Talking about religion

I just recently learned that the word religion comes from the Latin root that means to bind.
Wouldn't it be great if we could use religion as a way to bind us together rather than separate us.

Lately we have been confronted by so many religious divisions - the ground zero mosque, which isn't really a mosque and isn't really at ground zero, discussions about whether religion plays into the world's slow response to the crisis in Pakistan, our own city's struggles over the building of a Sikh temple, even philosophical divides on the homeschooling boards I frequent.

In the midst of figuring out how to navigate these concepts with my kids I came across this article (linked from this wonderful blog) and read these words, written by UU president Peter Morales.

Religion is much more about what we love than about what we think...The questions we ask one another are so critically important. If you and I ask each other what we believe, we will get into talking about very heady stuff. We will put forth our beliefs and then support them with evidence and argument. All too often we will end up arguing... However, when we ask one another what we truly love, what we truly value, what we care about more than anything else in life, something amazing happens. We don’t argue. We listen. We connect. We discover that we love and want the same things. We care about one another. We want honesty, depth, and intimacy in our relationships. We want enduring friendships.

We also discover that we realize that we are all in this life together. We want to help heal the world. We want compassion, understanding, and justice to guide our actions and our governments. We want to work together, hand in hand, to build a world beyond exploitation and violence.

This year one of my goals is to take my kids to various houses of worship and to introduce them more fully to the worlds' religious traditions. We started this past weekend with a walk through the stations of the cosmos at a nearby religious retreat which is a beautiful spiral timeline that shows the evolution of the universe, the development of the various world religions and the stations of the cross.   I loved the quotes selected to illustrate some of the ideas of the world religions and how they followed the same threads. We really are more alike than we are different.

Nonviolence is the supreme religion. One who looks on the creatures of the Earth, big and small, as one's own self, comprehends this immense world.

~ Lord Mahavira

More world food day resources

For every grain of rice
we are thankful
for thousands of workers.
For every drop of rain
we are thankful
for the earth's many blessings
 ~ one of our mealtime blessings

I came across the Kids Can Make a Difference website the other day.
Inspiring kids to end hunger and poverty in their communities, their country, and their world.

KIDS is a program of iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world.

If you are looking for activities to do with kids make sure that you check out the Classroom Initiatives to see what some educators have done around the issue of hunger awareness with their students.

And this excellent resource from Mother's Acting Up outlines a classroom Hunger Banquet along with ideas for other activism education.
The World Food Day USA website has a great selection of links and activities including the UN's online fame called Food Force.

And this blog has some children's story books related ethical eating (mostly vegetarianism)
Some other ideas for families for World Food Day:
~ Tour a farm, CSA, or farmer's market and learn more about where our food comes from and why it is so important to support local food suppliers.
~ Deliver donations directly to the food bank.
~ Have an around-the-world-dinner with recipes from various regions of the world.
~ Try Grassroots International's challenge to eat for a day in your community for just $2 or investigate how food accessibility and poverty are intertwined even in North America through movements like Put Food In the Budget.
~ Discuss with your kids and then sign the Petition to End Hunger and the Starved for Attention Petition
~ Before your meal take a moment to try to think of and honour every set of hands your food may have passed through to reach your table.  Choose a blessing for your meal that reflects that. (I've listed some of our favourites below.)


Before we eat,
we turn our attention
to the bounty before us;
We are truly thankful for the gift of this meal
and for the richness of our lives.
May this food nourish our bodies
And the company of those we love
Nourish our spirits.

Thanks to the earth
thanks to the sun
thanks to the rain
for all they have done.
Thanks to the work
of heart and hand
That made this meal 
from the gifts of the land.

The great kindness challenge - August 14

From here:
The Great Kindness Challenge is one day devoted to performing as many acts of kindness as possible. Our goal this year is to have over one million children participate. It is our hope that this day will inspire a lifelong commitment to service and kindness.
From sunup to sundown, children around the world will accomplish simple, kind deeds using The Great Kindness Challenge Checklist.
The checklist features 50 acts of kindness to choose from. Click here to download the checklist. Then just do what you can on August 14. Even the simplest acts can make a big difference in someone's life. And you just might be amazed at how fun it can be.
Do you belong to a group that could participate, or would you like to form one? We invite you to use The Great Kindness Challenge to perform group acts of kindness and have your own events to honor this special day.

Let's make our world a more kind, loving and compassionate place for all.
 
Check the Great Kindness Challenge website for more ideas and this post for some resources.

