Quotations Search Results
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Seek
“Should I be listening? Am I part of the group with more social power? Are my views often represented in culture? Am I already heard often in this relationship?
“Should I be sharing? Am I part of the group with less social power? Are my views rarely represented in culture? Am I not often heard in this relationship?”
Discerning when to listen and when to share.
Shaun McNiff, Creating with Others
Contribute to the creative teamwork that is always the basis of infusing organizations with imagination.
Contribute to the creative teamwork
Share What You Love
Think of one thing you could do for others by doing what you love. Get a group together to make crib quilts for hospitalized babies. Teach some inner city kid to fix a car. Take a group out on an archeological trip around your town. Start with what you love and the intention to share it, and the rest will be easy.
A call to share your gifts.
Listen to an Opposing Opinion
Listen to someone express an opinion that's the opposite of yours today. It could be on any of a variety of topics, such as politics, the environment, religion, drugs, war, the death penalty, or what have you. Refuse to impose your position, and instead remark, "I've never considered that point of view. Thank you for sharing your ideas with me." By allowing a contrary position to be heard, you'll dismiss ego's attitude and welcome the flexibility of the Tao.
Invite flexibility into yourself.
Marc Estrin, Prayers for a Thousand Years
Kindness trumps greed: it asks for sharing. Kindness trumps fear: it calls forth gratefulness and love. Kindness trumps even stupidity, for with sharing and love, one learns.
Kindness trumps greed
Patricia D. Brown, Paths to Prayer
A recent study showed that 85 percent of those who responded who identify with Christianity do not exclude from their lives wisdom and teachings from other great world religions. They understand that other faiths have something to share with us; their writings, teachings, and practices help us understand our own faith in a fresh way.
Many Christians do not exclude wisdom from other religions
Glenn H. Mullin in Gems of Wisdom from the Seventh Dalai Lama
Lama Tsongkhapa suggested that instead of jealousy we try to cultivate the habit of extracting joy from the good things we see in others. He commented that by rejoicing in a good quality or situation that we perceive in others, we share in the joy of having it ourselves.
Lama Tsongkhapa suggested that instead of
Surya Das in Awakening the Buddhist Heart
In Tibet every monk, nun or lama begins each meal by first taking a portion of food, often rice, wadding it into a ball and throwing it outside or placing it aside to feed the hungry spirits. In this way, we are reminded of the value of sharing as well as of the depth of pain that can be suffered by those whose lives are dominated by either hunger or greed.
In Tibet every monk, nun or lama begins...
We Make the Road by Walking
"At the end of the day, you can look back with gratitude, resting in the Spirit until a new day begins and you continue walking the journey of faith.
"As we walk in the Spirit, we pass through different kinds of terrain. We walk through beautiful valleys where life is full of joy and we feel like dancing. We walk on long uphill climbs where we seem to slide back two steps for every three steps of ascent. We walk along slippery trails where it's easy to fall, and through swampy patches where we can get bogged down. We walk through dark passages where we can easily lose our way, and across flat terrain where nothing seems to change mile after mile. We walk through dangerous territory where bullets fly and it's easy to get wounded, and in peaceful places where we can breathe free. Through it all, we need patience, endurance, and perseverance so that no matter what happens, we'll keep putting one foot ahead of the other.
"If we don't give up, as mile adds to mile, each of us will have some stories to tell . . . stories of how the Spirit guided, empowered, inspired, restrained, sustained, and trained us in the fine art of aliveness. And that's another great blessing of being part of a community of faith. Along the way, we gather around a table or campfire and share our stories about the journey so far. We share our joys and sorrows. We share mistakes we've made and falls we've taken and lessons we've learned. We share ways in which we've experienced the Spirit moving in us, among us, and through us. Through this sharing, we encourage each other. And then we get back on the road.
