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Greed – the Root of All Social Injustice
May Allah make us from those who are selfless, and never allow us to pursue this world to the extent that it disconnects us from Him, our families and the people around us, or from the potential good that He has put within us. May Allah allow us to be people of charity, generosity and people who long for Him and not for this material world. Amin.
A prayer to be selfless and to live for Allah.
Serving Allah
We ask Allah to make us beloved to Him and to allow us to serve Him by serving other people and to make us the channels of rahmah (mercy) and generosity and benevolence in people’s lives and that He uses us for good all the time and not deprive us of it. Āmīn.
A prayer to be channels of Allah's mercy, generosity, and benevolence.
Spiritual Generosity
"Regularly ask yourself, ‘How are my thoughts, words, and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbor, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens? Am I doing my part to contribute to the spiritual progress of all I come into contact with?’ Make it your business to draw out the best in others by being an exemplar yourself." –Epictetus
For one week, try asking yourself this question before you go to sleep at night: How are my thoughts, words, and deeds affecting my friends, my spouse, my neighbors, my child, my employer, my subordinates, my fellow citizens? Notice what your response is, and let whatever’s true for you be okay. Don’t use this as occasion to brow-beat or guilt-trip yourself, because guilt will just paralyze you. With great compassion for yourself, just notice your answers to the question. Then notice how the answers change over the week. If you’re like me, you’ll notice that on some days, you’ve had a more positive effect, and on others, a less positive one. Notice without judgment. The more we accept ourselves exactly as we are, the more room we create for change. At the end of the week, decide if this is a practice you would like to continue.
A daily question for cultivating the best in yourself and others.
The Sense of Being Stared At
"Even if a belief in the evil eye is not universal, it is very widespread and very ancient. Allusions to the power of fascination are found in Sumerian sources from the third millennium BCE, and there are many references to it in Assyrian documents, and in ancient Greece and Rome. The evil eye is referred to repeatedly in the Bible, and even more so in the Talmudic and Midrashic literature of the Jews. It features in Nordic epics, Irish and Scottish myths, and in many other European literatures. Belief in the evil eye is also very common in the Islamic world. The prophet Muhammad sanctioned the use of talismans against it, and several verses from the Qur'an are believed to have a protective effect, particularly the prayer for protection in Surah 113: 'I seek refuge in the Lord of Daybreak . . . from the evil of malignant witchcraft, and from the evil of the envier when he envieth.' In the Greek Orthodox church there are several officially sanctioned prayers for defense against the evil eye and for the protection of the angels against it. A belief in the evil eye and in the destructive power of envy is still very common in southern Europe, throughout the Islamic world, in India, and in many other countries.
"Those who believe in the evil eye generally accept that some people have the evil eye more than others, and also that some of those who have the evil eye may be unconscious of the power they exert. Even though there are individual differences in the power of the look, envy makes all looks more dangerous. Because envy is closely linked to praise and admiration, these are also feared.
"I discovered something of the power of these beliefs for myself when I lived in India, working in the international agricultural research institute near Hyderabad. A few weeks after I arrived, I was invited to dinner at the house of a senior government officer, a Muslim. While we were drinking whiskey and soda, I made some complimentary comments about one of the pictures hanging on the wall. To my astonishment, my host immediately plucked it from its hook and presented it to me. Only with great difficulty did I manage to give it back.
"A week or two later, at another social gathering, I made a favorable comment about the tie an Indian acquaintance was wearing. He took it off and gave it to me, saying graciously but implausibly, 'I bought it for you.' It was difficult to avoid accepting it. Through these and other experiences, I realized that praising or admiring something could lead to socially embarrassing consequences. At first I assumed that this must be because of an exaggerated sense of hospitality, or exaggerated modesty; but I soon learned that there was more to it than that. The English word 'admire' comes from the Latin roots ad, 'to,' and miriari, 'to wonder,' meaning 'to wonder at.' To praise or admire something is to imply that you want it, or envy it; hence you can bring ill fortune through fascination or the evil eye.
"One of the best antidotes to admiration is generosity. Giving people the object of their admiration defuses their envy, but this only works in limited circumstances. Children cannot be given away to those who praise them."
Rupert Sheldrake on the evil eye representing the shadow side of envy.
The Hidden Gifts of Helping
"Back in 1988, just after our arrival in Cleveland, I visited a nursing home in Chardin, Ohio, and sat down with a man named Jim. He was suffering from profound dementia, or from what can be called deep forgetfulness: he had lost most of that temporal glue that binds the past with present and future. I looked him in the eye, smiled, and called him warmly by name, asking him how his sons were doing. I knew that a verbal response was unlikely, and he could offer none. But then he offered something much better! He placed a twig in my hands and smiled with a warmth and joy that lit me right up. He struggled to get out just three words, leaving me totally surprised. 'God is love,' Jim said. If love were electric, the room would have lit up like the Fourth of July. I returned the twig, and Jim wandered off.
