Yesterday was a lot of fun. We started with the SGI-USA Fortune District discussion meeting at Maria’s house where we talked about compassion and embracing our neighbors, and we heard an experience from Maria. Jeff announced that the 2006 Annual Study Guide is available online, by order, and at the community center bookstore. Then many of us went from the meeting to participate in the interfaith 9/11 Unity Walk for Peace.
As a medieval living history re-enactor, I frequently get asked if I would like to actually live in the time period. My answer has always been a firm and resounding “Certainly not!” because I much prefer living in a time of flush toilets, hot running water, antibiotics, and with the availability of ice cream.
Yes ice cream.
Perhaps one of the greatest inventions ever. Yum! I am mostly a person without a sweet tooth. I frequently order fries for dessert instead of something sweet, unless ice cream is an option. I love ice cream. I love vanilla, chocolate, strawberry… I love all the fruit flavors, I love frozen yoghurt, sherbet, frozen custard, gellato, slushies, shaved ice, and plain old regular ice cream.
I have a new passion in the ice cream world. “Palapa Azul” advertized as all natural Mexican style ice cream. We’ve had the “Mexican Caramel” flavor a few times now and it is so unbelievably yummy that we can’t bring ourselves to try another flavor! I am afraid to find out what’s in it; because is it so good it must be made of something bad for you. If you want to avoid a new decadent addiction, stay well away from this stuff (evil grin: I know you can’t).
It’s getting close to the anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States by a group of men, mostly from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, who were outraged by the sexual liberty of women, gay marriage, birth control, and no-fault divorce.
RenaRF has a great story about Fear, Real Fear vs. Manufactured Fear in her Thank You to President Bush. Excellent reading, highly recommended. I can’t help recalling the story of a local (to Reston) Buddhist medical doctor who said to his wife as he was dying of cancer: “Fear is not real.” He told her to anchor her heart in peace, love, and culture. That is what he hoped his life was all about, and that is what would keep her happy even without him.
To quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
It is fear that our government is using to try to manipulate elections and laws and even the constitution.
It is fear that the terrorists used on September 11th, 2001. In fact terrorism is the use of fear as a weapon against non-combatants throughout history, both before and after September 11th, 2001. Oklahoma City bombing, Anthrax mailings, shootings and bombings of family planning clinics, any nation possessing nuclear weapons; these are all examples of terrorism and the power of fear. All such power is ultimately fleeting.
The power of love is far greater. One man’s love for humanity has changed the lives of billions, not just once – but several times. Jesus of Nazareth, Siddartha Gautama, T’ien T’ai, and Muḥammad all brought messages of peace and love. Their impact is still felt all over the globe a thousand years and more after their passing.
Do something for love, for culture, and for peace this weekend.
Erci and I plan to participate in the interfaith 9/11 Unity Walk for Peace this Sunday in Washington, DC. Our purpose:
“We walk together as neighbors from many faiths and cultures. We gather in peace to demonstrate our unity, recalling the spirit of togetherness that grew out of 9/11. We commemorate this day because concern for each other’s welfare is the shared hope of us all.”
Thanks to Bruce for posting this where it could be lifted.
Cute little flash story about how to make the best of bad stuff dumped on you:
http://upchucky.net/~upchucky/flash-fun/farmer-donkey.swf
Reminds me of the rejoined we young airmen used to the over used military phrase “Shit rolls downhill” (which was meant to imply that we junior people had to simply deal with it). We began to respond “Yes, it does, sir; but it piles right back uphill.”
My vote is that this is an Allegory:
A figurative sentence or discourse, in which the principal
subject is described by another subject resembling it in
its properties and circumstances. The real subject is thus
kept out of view, and we are left to collect the
intentions of the writer or speaker by the resemblance of
the secondary to the primary subject.
Before you start that spam-bot, before you hire someone to put your advert-flyer under my windshield wiper, before you send misleading links to your gambling/porn/drug business to my web log, before you send me an instant message; please try to think this through.
Just think for a second what you would do if you were receiving all this crap.
Thank goodness for Mike Bombich and CarbonCopyCloner (CCC) for Mac OSX. I use CCC and an external, firewire drive to routinely backup my machines and I am very grateful for that habit today. We had a 20 second power hit at work and my G5’s main drive crashed… hard. Unable to repair disk using Disk Utility and fsck was not finding the problem either.
Lucky for me I had a backup from the previous business day (which is unusual even for me – since I typically only backup once a week. I booted off the clone backup drive to discover this, and I am now using CCC to rebuild my main drive. Posting this from my old SGI O2 workstation using Mozilla 1.0.2 (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; IRIX IP32; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030820), and goodness it’s slow, but at least it works.
Wednesday (8/30): I slept through most of the Ted flight from Dulles to Las Vegas. If there is any difference between United and Ted, I missed it. Both airlines are horrible, both effectively have a lock on flights in and out of Dulles. Only difference I could see is that Ted is a much dumber name than United. Fought dry-mouth the entire flight because they could not bring water out fast enough nor frequently enough. Waited nearly an hour to see our luggage pop up onto the conveyor belt after the flight. At least the company was good. ‘Gelca, Stacey, and Erci all make excellent travel partners.
More about the trip after the fold…
Continue reading ›
We are heading to Las Vegas to watch Mike and Joan tie the knot.
Saturday, Erci and I hosted our third annual men’s division Virginia West chapter meeting in our home. The chapter is a lot smaller now, as it has been split two years in a row because of growth in local Soka Gakkai membership numbers (woo hoo!). Yesterday we went up to Purceville for Potomac Chapter’s annual men’s division meeting hosted by Vijay. It was remarkable how different the two meetings were even though they were nominally focused on the same topics: “the oneness of mentor and disciple” and “building a self-reliant faith.” Both were pulled from the July/August issue of Living Buddhism magazine and from the July 21st issue of the World Tribune.
For the Virginia West chapter the discussion focused on the definition of the mentor and disciple relationship and on speaking from the heart. We talked a lot about how the mentor disciple relationship is disciple initiated, that we each choose our own mentors, and that sometimes our mentors can choose us. We also talked a lot about practicing an engaged and active life, where we take actions on those things closest to our hearts.
In the Potomac chapter there were more experiences given, and they were particularly heart-wrenching and moving. One man talked about his mother’s passing, and another about his fight with alcohol and substance abuse. Potomac men’s discussion focused more on actively establishing great friendships with those around us and staying connected both in faith and in community regardless of faith.
Both meetings were followed by excellent food and fun, and at both there was a reminder that Fall study review is coming, and that the interfaith walk for peace is coming even sooner (SGI-USA is participating).
Here is Jim’s first internet ad:
I hope there are more soon, and that they attack the worst senator on several issues.