"Sadly, lots of people get distracted and lose their way. Instead of continuing to walk in the Spirit, they slow down to look back proudly on how far they've come. They become highly impressed by all they've learned — theological concepts, Bible lore, religious history, and so on. Pretty soon, they come to a standstill and brag among themselves, comparing themselves to others who haven't walked as far or fast or cleverly as they have. They form little encampments, sitting around day after day, quarreling about this or that fine point of walking theory. Pretty soon they're so out of shape they give up walking altogether and specialize in talking about the way others walk.
"That's their choice. But for us . . . let's keep walking. Let's keep on the road. However far we've come, there's far more ahead to explore. The Spirit is on the move, so let us keep moving, too.
Engage:
"1. What one thought or idea from today's lesson especially intrigued, provoked, disturbed, challenged, encouraged, warmed, warned, helped, or surprised you?
2. Share a story about how the Spirit has encouraged you through others at this table.
3. How do you respond to the warning about losing your way and becoming a critical bystander rather than a humble walker?
4. For children: Have you ever taken a hike in the forest? Tell us about it. Did you learn anything on the trail?
5. Activate: This week, aim to 'check in' with the Spirit each morning and evening, and several times throughout the day. And look for opportunities to share stories of what the Spirit is doing in your life.
6. Meditate: Hold the image of a ship raising its sail to the wind. Ponder what it would mean for you to raise your sail to the Holy Spirit. Let a prayer arise within you."
Brian D. McLaren on how the Spirit is on the move.
The Lonely American
"So what happened to some other classic American traits, such as friendliness, openness, charity, sharing, and neighborliness? Tocqueville described America as a country of associations. If Americans saw something that needed fixing, they formed an association to tackle the problem. Have these ever-so-American traits gone underground, or are they flourishing only in Lake Wobegon, as Garrison Keillor would like us to believe? Many of these traits have historically been nurtured by organized religious communities. As more people moved their spirituality away from institutions and toward a more private experience (the religious equivalent of having it your way), the group pressures and encouragement that nurtured these values have waned. It is impressive how much it matters when a peer group, such as the members of a congregation, compete to see who can do the most good. When competition is focused on who can eat the healthiest food or who can spend the most workout time at the gym, instead of on who can do the most good for others, much of the impetus toward charity, friendliness, and sharing is lost. (Although not all; there are important countertrends, including a dramatic rise in community service and the creation of nonprofit organizations.) . . .
"What we are left with is a persistently frantic state of busyness. Since everyone else looks frantic too, we don't see why we personally should be uncomfortable with it. Our only peeps or complaints might be to the therapists whom we have hired, because at least they will not tell anyone else about our discomfort. Our small steps back from the fray have left us in our dens of technological connectedness feeling curiously lonely. And even though we have arranged many things about our lives to be just the way we supposedly like them, our overall sense of contentment seems to be going down. Even worse, when we arrange our lives to suit our own special needs and try to have it our way, it is easy to lose the habits of sharing and taking the common good into consideration. As the sociologists who wrote the 1986 book Habits of the Heart told us, a person is subject to a malaise if he or she does nothing to contribute to the common good. Both the busyness of our lives and our efforts to escape from the busyness of our lives threaten our connections to one another. Both the busyness and the escapes discourage us from taking others into consideration. On a small scale, we as individuals may be seen as a bit selfish by our elders, who remember when giving back was the way to win the respect from friends and colleagues. On a larger scale, we as a people lose the respect of the world if we are citizens of a country that doesn't think about others while it uses up the world's nonsustainable resources.
"Both individuals and groups get set in their ways. The more isolated the individuals or groups are, the more set in their ways they become. People lose the limber agility to adapt that comes from dealing with the adjustments, conflicts, and compromise required when living with others. The end result is that each person's efforts get funneled into having things exactly his or her own way, rather than into exploring the happiness and contentment that might derive from working toward what is best for a larger group. In Collapse, Jared Diamond argues that societies that have become extinct usually had a situational or cultural blindness that led them to run themselves into the ground. If we continue in the direction we are headed, our society's epitaph might be 'They had it their way.' "
Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz on how friendliness and sharing are knocked out by busyness.