April 1 Tip: For April Fools Day Explore Spiritual Humor

For April Fools Day Explore Spiritual Humor

(The April 1 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

https://www.openhandweb.org/the_humour_thread_jokes_with_a_spiritual_flavour

Here are a few jokes and cartoons to get you started

March 31 Tip: Parker Palmer on "Being More than Being Useful"

Parker Palmer on "Being More than Being Useful"

(The March 31 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.onbeing.org/blog/being-more-than-being-useful/6198

"Camas Lillies" by Lynn Ungar, is one of my favorite poems. I posted it earlier this year I — today I needed to read it again…

I work hard at what I do, and I bet you do too. So maybe you need the same reminder I do: while my work is important, it is not a measure of my value or worth. Who we "be" is far more important than what we do or how well we do it. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings!

We pay a terrible price if we value our doing over our being. When we have to stop "doing" — e.g., because of job loss, illness, accident, or the diminishments that can come with age — we lose our sense of worthiness.

"Camas Lillies" reminds me to value "being" more than I value "being useful" — so that even when I'm forced to lay down my work, I can retain my sense of personal worth. Put simply and plainly, I can still love myself. That's a gift many people need. If I can't give it to myself, how can I possibly give it to others?

I take my work seriously, and I'm sure you do, too. But at age 75, I'm trying to learn (or re-learn) that, in the end, what matters most is not my ability to "produce" but my ability to love...

Camas Lilies
by Lynn Ungar

Consider the lilies of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the native ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers' hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?

And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: "Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I'm through blooming."

Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.

March 29 Tip: Attend Groundbreaking today for new Compassion Education Center

Attend Groundbreaking today for new Compassion Education facility at Louisville's Tibetan Center

(The March 29 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

Louisville Building Compassion:  Ritual to Initiate Tibetan Education Center

(Louisville, KY)  The Drepung Gomang Institute (DGI), Louisville's Tibetan Buddhist dharma center, announces a "Consecration of the Ground" ceremony in preparation for the construction of DGI's Compassion Education Center: Saturday, 29 March 2014, 12:00 Noon to 1:30pm, 411 North Hubbards Lane, Louisville, KY  40207.

Honored visitors for this colorful ceremony will include Louisville Mayor, Greg Fischer and the Venerable Arjia Rinpoche, Director of the Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center in Bloomington.

"Compassion," His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama teaches, is the wish for another living being to be free from suffering and the willingness the engage in action to make a difference.  When His Holiness blessed DGI on May 19, 2013 he challenged the leaders and members to develop a center of education that welcomes interfaith dialogue and shares the philosophy of compassion and non-violence. This Compassion Education Center represents DGI's commitment to embrace His Holiness' challenge.

Venerable Arjia Rinpoche and Geshe Kalsang Rapgyal, DGI Director, with assisting Tibetan Buddhist Monks will offer a "Ritual of the Earth" and "Consecration of Location."

"DGI is here to do the service of teaching compassion," noted DGI Director, Geshe Kalsang Rapgyal. The DGI Board of Directors considers the Compassion Education Center to be a component of Louisville Metro's ten-year commitment to the process of becoming a "Compassionate City" by making the teachings of compassion and non-violence accessible to all. 

The Drepung Gomang Institute, the Tibetan Buddhist dharma/teaching center of Louisville, is located at 411 N. Hubbards Lane, Louisville, KY 40207.  For more information on the center visit www.drepunggomangusa.com or call Anne Walter, President DGI Board of Directors, at 502-619-1652.

March 30 Tip: Read this review of the new book, "The Empathy Exams"

FROM THE NY TIMES: Read this review of the new book, "The Empathy Exams"

(The March 30 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/books/the-empathy-exams-essays-by-leslie-jamison.html?_r=0

Leslie Jamison has a balky heart. The medical name for her condition is SVT, or supraventricular tachycardia. “There was an extra electrical node,” her doctor explains, “sending out extra signals — beat, beat, beat — when it wasn’t supposed to.” She calls this her “tiny rogue beat box.”

In “The Empathy Exams,” her extraordinary new book of essays, she calls to mind writers as disparate as Joan Didion and John Jeremiah Sullivan as she interrogates the palpitations of not just her own trippy heart but of all of ours.

Her book isn’t, except in passing, a medical memoir. “The Empathy Exams” bounces among topics. There are essays on travel in dangerous territories, on men in prison, on extreme endurance races, on saccharine, on murder trials, on unusual diseases, on women and pain. Ms. Jamison’s mind plays across topics as disparate as the HBO series “Girls” and the morphology of folk tales.