Contagious

"If learning is embedded in real world context, where you blur the boundaries between school and life, then children go through a journey of aware where they can see the change, enabled where they can be changed and then empowered, lead the change." Kiran Sethi is the founder of a revolutionary new school in India, called The Riverside School. She’s changing the way we think about children, the way they think about themselves and her ideas are contagious!

What will matter

What Will Matter
By Michael Josephson

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no days, no hours, or minutes.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten will pass on to someone else.
Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevant.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.
So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will all expire.
The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you come from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.
It won’t matter whether you are beautiful or brilliant.
Your gender, skin color, ethnicity will be irrelevant.

So, what will matter?
How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built.
Not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage and sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.
What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people knew you,

but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.
What will matter is not your memories, but the memories of those who loved you.

What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.
Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

Found here

Global Village Voice

Education, Activism and Resources for a Better World

Welcome to The Global Village Voice, where we’re bridging the worlds of education and activism – bringing together visionaries from the worlds of alternative education, humane education, homeschooling, peace, justice, diversity, sustainability, human rights, psychology, spirituality, indigenous issues, the arts, and life in general – to share information, inspiration, and thoughtful reflection.

So often the realms of education, activism, psychology, spirituality, etc. don’t have a lot to say to each other. We want this site to be a place that unites people from different worlds, a place for community-building, sharing of resources, and respectful exchange of ideas.

The oil spill - the tipping point

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
~ Erich Fromm

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.
~ Talmud (attributed)



There have been horrific images of the BP Gulf oil spill on TV and in the papers.
And yet I have not looked at them.
I just can't.
I cannot bring myself to be informed on this issue, to figure out how to talk to my kids about it, to find a way to do something meaningful in the face of this crisis.
I am sure that the damage is astounding, the figures staggering, the prognosis bleak.  And yet I doubt I would be surprised by it.

I am not one to stick my head in the sand. Usually.
But this time I just can't. I know the images will paralyze me. It will be my tipping point.
We created this spill with our demand for more and more oil. We are responsible.
I have decided that instead of facing this one head on, I will redouble my efforts to do what I can here. To drive less and bike or walk more. To reduce our use of plastics and eliminate disposables as much as we possibly can. To buy less, and to choose local and used over new and well travelled. To continue our efforts to make our home more energy efficient.  To spend, save and give ethically.

The work I can do. The images, details, and powerlessness....I just can't.

Talking with children about the Oil Spill

Rainbows, hugs and pink balloons

One of my favourite magazines sends out weekly emails of stories they are featuring.
This one, about celebrating birthdays in simple and meaningful ways arrived in my inbox today. It's timely as our family heads into birthday season and I am listening closely to my kids real wishes and trying to drown out the idea that birthdays need to be equated with "buy, buy buy".  My friend Emma has a gift for creating special celebrations for her family birthdays,with hand madegifts and beautiful gestures.

I remember one year when he was about 4 Colin wanted a rainbow and a hug for Christmas. Santa obliged with a rainbow playsilk from the Waldorf school store, and a beautiful book about hugs. He could not have been happier.

Even among mindful parents I know we can use the reminder that what children need is for us to buy less and be with them more.

What is a birthday? It is an opportunity to celebrate the life and the development of a person. Do my children need to see a table covered with a pile of wrapped toys in order to know that their family and friends are delighted and honored that they share this lifetime with us? Somewhere in our consumer culture, we have confused “presents,” material items, with expressions of love and gratitude.

Encouraging Simplicity in Kids

There's a great blog post here about ways to encourage kids to live simply.  I particularly like the idea about changing our language from "I want" or "I need" to "I like", which implies less attachment and less urgency.

Yesterday we took the kids to the mall - which happens about once or twice a year. We wanted to participate in an engineering program which was supposed to have been held in the mall but was unfortunately cancelled. While we were there we needed to look for a new kettle, get birthday presents for Gran and a cousin.

We traipsed from one end of the mall to the other in search of a simple stove top kettle that was 1) under $100 and 2) not made in China of cheap materials. No luck. But we did have plenty of time to talk about why malls are laid out like they are, the effect of advertising and image, and why there were so many people in a mall on a beautiful Saturday morning (the parking lot was full!).

I think my kids get it. I think they understand the role of advertising in their lives, the impact of a consumer culture in the lives of others and the choices we make. But I fully admit that they are still young and easily protected from the pull of those forces which are so ingrained in our culture. The hard work on those issues is still in front of us.

Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood