Practices Search Results
We recently heard from Nell Wulff in St. Louis, Missouri, and Moe Nieman in Cincinnati, Ohio, who together wrote a blessing for face masks. They agreed to share it and invited us to do so. You may want to keep a copy next to your masks, as a reminder of the good that they do.
The Blessing of the Masks
by Moe Nieman and Nell Wulff
As of this writing on November 16, 2018, the death toll from California's Camp Fire has risen to 63 — making it the deadliest wildfire in California history — and the list of the missing contains 631 names. It is the worst of the fires currently ravaging California, but the Woolsey Fire in Malibu and nearby areas has burned nearly 100,000 acres and hundreds of houses; the Hill Fire in Ventura County, more than 4,500 acres.
Pictures of people and animals fleeing the fires are heartbreaking; the thought of those who couldn't get away is even more so. California Governor Jerry Brown observed that "we’re in a new abnormal, and things — things like this will be part of our future. And this won’t be the beginning. It’ll be things like this and worse."
On Friday, September 28, 2018, a 7.5-magnitude earthquake hit Indonesia, triggering a tsunami with waves up to 10 feet high. Water toppled and swept away buildings in the coastal city of Palu, home to 350,000 people, on the island of Sulawesi.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has deployed a local team to the area and is conducting an assessment of medical and humanitarian needs in coordination with the Indonesian national response mechanism. The team is composed of medical, logistics, and water and sanitation specialists.
The New York Times slideshow of photographs from Paris
On Friday night, November 13, terrorists killed 128 people and injured 180 others in gun and bomb attacks in Paris, France. The victims were attending a concert, watching a sporting match, or eating in a restaurant. The day before, 41 people were killed and more than 200 were injured by two suicide bombers on a busy shopping street in Beirut, Lebanon.
The Islamic State later claimed responsibility for both attacks. Muslims around the world condemned this despicable act as not being representative of their religion.
And so we pray this news ...
“The perpetrators of the Beirut and Paris attacks have invited us to join them in their cycle of hatred, fear, power-seeking and violence.
“Let us respond with love and kindness, purposefully today making the world around us a better, more just and compassionate place.
“And for those of us who share a faith, let us make sure it is one that binds the wounds of the brokenhearted, not one that breaks the hearts. Amen."
— Prayer posted by Sharon Linnea on Facebook
Photo courtesy of pixundfertig at Pixabay.com
The Amazon's tropical rainforests — often described as "the Earth's lungs" because they generally draw in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen — have seen a record number of more than 74,000 fires in 2019. "We're all looking at what we can do about it," says Lynne Twist, who describes herself as "a proactivist, driven by a vision." She co-founded The Pachamama Alliance and founded The Soul of Money Institute, dedicated to alleviating poverty and hunger and to advocating for indigenous rights and the rights of nature.
O Nourisher, we remember that when we were children, our parents used to remind us, "Finish your food. Think of all the poor starving people around the world." That plea usually worked by directing our attention back to the food in front of us. All too often we have not been really present during our meals, with our minds elsewhere.