But her cerebral, witty, multichambered essays tend to swing around to one topic in particular: what we mean when we say that we feel someone else’s pain.

March 28 Tip: Learn about prize-winning architect designing for refugees and evacuees

FROM NPR: Learn about prize-winning architect designing for refugees and evacuees

(The March 28 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/24/292420643/pritzker-winner-shigeru-ban-designs-solutions-in-the-face-of-disaster?sc=17&f=1008

Each year the Pritzker Architecture Prize goes to a star architect with a long list of glamorous commissions around the globe. This year's winner is a little different.

Shigeru Ban has designed museums, homes and concert halls. But Ban is best known for a more humble kind of work: The temporary structures he's built for refugees and evacuees all over the world.

Ban may be the only architect in the world who makes buildings out of paper — cardboard paper tubes, to be precise.

"It's very inexpensive. It's made of recycled paper," he says. "We can make any length, any diameter, any thickness."

Ban actually tested the strength of cardboard tubes, and says he was surprised by what he discovered. He's used them to build temporary housing for disaster victims in Japan, Haiti, China and elsewhere. Picture a log cabin — except the tubes are arranged vertically instead of horizontally. Ban says paper tubes are cheap and plentiful. And unlike costs for traditional building materials, the price of paper tubes doesn't jump after an earthquake or flood.

March 28 Tip: Watch Art Garfunkel as he writes a note to his younger self

From CBS: Watch Art Garfunkel as he writes a note to his younger self

(The March 28 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/art-garfunkel-writes-a-note-to-his-younger-self/

In the "CBS This Morning" ongoing series "Note to Self," 72-year-old singer Art Garfunkel contributes a letter to his younger self, which includes a look at the highs and lows of fame, the joys of family, and the struggle of losing his singing voice later in life.

March 27 Tip: Watch a Short TED Video featuring Malala's father

Watch a Short TED Video featuring Malala's father

(The March 27 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.ted.com/talks/ziauddin_yousafzai_my_daughter_malala?utm_source=email&source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ios-share

Pakistani educator Ziauddin Yousafzai reminds the world of a simple truth that many don’t want to hear: Women and men deserve equal opportunities for education, autonomy, an independent identity. He tells stories from his own life and the life of his daughter, Malala, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 simply for daring to go to school. "Why is my daughter so strong?” Yousafzai asks. “Because I didn’t clip her wings."

March 26 Tip: The Catholic Roots of Obama's Activism

From the NY Times: The Catholic Roots of Obama's Activism

(The March 26 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/us/the-catholic-roots-of-obamas-activism.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%23%2Fcatholic%2F&_r=0

In a meeting room under Holy Name Cathedral, a rapt group of black Roman Catholics listened as Barack Obama, a 25-year-old community organizer, trained them to lobby their fellow delegates to a national congress in Washington on issues like empowering lay leaders and attracting more believers.

(Read more at the link above)

March 25 Tip: Read about "This is What 80 Looks Like (Gloria Steinem)

From the NY Times: Read about "This is What 80 Looks Like" (Gloria Steinem)

(The March 25 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/opinion/sunday/collins-this-is-what-80-looks-like.html?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry854%23%2Fthis+is+what

ON Tuesday, March 25, , Gloria Steinem turns 80.

Do not bother to call. She’s planning to celebrate in Botswana. “I thought: ‘What do I really want to do on my birthday?’ First, get out of Dodge. Second, ride elephants.”

Very few people have aged as publicly. It’s been four decades since she told a reporter, “This is what 40 looks like.” Back then many women, including Steinem herself, fudged their age when they left their 20s, so it was a pretty revolutionary announcement. A decade later she had a “This is what 50 looks like” party at the Waldorf for the benefit of Ms. Magazine. Steinem, who has frequently said that she expects her funeral to be a fund-raiser, has been using her birthdays to make money for worthy causes ever since. Before heading off to Botswana, she, along with Rabbi Arthur Waskow, was feted at a “This is what 80 looks like” benefit for the Shalom Center in Philadelphia.

March 24 Tip: Criminologist Believes Violent Behavior May Have Biological Roots

Criminologist Believes Violent Behavior May Have Biological Roots

(The March 24 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/21/292375166/criminologist-believes-violent-behavior-is-biological

Twenty years ago, when brain imaging made it possible for researchers to study the minds of violent criminals and compare them to the brain imaging of "normal" people, a whole new field of research — neurocriminology — opened up.

