Oh hey it’s you! Hey honey! Look who’s back! Man, we’ve missed you. How have you been? We’re okay…we’ve been thinking good things for you the whole time you’ve been away. Looks like life’s had it’s way with you. Ouch. Where’d you pick up those scrapes? It was hard when you first left. We were so there with you when you had your big shock. It was hard to watch you get angry like that. You hurt a lot of people you know. I mean we knew we’d be safe, …
I was listening to a dharma talk by Steve Armstrong (listen to it here) on working with the defilements of the mind. He begins the talk by quoting the Buddha who says that the pure mind is radiant and bright and that everything else is the result of being visited by defilements. In Buddhism these include greed, aversion and delusion. Less important than the dharma content of this talk though is a line that Steve Armstrong said that zinged home with me. He said that when we sit down to meditate, we should not expect to have …
I had dinner with Hanns and Marlene Skoutajan tonight here in Ottawa. Hanns was the my minister at my church when I was a teenager and he was largely responsible for supporting my call which was at one time to join the United Church of Canada as a minister. He was also responsible for introducing me to church politics and structure such that I decided not to pursue my career for that employer. Hanns and Marlene were a particular anamoly in my upper middle class neighbourhood, where they stood out as the most visible members of the New …
The Globe and Mail: An unnamed source told CNN that “she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party.” And on Saturday, Politico’s Ben Smith wrote of an emerging “Palin insurgency,” quoting four unnamed Republican insiders who said Ms. Palin blames McCain handlers for her negative image and has “gone rogue.” When she described herself as “a maverick” what did people think that meant? At least you couldn’t accuse her of false advertising, for this is how a maverick really behaves.
I’ve spent most of the last week in some deep practice with my close friends Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen, Caitlin Frost and Bob Wing. The practice we were in this week is called “Warrior of the Heart” and it’s a combination of aikido, other martial arts and art of hosting, a blend of practices and disciplines that leads to great insight about oneself and helps develop the clarity of heart required to develop our own leadership and our personal capacity to host conversations that matter and to act powerfully for good in the world. Warrior of the Heart evolved from …