[VIDEO] Want to Help Someone? Shut Up and Listen!

[VIDEO] Want to Help Someone? Shut Up and Listen!

This video applies to our Journey wherever our location, status, career, vocation, clergy, laity or religious. The message of being helpful with common sense of treating others with respect, the way we want to be treated:  first of all, listening.  Ernesto Sirolli's presentation reminds me of when I was teaching at a seminary in Zambia.  Strolling through the compound, I asked some of the women how we might assist one another?  A few weeks later they told me that the most helpful thing for them would be a sewing machine ( something that never occurred to me).  We were able to get a few machines, a teacher and establish a Sewing Club that lifted their spirits, developed their creative skills and benefitted the whole family.  Their sacrifice and eagerness to learn and to share remain a great inspiration, as some walked even miles in the hot sun with their babies on their backs and taught me about their culture.  We all can contribute to building our interdependent Earth Community.
COMMENT:  How does this video challenge society and/or you?

To Whom or What Do Our Lives Pledge Allegiance?

Do our lives on our Journey pledge allegiance to the "Almighty Dollar"?   Transnational corporations?  My country right or wrong?  My political "loyalties" right or wrong?  My race? My gender?  My limitless freedom without responsibility?  Or do our lives on our Journey pledge allegiance to the best ideals of our country and beyond to Solidarity, to the Common Good, the well-being of all, to a consistent life ethic, to freedom with responsibility to do good, to treat all of our neighbors (human and non-human) as we would like to be treated, to build a culture of Life, not of Death, to build our one interdependent Earth Community as we Journey together?

COMMENTS WELCOME:

Deciding for the Common Good

     We grow or weaken in a whole web of relationships whether family, nation, U.N. or one Earth Community.  Deciding and working for the Common Good, where all can participate, contribute and flourish strengthens "America the Beautiful" and the Earth Community. 
COMMENT:  What do you need to flourish?  Families? The children? the Poor or Marginalized?  Workers? Employers? Animals? Plants?  Lakes?  Oceans? Forests?

Earth Moves: How has "Sandy" or Similar Changed You?

While we are deciding, the earth moves.  Disasters happen on our Journey whether human made or not.  Some we can lessen or prevent.  Others we cannot.  Most of the time a blue sky smiles at us.  Why be concerned about global warming, the polar bear and her cubs?  Why bother to conserve water, food and gas? Then, "Sandy" scowls, howls and terrifies us, at least for awhile. 

COMMENT:  How has "Sandy" changed you?

How Will We Decide?

Faithful Budgets, Faithful Citizenship, Faithful Brothers and Sisters to our Neighbors, to our one Earth Community on our Journey, all have to do with just, loving choices with special concern for the poor and marginalized, who have little or no voice.  Humans have human rights;
animals have animal rights.  How will we decide?  How will we as a community and individually give handups?  How will we leave our magnificent Earth home for our children and grandchildren, for the bird "children", the fish children, the deer children, the cattle children, the lion children, the plant children, etc.
COMMENT:  1. What are some human rights?
                       2.  What are some animal rights?
                       3.  Description of  living Earth:  "We are not a collection of objects but a communion of subjects." (Thomas Berry, cultural historian 1914-2009)

                      

"Let Everything that Breathes Praise the Lord!" (Psalm 150)

Praise is an important form of prayer.  Our pets, all animals and all Creation join in praise according to the Psalms:

                                                   

                                                           
                                                                                                       
Praise him sun and moon...
Praise the Lord from the earth...

















 
fire and hail, snow and frost...            
fruit trees and all cedars!











Wild animals and all cattle,                    
      creeping things and flying birds!

                                                                                       




                                                     







Kings of the earth and all peoples,
     princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike,
     old and young together!        

Comment:  What new insights have you gained to help you on our Journey?
                    How can you show appreciation for such a magnificent Earth?
                    What steps must we take to heal and nurture Earth for present & future generations?
   
                       

Blessing our Pets that are a Blessing to Us

"Let Everything that Has Breath, Praise the Lord!"

 

Talks: Nuns on the Ferry

http://youtu.be/uy1kz7SdX_I

Click.

See you.tube.com "Nuns on the Ferry" for a variety of pictures and views.