Adrian Raine was the first person to conduct a brain imaging study on murderers and has since continued to study the brains of violent criminals and psychopaths. His research has convinced him that while there is a social and environmental element to violent behavior, there's another side of the coin, and that side is biology.

"Just as there's a biological basis for schizophrenia and anxiety disorders and depression, I'm saying here there's a biological basis also to recidivistic violent offending," Raine, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime, tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Raine says this re-visioning of violent criminals could potentially help direct how we approach crime prevention and rehabilitation.

"I think prisoners ... [are] not motivated to change, really," he says, " ... because they just think they're a bad, evil person. If we reconceptualized recidivistic crime as a criminal disorder, would we make them more amenable to treatment?"

The key question that preoccupies Raine, however, is that of punishment and the question of the death penalty.

"Simply put," he says, "if bad brains do cause bad behavior, if brain dysfunction raises the odds that somebody will become a criminal offender — a violent offender — and if the causes of the brain dysfunction come relatively early in life ... should we fully hold that adult individual responsible?"

"I've got to be careful here. There's no destiny here. Biology is not destiny, and it's more than biology, and there's lots of factors that we're talking about there, and one factor like prefrontal dysfunction or low heart rate doesn't make you a criminal offender. But what if all the boxes were checked? What if you had birth complications and you were exposed to toxins and you had a low resting heart rate and you had the gene that raises the odds of violence, et cetera, et cetera, stuff happening early on in life. I mean, you're not responsible for that. Then how in the name of justice can we really hold that

March 23 Tip: Watch TED video An Astronaut on "What it's Like Going Blind in Space"

Watch TED Talk: An Astronaut on "What it's Like Going Blind in Space"

(The March 23 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from_going_blind_in_space?utm_source=newsletter_daily&utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button__2014-03-19

There's an astronaut saying: In space, “there is no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse.” So how do you deal with the complexity, the sheer pressure, of dealing with dangerous and scary situations? Retired colonel Chris Hadfield paints a vivid portrait of how to be prepared for the worst in space (and life) — and it starts with walking into a spider’s web. Watch for a special space-y performance.

March 22nd Tip: From Sounds True: Listen to Jack Kornfield on "The Power of Releasing our Past"

From Sounds True: Listen to Jack Kornfield on "The Power of Releasing our Past"

(The March 22nd Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace"

http://www.soundstrue.com/weeklywisdom/?source=podcast&p=9435&category=AGM&version=full

The past shapes the present, yet often we feel as if we’re trapped in its grip and cannot move forward. Both Buddhism and Western psychology agree on the importance of releasing the traumas of our past—yet how do we let go of the experiences that have helped make us who we are? Jack Kornfield, who has intensively studied both Eastern and Western philosophy, believes that healing our relationship to the past starts with one simple step. In this audio clip, he explains what that step is, and how we can immediately begin walking the path to freedom.

March 20 Tip: Make your reservation today for Monday's Interfaith Coffee at the Temple

Make your reservation today for Monday's Interfaith Coffee at the Temple

(The March 20 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

The Temple Interfaith Coffee

The Temple Interfaith Coffee sponsored by the Women of Reform Judaism/Sisterhood had to be rescheduled due to weather. The new date is Monday, March 24, starting at 9:30 a.m. with coffee and cakes. At 10 a.m. the educational program, “Jewish Holidays: A Stroll Through the Hebrew Year,” will be presented by The Temple rabbis - Joe Rooks Rapport, Gaylia R. Rooks, and David Ariel-Joel. For over 40 years, The Temple WRJ has welcomed hundreds of visitors from area churches, mosques and other houses of worship each year. Everyone in the community is invited to attend. Please RSVP by calling The Temple office at (502) 423-1818. 

http://www.thetemplelouky.org/

March 21 Tip: Learning to Pay Attention to All the Details

From Buddhist Pema Chodron: Learning to Pay Attention to All the Details

(The March 21 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

With the commitment to not cause harm, we move away from reacting in ways that cause us to suffer, but we haven’t yet arrived at a place that feels entirely relaxed and free. We first have to go through a growing-up process, a getting-used-to process. That process, that transition, is one of becoming comfortable with exactly what we’re feeling as we feel it. The key practice to support us in this is mindfulness—being fully present right here, right now. Meditation is one form of mindfulness, but mindfulness is called by many names: attentiveness, nowness, and presence are just a few. Essentially, mindfulness means wakefulness—fully present wakefulness. Chögyam Trungpa called it paying attention to all the details of your life. 