"The nurse who witnessed this told me that when Jim grew up on an Ohio farm, his father loved him very deeply and raised him in the Christian faith. Every morning, Jim had the same chore — to bring kindling in for the fireplaces. Now Jim had gone back into his past and found anew the time when he most felt the safe haven of fatherly love. That twig symbolized the love of his father and the joy that Jim felt in doing a small, helpful chore early in life. There, in the desert of deep forgetfulness, Jim was coping with the chaos of the present through his emotional memories of the power of love. He had enough security in this residual generosity that he could still relate to the world through giving. As he wandered off, I noticed that he picked up an old hand-sized puppet doll from the floor and actually walked over to a woman who was whimpering in the corner of the unit. When he placed it on her lap she stopped crying. Jim was a generous soul still, and I hoped that he would be able to keep it up to the end."
Stephen Post on seeing God when connecting with the neediest.
A Prayer of Gratitude for the Pleasure of Sharing Photos Online
Singer in My Soul, we are so thankful for the millions of people who derive so much delight and satisfaction from sharing photos online.
Fact: About 4,000 photos are taken every second in the U.S., four times as many as a decade ago. (The Wall Street Journal on Twitter)
Giver of All, help us put a positive spin on this trend and see it as a passport into a deeper appreciation of the ordinary, a chance to have fun and be playful, and another way of being generous.
Singer in My Soul, we are so thankful for the millions of people who derive so much delight and satisfaction from sharing photos online.
Fact: About 4,000 photos are taken every second in the U.S., four times as many as a decade ago. (The Wall Street Journal on Twitter)
Invisible Acts of Power
You can be a miracle worker in your own life once you open up to the presence of grace and surrender to the divine input of your intuition. That is the premise of this five-hour audio presentation by Caroline Myss, the bestselling author of Anatomy of the Spirit, Sacred Contracts, and Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can. She has been exploring the meaning of personal power in people's relationships for 20 years. People tend to be very ill-informed about power, assuming that giving someone else power diminishes your own. Actually, the opposite is true.
When you offer your seat to an elderly person on a train or take in a stray cat, or pray for a sick relative — these visible and invisible acts of generosity not only benefit others, they are good for your body, mind, and soul. Myss keys the seven gifts of generosity to your chakras (energy power systems in the body) and spins out her ideas on gifts of the earth, gifts of financial and creative support, gifts of self-esteem, gifts of the heart, gifts of choice, gifts of wisdom and gifts of the Spirit.
The author makes a good case for the grace that flows into our lives all the time through angels in disguise, synchronicity, and intuition. She uses many stories, some of her own and some that were submitted to her website, to illustrate her points.
Back to reading a full review of this book.
Invisible Acts of Power: Personal Choices That Create Miracles by Caroline Myss salutes the power and the presence of spiritual practices such as kindness and compassion.
Beau Travail
The imaginative French director Claire Denis proved her ability to beautifully choreograph a movie with her first effort Chocolat, released in 1989. This drama, also set in Africa, is inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd. Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) is in charge of the men in a small French Foreign Legion outpost. These muscular soldiers spend their days in training, doing guard duty, and playing war games. For rest and relaxation, they swim in the ocean and dance in an open-air disco. The Africans in the town view them as strange outsiders from another world.
Bored with the routine of his life, Galoup finds himself upset by the interest of his commander (Michel Subor) in Sentain (Gregoire Colin), a new recruit who seems to impress everyone with his selflessness and generosity. Envy is a vicious emotion, bitter and vindictive. In this meticulously staged drama, Galoup comes up with a scheme to do away with Sentain.
Beau Travail is a lyrical work of art with exquisite cinematography by Agnes Godard and a beguiling musical score by Eran Tzur. The closing image of the film perfectly captures and conveys the sad fate of a man imprisoned in himself.
An imaginative drama about the dire effects of envy, that vicious emotion that spreads pain and agony eveywhere it reaches.
Antonia's Line
Antonia's Line is an enchanting feminist fairy tale that won an Academy Award as the Best Foreign Language Film in 1996. This Dutch film opens on the last day of Antonia's (Willke van Ammelrooy) life. As she looks around her house and farm, she recalls the time shortly after World War II when she returned with her daughter Danielle to the farm and village she had left as a girl. With great authority and generosity, she befriends a recluse, takes in the village simpleton, and provides a home for a retarded young woman who has been raped by a brother.
Danielle grows up to be a painter and decides to have a baby while remaining single. Years later she falls in love with her daughter Therese's female tutor who comes to live at the farm. Meanwhile, Antonia sets up a love nest with Farmer Bas who once proposed to her. Little Therese turns out to be a child prodigy in mathematics. She takes quite a fancy to Crooked Finger, a reclusive philosopher.
When Deedee's brother rapes Therese, Antonia takes a courageous stand against him. Even though she's enraged, she refuses to give in to her feelings of violence. Years later Therese finds a suitable husband who's more maternal than she is and gives birth to Sophia. Antonia keeps adding new members to her extended family including a priest who leaves the church, and Letta, the woman who convinced her brother to impregnate Danielle without marrying her.
When it finally comes time for Antonia to die, she is surrounded by her family and friends. Her passing is done with dignity, serenity, and beauty.
Writer and director Marleen Gorris has fashioned a wonderfully eccentric film about the high value of feminine friendship, independence, intuition, and solidarity. Best of all, Antonia is a great role model to the women in the community with her spiritual practice of hospitality.
A wonderfully eccentric film about the high value of feminine friendship, independence, intuition, and the spiritual practice of hospitality.
Esther de Waal, To Everything a Season
The generosity of God in sharing the goodness of creation with us can elicit only one possible response — that of gratitude.
God shares the goodness of creation with us