Bill Shorten sincerity?

This article is biting in its view of Bill Shorten.

As i don’t know him or have first hand knowledge of what he’s been up to over the last few years, i reserve judgement – but take the article onboard all the same.

He does sound like he’s acting a script. If he is faking it, as the article suggests, it’s worth knowing about.

There are a few laughs along way – though these come at Bill’s expense.

I asked for strength…

I asked for strength, and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom, and God gave me problems to learn to solve.
I asked for prosperity, and God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for courage, and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for love, and God gave me people to help.
I asked for favors, and God gave me opportunities.

I received nothing I wanted.

I received everything I needed.

Hazrat Inayat Khan, 1882-1927

The Power of NonViolence

I don’t support the references to Christianity in Martin Luther King’s following talk, as Christianity is flawed both historically and philosophically (although i believe the article linked to has some problems as well). But they nevertheless serve to illustrate  his point.

Introduction – from http://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/curriculum/the-american-calendar/the-power-of-nonviolence.

After Rosa Parks’ arrest and conviction, in 1955, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, the Negro citizens of Montgomery Alabama, under King’s leadership, began a boycott of the city’s buses in order to protest the law requiring racial segregation on public transportation. The boycott, perfectly legal, lasted for over a year until after the Supreme Court, in late 1956, upheld a lower court’s decision that had ruled the city’s segregationist laws unconstitutional. This victory for the combined approach of legal challenge and peaceful public protest was one of the first successful applications of King’s teaching and strategy of nonviolent resistance. On June 4, 1957, at the invitation of the local YMCA and YWCA, King gave this speech at the University of California at Berkeley, in which he explained the philosophy and strategy of nonviolence.

From the very beginning there was a philosophy undergirding the Montgomery boycott, the philosophy of nonviolent resistance. There was always the problem of getting this method over because it didn’t make sense to most of the people in the beginning. We had to use our mass meetings to explain nonviolence to a community of people who had never heard of the philosophy and in many instances were not sympathetic with it. We had meetings twice a week on Mondays and on Thursdays, and we had an institute on nonviolence and social change. We had to make it clear that nonviolent resistance is not a method of cowardice. It does resist. It is not a method of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency. The nonviolent resister is just as opposed to the evil that he is standing against as the violent resister but he resists without violence. This method is nonaggressive physically but strongly aggressive spiritually.

Continue reading “The Power of NonViolence”

Can tidying be life changing?

This is a fascinating article about the potentially life changing, spiritual aspects of tidying or decluttering.  Yes, you read that right, both life changing and spiritual.

I have no experience with the Shinto inspired KonMarie method, although reading this article gravitates me towards it – i know decluttering would be a valuable skill to have.

In the article, Marie Kondo tells us that, “things have souls… In Japan, people feel that inanimate things are their equals.”

Continue reading “Can tidying be life changing?”

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