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/

March 19 Tip: From NPR's "Fresh Air": For Sandy Hook Killer's Father, Tragedy Outweighs Love For His Son

From NPR's "Fresh Air": For Sandy Hook Killer's Father, Tragedy Outweighs Love For His Son

(The March 19 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/13/289815818/6-interviews-1-reckoning-sandy-hook-killers-dad-breaks-silence

We still don't know why Adam Lanza killed his mother, then 20 children and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School before turning a gun on himself in December 2012. But we do know more about Lanza's life, what his doctors had to say about him and what his parents did to try to help him.

His father, Peter Lanza, broke his media silence by granting a series of interviews to writer Andrew Solomon. They met six times for interviews that lasted up to seven hours. The resulting article, "The Reckoning: The Father of the Sandy Hook Killer Searches for Answers," was published in the current edition of The New Yorker.

Solomon's latest book, the best-seller Far From the Tree, is about the parents of children who are profoundly different — children with psychological, cognitive or physical disorders; children conceived in rape; and children who become criminals or murderers. That book was published one month before Adam Lanza's rampage.

Solomon tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about how Adam's autism diagnosis may have masked other problems.

March 18 Tip" Make your reservation by 5 pm to hear Sarah Lynn Cunningham speak Thursday on Fracking

Make your reservation by 5 pm to hear Sarah Lynn Cunningham speak Thursday about "Fracking"

(The March 18 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

Interfaith Paths to Peace

and the 

Louisville Chapter of 

the Fellowship of Reconciliation

Present:

The Bluegrass Pipeline and Fracking Fossil Fuels

presented by Sarah Lynn Cunningham, Director, Louisville Climate Action Network

Call Cathy Ford at 458-1223 or email her at fordhoff@bellsouth.net

and Please make your reservation by 5 pm on Tues. March 18. 

About Sarah Lynn Cunningham

An environmental engineer, educator and veteran activist, Sarah Lynn Cunningham is director of the Louisville Climate Action Network. In plain-English, she will explain the recent game-changing technological breakthrough called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," its promises and problems, and what it all means for Kentuckians - from utility bills and water quality to private property rights and global climate change.  Sarah will also update us on related pending legislation, and suggest ways for lending your voice.

March 17 Tip: Learn about the Nazis' Attack on "Degenerate Art"

Learn about the Nazis' Attack on "Degenerate Art"

(The March 17 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/arts/design/degenerate-art-at-neue-galerie-recalls-nazi-censorship.html?hp

Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937,” a show at the Neue Galerie, is one of the few in an American museum in the past two decades to address the Nazi’s selective demonizing of art.

March 16 Tip: Listen to NPR story--What if WW I hadn't happened?

Listen to NPR story--What if WW I hadn't happened?

(The March 16 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/11/285915312/a-world-without-wwi-featuring-music-man-lenin-and-herbalist-hitler?sc=17&f=2

This summer marks 100 years since the start of World War I. Many argue that the conflict was inevitable — but what if it wasn't?Without the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, there would have been no need for rulers in Vienna to threaten Serbia, no need for Russia to come to Serbia's defense, no need for Germany to come to Austria's defense — and no call for France and Britain to honor their treaties with Russia.

What would be the ripples of this counter-history?

March 15 Tip: Join Dinner Conversation Tonight with Visiting Moroccan Interfaith Leader Lotfi Lamrani

Join Dinner Conversation Tonight with Visiting Moroccan Interfaith Leader Lotfi Lamrani

(The March 15 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

Dinner with Moroccan Interfaith Leader
Lotfi Lamrani

5 pm Saturday, March 15, 2014
Little Jerusalem Restaurant
5312 S 3rd St, Louisville, KY
Cost: $10

Lotfi Lamrani of Friendship Force was the host of an April 2011 interfaith conference in Morocco that was attended by Terry Taylor of Interfaith Paths to Peace.

" Lotfi Lamrani is a cross-cultural facilitator. His energies are devoted to Leading a positive revolution of leadership in Morocco and promoting goodwill between cultures and promoting peace, tolerance and coexistence through international networking and cultural exchange initiatives, panel discussions, cultural tours and workshops, parents and teachers associations involvement, community service projects and advocacy for children and women's issues in Morocco."

Here is a link to more information about Lotfi Lamrani:

http://friendshipforceclubofazrou.webs.com/aboutlotfilamrani.htm

March 14 Tip: From Pema Chodron, "HOW CAN JOY AND PEACE BE FOUND?"

