President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today to the surprise of many. The award was a first in that Barack Obama is the first American president to win the award in his first year in office. Some noted that it was not so much because of his accomplishments up to date, but that it reflected an important change in the willingness to dialogue, a virtual slap in the face to “W”, his predecessor. Any way you look at it, heartfelt congratulations Mr. President!
Category: compassion
- Labels: barack obama, compassion, humility, joy, love, peace
Just when it seemed the angry town hall meetings had ended, a group that’s still mad as hell rolled into Saint Paul Wednesday.
The group of touring physicians, called the “Mad as Hell Doctors,” held a rally at the state capitol.
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!” the crowd yelled, at the group’s urging, before the nine doctors from Oregon and California talked about why they favor a single-payer, government-run health care system that would cover all Americans.
“I’m mad as hell because Americans are going bankrupt because of their medical bills,” Dr. Bob Seward, an internist from Portland, told the crowd.
“I’m mad as hell when I hear our country is ranked by the World Health Organization as 37th in the world, in terms of health outcomes,” San Francisco family physician Marc Sapir said.
The doctors are stopping in 26 cities on their way to Washington, D.C., and they’re not happy with any of the health-care reform options Congress is considering.
- Labels: common sense, compassion, health care, politics
In 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States,
the Farm Security Administration (FSA) was an effort
during the Depression to combat American rural poverty.
The FSA is famous for its small but
highly influential photography program, 1935-44,
that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty.
You can see a portion of this collection at the
Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress
- Labels: compassion, family, good, government, poverty, profit
In these past ten years or so we in Ireland, North and South, have been enjoying a stable and hopefully lasting peace. The thirty years of conflict, bloodshed and loss of life are more or less over. (It ended in the early to mid-nineties of the last century) Yet, as peace-makers we can never become too complacent, because there is much hatred and bitterness North of our border. Now, I am not saying for a minute that our brothers and sisters in the North of Ireland have a monopoly of these two vices – far from it. I readily admit that there is not a little hatred and bitterness in the hearts of some South of the border. However, statistics show that the North of Ireland is an extremely racist country. A report recently declared that some 20 or so Romanian people of the Roma ethnic minority had to flee back to their homeland because they had literally been burnt out of their homes. I am old enough to remember such happening in the Catholic areas of the North of Ireland in the early to mid 1960s. So, all people of good will, North and South of the border, and, indeed, all people of good will everywhere must be peace-makers with a deep compassion for all our fellow human beings! There is too much conflict in the world today – and there probably always was – but in these more enlightened days let’s be conflict breakers or conflict busters.
Sadly religions of all hues have been more often than not repositories, and indeed often promoters, of hate and bitterness. Anywhere in the world where there is inter-national and indeed intra-national war oftentimes religion or interpretations of that phenomenon lie at its heart. We have to go beyond religion and find a spiritual ground or baseline – the only solid foundation for intra and inter-national peace. With these thoughts in mind I offer here some words from the wonderful Dalai Lama on the matter of the difference between Religion and Spirituality:
I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another–an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit–such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
From “The Pocket Dalai Lama,” edited by Mary Craig, 2002. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.
- Labels: belief, compassion, dalai lama, enlightenment, humanity, love, non-violence, peace, religion, spirituality, together, violence, war
They are cowards……
they are afraid of a little woman
The right time to show your good character is when you are pestered by somebody weaker than you.
-Buddha
- Labels: buddhism, compassion, non-violence, now, strength, wisdom