie Rose. So in the midst of inconclusive vet visits and internet searches for horrifying dog illnesses, I staggered over to a craft store to survey their Pet Memorial Products.  There I found The Pet Memorial Stepping Stone.  The picture on the box indicated you could cement a pristine footprint from your dog and decorate it with mosaic tiles.  Perfect.  I got two.  I came home and mixed the ce... posted on Sep 19 2016 (15,162 reads)

Lessons from Living in Nature, by Nisha Srinivisan
Srinivasan and her husband Ragu Padmanabhan had Silicon Valley careers, when in 2008, soon after having their son Aum, they promptly sold everything off and moved to rural India. They wanted to farm, but had no experience in it and so set out as students of the land -- for instance, when they planted 9000 trees on their barren land, thousands didn't make it, but thousands blossomed into a mini-forest. More generally, they jumped in with the intention of living and being in a way that was better aligned with their inner voices, and learning what they needed along the way. In their own words, they just saw it simply as an"experiment in laying a new path on an old road that leads... posted on Sep 22 2016 (25,647 reads)

Fierce Contemplation: The Nature Loving Nuns Who Stopped a Pipeline, by Laura Michele Diener
easiest way for me to find God is in nature,” Sister Ceciliana Skees explains. Born Ruth Skees, she grew up in Hardin County, Kentucky, during the 1930s. It’s a rural place of soft green hills, where her father farmed his entire life. Now just a few months shy of her eighty-fifth birthday, she remembers feeling the first stirrings of a religious calling at the age of 10. Her peasant blouse and smooth, chin-length haircut don’t fit the popular image of a nun, but she has been a Sister of Loretto—a member of a religious order more than 200 years old—since she took vows at the age of 18. Skees’ commitment to social activism goes back almost a... posted on Sep 26 2016 (9,596 reads)

How to Cultivate Ethical Courage, by Brooke Deterline
we only realize our deepest values once we’ve contradicted them. For Tina, an up-and-coming African-American woman and associate professor at a prestigious private university, one of those moments came just after she had earned a coveted administrative post.  I met Tina at a five-day Multi-Cultural Competence workshop. Tina was the one who skillfully voiced the racial and gender bias that was occurring in the room, most challengingly by the famous founder and facilitator of the workshop.  As one of the most courageous women I know, she’s a perfect example of how easy it is for any of us to betray important values in challenging situations at ... posted on Oct 1 2016 (17,579 reads)

The Secret Life of Trees, by Maria Popova
dominate the world’s the oldest living organisms. Since the dawn of our species, they have been oursilent companions, permeating our most enduring tales and never ceasing to inspire fantastical cosmogonies. Hermann Hesse called them “the most penetrating of preachers.” A forgotten seventeenth-century English gardener wrote of how they “speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons.” But trees might be among our lushest metaphors andsensemaking frameworks for knowledge precisely because the richness of what they say is more than metaphorical — they speak a sophisticated ... posted on Oct 11 2016 (19,884 reads)

The Giving Season, by Jennifer Merlich
was recently the recipient of an incredible act of anonymous kindness. It came from out of nowhere, at exactly the right time.  The magnitude of the gift moved me to tears, and I was so grateful and profoundly moved by the generosity of my unknown benefactor.  But I was also sure there had been a mistake. In the midst of this beautiful act, I am ashamed to admit that I was momentarily overcome by feelings of unworthiness.  I simply couldn’t believe I was deserving of such radical kindness.  Had I been face to face with my benefactor, I would have given them 100 reasons why they “shouldn’t have”, attempting to convince them that they wer... posted on Oct 16 2016 (13,700 reads)

Cafe Momentum: Serving Second Chances, by Chris Peak
the far southern outskirts of Dallas County, Chad Houser pulled off the I-45 highway, drove onto a dead-end road leading to several shooting ranges and made a quick right turn to his final destination: the Dallas County Youth Village, a non-secure juvenile detention facility for 10-to-17-year-old boys. Stepping out of his car, Houser, a chef at the acclaimed Dallas bistro Parigi, noticed a putrid stench rising from the nearby landfill and water treatment plant. He grabbed a bundle of fruits and herbs from his car and strode into the compound, where he planned to teach a class on making ice cream. The whole ride over, Houser fretted about the disrespect and back talk he was ab... posted on Nov 2 2016 (12,739 reads)

How Women-Led Movements Are Redefining Power, From California to Nepal , by Rucha Chitnis
her essay “There is No Hierarchy of Oppressions,” black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde wrote: “I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.” Around the world, women’s movements have long recognized the wisdom of that thought, which emphasizes the way social movements benefit by recognizing the intersections between different forms of oppression. In their letter “Women for Women in Ferguson,” the National Domestic Workers All... posted on Nov 15 2016 (17,289 reads)

Food Waste and the Culture of Rush, by Diana Moreno
after signing my contract as a store assistant for a well known low-cost German supermarket company, I came across a nasty reality that seemed not to bother the rest of my colleagues: every day, at a sleepy four o’clock in the morning, a random employee has to do the “waste inventory.” This consists of scanning all the products that can’t be sold anymore, one by one, and then throwing them out into a blue container. The resulting mountain of food is impressive—around seventy bakery items, a hundred pieces of fruit, and fifteen trays of meat. Over two hundred food items start the morning at the bottom of the garbage container, every single day. ... posted on Nov 27 2016 (13,130 reads)

Spotlight on Anonymous Giving , by Shari Swanson
Mysterious B. Virdot “The year was 1933 and Christmas was just a week away. Deep in the trough of the Great Depression, the people of Canton, Ohio, were down on their luck and hungry. Nearly half the town was out of work. Along the railroad tracks, children in patched coats scavenged for coal spilled from passing trains. The prison and orphanage swelled with the casualties of hard times. “It was then that a mysterious “B. Virdot” took out a tiny ad in the Canton Repository, offering to help the needy before Christmas. All he asked was that they write to him and tell him of their hardships. B. Virdot, he said, was not his real name, and no one would ... posted on Dec 13 2016 (14,454 reads)