SPIRIT IN MATTERS:  Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth

By Dianne Eppler Adams

Vol. 1, No 5 - August 30, 2003

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

...Ours is an interconnected, interdependent, sacred world.

...All relationships--personal, communal, national, global--are equal and best approached with fairness, respect, honesty, and compassion.

...Darkness is overcome, not by avoidance, but through shining the light of awareness on it and choosing otherwise.

SPECIAL MESSAGE

Due to a growing number of subscribers, I am delighted to announce that Topica is now maintaining the distribution list and newsletter processing. Unfortunately, it has delayed my sending of this issue.

FROM THIS VANTAGE POINT...

Living life in the present moment!

It’s been a month since you received the last issue of this newsletter.  Have you noticed?  August is a such quiet month in Washington, DC (all the politicos jump ship) and this year so did Chuck and I.  Our trip to England, touring and staying in B&Bs from London to Penzance, was the kind of vacation (or holiday as they say) from which it has been hard to recover.  It wasn’t the jet lag that did it.  It was the stress lag!

It seems that we experienced so little stress during our travel that we lagged in our desire to pick up the routine burdens of our everyday life.  I thought “What was it I was planning to do when I returned?  Was there anything I needed to continue or complete or…?”  I felt so relaxed and at peace.

In a strange synchronicity, I discovered that my PDA (personal digital assistant) on which I kept all my appointments had lost power while I was away and dumped everything from my calendar.  How interesting!  Nothing scheduled!

I realize there is something true about travel that also explains why I love it so – travel is very conducive to “living in the present moment.”  In other words, as we traveled about we had little thought about what need to be accomplished in the next week or the next day.  Our thoughts were of the next meal and, in the afternoon, the next B&B.  There were no “have tos” to complete, no “shoulds” either. Anything we should have done or could have done better was left behind, while the scenery changed constantly to new places and new people.

We were living much more completely in the present moment!

Why is it that we don’t live that way all the time?  I am making a commitment to enter each new day with a wonder and openness that allows it to be different, unique, unlike any other day I have known and see what a sense of newness will bring to my experience of that day.  This means not expecting the worst or even expecting the best based on my definitions of such, but letting the day be created one “present” moment at a time.

If this sounds difficult or if you’d like to read more about this concept, I highly recommend the book, “The Power of Now” by Eckhardt Tolle.  It is an easy to read, easy to understand description of how to live peacefully, yet purposefully, in the consciousness of now – the present moment.

(Your comments are always welcome at SpiritInMatters@aol.com.)

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”It seems to me that we often, almost sulkily, reject the good that God

offers us because, at the moment, we expected some other good.”

C.S. Lewis

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FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...

Climate Change Will Vary By Region

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994072

[Having been in England while record temperatures were set – 108 F – this article explains it and the incredibly wet May we had in the Washington, DC area.]

NEW SCIENTIST - While the heat wave claimed thousands of lives in France, started bush fires in Portugal and toppled temperature records from London to Baghdad, the European Commission issued a little-noticed bulletin. It showed a prolonged drought was causing drastic changes in agricultural output, especially in southern Europe. And the changes almost perfectly match predictions of the effects of global warming over the next century.

Meanwhile in the US, the latest forecasts are confirming that, whatever the prevarications of the Bush administration, climate change will have a very real impact on the country. The eastern and western seaboards of the US will become much wetter over the next century, while some central states will become so starved of water that they will be unable to support agriculture at all. . .

Both groups of researchers warn that the recent heat wave is a salutary warning of the changes to come. "It's dangerous to push these things under the carpet because we need to start planning now for the impacts of climate change," says Olesen. Izaurralde agrees. "It's not too soon to begin building a more resilient agricultural system."

Apologies to My Grandchildren

Grandpa Conrad

The Heartland Institute 08/01/2003

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=12578

Dear Jack, Katie, Luke, Will, Tess, Elle, and Anthony:

My entire generation owes you an apology. But I can speak only for myself when I say I regret to inform you that you are going to get a hulk of a tax bill by the time you celebrate your 20th birthday.

A World of Dignity

Sergio Vieira de Mello

http://www.opendemocracy.net/debates/article-2-95-1449.jsp

SERGIO VIEIRA DE MELLO, the UN envoy killed in Baghdad this week, gave this remarkable, forward-looking lecture soon after he became head of the UNHCR in 2002. It charts a century’s agenda for human rights work.

In discussing world civilisation – whatever that may mean – it is important to remember those who have suffered as a result of a breakdown of civilisation. We must also pay tribute to, and really think hard about, the women, men and children who continue to suffer the impact of armed conflict.

30% of black men in US will go to jail

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1021452,00.html

Tuesday August 19, 2003 The Guardian

[Something's wrong with this picture! Too bad I had to find this in a British publication, but then it’s not something for American's to be proud of.]

Black men born in the United States in 2001 will have a one in three chance of going to prison during their lifetime if current trends continue, according to a report by the US justice department. More than 5.6 million Americans are either in prison or have served time there - and that number will continue to rise, the report shows. By the end of 2001, one in every 37 Americans had some experience of prison, compared with one in 53 in 1974.  Continuing at that rate, the proportion will increase to one in every 15 of those born in 2001.

In 2001 a sixth of African-American men were current or former prisoners, compared with one in 13 Latinos and one in 38 whites. The incarceration of women remains lower than of men but has increased at twice the rate since 1980 and shows similar racial disparities.

"Prison had become the social policy of choice for low income people of colour," says Marc Mauer, assistant director of the Sentencing Project, a group which promotes reduced reliance on imprisonment. "Nobody's stated it that way but we have inner-city areas starved of investment but no shortage of funds to build and fill prisons."

Lessons from the Geese

A beautiful teaching from our feathered friends!

http://members.aol.com/CuttyhunkRose/geese.html

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”Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do we children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

Helen Keller

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©2003 Spirit in Matters: Taking a Higher View of Life on Earth.   All rights reserved.

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