This is part 2 in a series in re-defining giving. Part 3 will be some creative small-dollar but high value gifting concepts, websites, stories.  It will be posted November 24.   Part 1 discussed how cross pollination between the for-profit/donor sector and the non-profit/charity sector needs to be more evident. This is a ...

  I think these are actually geese and not 'dox', but you get the picture. If one plans to have baby-dox it's easier to have a para-dox but only because it takes an entire village to raise them.   Here's the real puzzle: If a man raised in foreign places can become president of these united states why can't all people in love ...

This post is part of a synchroblog of Christian bloggers writing this month about leadership, just in time for the election.   In thinking about this post, my mind ranged over all the leadership books I've read, trainings and team work that I've had the privilege to participate in over the 30 years in the world of work. In ...

“Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.”  Guillaume Apollinaire (French poet and critic who helped to direct poetry into unexplored channels, 1880-1918) The Hindu Goddess of Death and Destruction, Kali I've been reluctant to bring politics into the Virtual ...

This photo journal of Faith (or Will Power) the dog made my heart smile and weep at the same time. Make sure to scroll down the page of the above link to see all the photos. NOTE: See comment on this post--this little dog's name is actually 'Faith'... Here's just one photo from this montage... Check the journal out--it's worth it. I ...

As I live into the pilgrimage of Patti Digh's 37 days exercise on what we might be experiencing if indeed we had 'only' 37 days to live, I've found myself going through layers of experience.  I'm dreaming a lot, and not remembering any of them. I'm all over the place in my daily life--content, anxious, exasperated with myself, feeling sick in ...

Remarkable photo journal of 'walking-beside' by Phillip Toledano and his 98 year old father.  

Technorati Tags: relgious images,spirituality,comparative theology Twelve years ago or more I was a chaplain at a Veterans Hospital in Colorado.  I worked in the substance abuse and psychiatric units.  It was one of the favorite jobs of my lifetime thus far.  The guys (mostly guys) were respectful, easy to work with ...

Not that any of us thought he was wrong... I woke up this morning after a week of frustrating events, feeling like I was the main source of problems in my (read: 'the') world.  I felt like I'd alienated important relationships, had a disturbing set of dreams, failed at work, failed at parenthood, failed at being able to move steadily towards ...

from ESPN: TLANTA -- At 7:30 each morning, Sister Mary Edwin pushes her pill cart down the parquet hallway of the men's floor. Each drawer on the cart is marked with a name and room number. Dominic in 101 needs his heart medication and something for the pain. Sister Edwin grinds tablets with the back of a spoon and mixes the powder into a taste ...

About 13 years ago I had a dream that I will live-into for the rest of my life. In the dream, I'm part of the life of a retreat center or monastery of some sort.  The center is on an island and on top of a large plateau or mountain with ocean surrounding.  I can remember walking to the edge and looking downward and outward and feeling ...

5th Journal Entry in my 'Where's Home?' series for the writing contest.  Sunday, June 15, 2008 the Central Oregon Fire Circle Community held the second Sunday Morning Fire Circle, sitting with 'Father's Day'.  The first Sunday Morning Fire Circle was on Mother's Day in May.  As we munched on some delicious breakfast brought by ...

  ''Whatever I have to see Whatever I have to feel Whatever I have to remember Whatever I have to go through... If it is for my healing and the highest good of all beings I agree to it.'' I had the honor this past weekend of joining a group of about 20 people, mostly from Central Oregon, for a workshop led by Jonathan Goldman.  ...

Here's an opportunity for some deep psycho/spiritual work--available to anyone, but most accessible to the Central Oregon community.   Jonathan Goldman began his career as a practitioner of acupuncture in 1976. He went to Brazil in 1987, where he encountered his own healing, his teachers, and his mediumistic spiritual healership. ...

http://www.med.wisc.edu/news/item.php?id=2756 I have a quote on my wall above my computer at home that says ''Life is a delicate balance between letting things happen and making things happen.'' Working in child abuse prevention, I am constantly walking this line, between motivating people and rushing them. People's hearts and minds can move ...

  “Yes, but tell me how are you,” she said.   It was 10 p.m. and we were sitting in my kitchen eating toast and drinking tea. And I had just finished telling Jude how great things were going.   “Well,” I said, deciding it was safe to answer her question, and then I launched into the stories beneath the stories. The hurts that ...

Wound...   So much of our experience is wound around our wound.  Its presence in our life is so subtle that we often don’t recognize it for what it is.  It appears seemingly out of nowhere sometimes, and other times you can see it coming at you like a freight train but you can do nothing to stop it or step out of the ...

I am for sure a better pet owner for knowing this vet. Tonight as my old dog wobbles in from her evening walk I remember when he diagnosed her a year and a half ago with renal failure. He said “I’ve seen some dogs go two weeks from this point, and some go two years.” I didn’t like him the first time I took my cat to see him fifteen years ago. ...

Hunker down, friends, this is a long one...  I remember a discussion about Compassion at church a few years ago.  I was in the middle of reading A Course in Miracles and had also read enough Buddhism to make myself dangerously misinformed.  So, not being willing to pass up an opportunity to offer my opnion, I declared ...

Ah, sweet Marlece...angel of awareness...thank you for sharing the swelling of your heart within its safe but deadly cage, Kathleen.  Your vulnerability is breaking my own heart. C.S. Lewis says: ''Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want ot make sure of keeping it intact you must give it ...