From Pema Chodron, "HOW CAN JOY AND PEACE BE FOUND?"

(The March 14 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

Recently I was teaching from a Buddhist text called The Way of the Bodhisattva, which offers guidance to those who wish to dedicate their lives to alleviating suffering and to bringing benefit to all sentient beings. This was composed in the eighth century in India by a Buddhist master named Shantideva. In it he has an interesting point to make about peace. He says something along the lines of “If these long-lived, ancient, aggressive patterns of mine that are the wellspring only of unceasing woe, that lead to my own suffering as well as the suffering of others, if these patterns still find their lodging safe within my heart, how can joy and peace in this world ever be found?”

Shantideva is saying that as long as we justify our own hard-heartedness and our own self-righteousness, joy and peace will always elude us. We point our fingers at the wrongdoers, but we ourselves are mirror images; everyone is outraged at everyone else’s wrongness. 

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/

March 13 Tip: Read the NY Times Opinion Piece, "Deconstructing God"

Read the NY Times Opinion Piece, "Deconstructing God"

(The March 13 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/deconstructing-god/?action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry200%23%2Fgod

The interviewee for this installment isJohn D. Caputo, a professor of religion and humanities at Syracuse University and the author of “The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion.”

Gary Gutting: You approach religion through Jacques Derrida’s notion of deconstruction, which involves questioning and undermining the sorts of sharp distinctions traditionally so important for philosophy. What, then, do you think of the distinction between theism, atheism and agnosticism?

John Caputo: I would begin with a plea not to force deconstruction into one of these boxes. I consider these competing views as beliefs, creedal positions, that are inside our head by virtue of an accident of birth. There are the people who “believe” things from the religious traditions they’ve inherited; there are the people who deny them (the atheism you get is pegged to the god under denial); and there are the people who say, “Who could possibly know anything about all of that?” To that I oppose an underlying form of life, not the beliefs inside our head but the desires inside our heart, an underlying faith, a desire beyond desire, a hope against hope, something which these inherited beliefs contain without being able to contain.

(read more at the link above)

March 12 Tip: Attend Next Tuesday's Story Commons Lunch at Kentucky Refugee Ministries

Attend Next Tuesday's Story Commons Lunch at Kentucky Refugee Ministries

(The March 12 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

KRM's  Story Commons "Keeping Louisville Global One Story At A Time"

Kentucky Refugee Ministries cordially invites you to attend... Story Commons Lunch    - AND -   Conversation on Caring For The Soul: Religious Faith & Refugee Resettlement   ______________________________  Story Commons Lunch is scheduled for  Tuesday, March 18th @ 12:30 PM Join fellow community members, staff, volunteers and some of our newest neighbors for lunch and story telling.  Each month we gather as a larger community for the a simple practice that transcends time, location and culture... the practice of gathering around table and sharing our stories.  This month's story telling theme:  "Stories of Faith:   Refugees and The Faith That Sustains Them" (Our stories will inform the conversation to follow.) _________________ Lunch will be followed by a panel discussion and open conversation on Caring For The Soul: Religious Faith & Refugee Resettlement    scheduled for 1:30 PM (immediately following the lunch) Being a refugee - the suffering in wartime; loss of home, culture, identity; and the challenges (and sometimes failures) of life in the new country - is for many, a spiritual crisis. Most or all the basic spiritual needs (hope, meaning, relatedness, forgiveness or acceptance, and transcendence) are threatened and often unsupported in the refugee process. Although meeting spiritual needs is not the focus of resettlement efforts, we do believe that unmet spiritual needs are a threat to the overall health and integration of our clients. Welcoming and supporting diverse religious and faith traditions is important in improving the refugee's overall health and empowering them to become integrated members of our community.  Kentucky Refugee Ministries seeks to support the diverse faith traditions of our clients and has a non-proselytizing policy.   Join us for one or both! ___________________ Please RSVP to Jud Hendrix (jhendrix@kyrm.org) by noon Monday, March 14th.  ___________________ Hope to see you there! Donations will be accepted to offset the cost of lunch.

___________________

March 11 Tip: Read the NY Times article about the Indian writer, Arundhati Roy

Read the NY Times article about the Indian writer, Arundhati Roy

(The March 11 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/arundhati-roy-the-not-so-reluctant-renegade.html?hp&_r=0

Arundhati Roy, the Not-So-Reluctant Renegade

By SIDDHARTHA DEB MARCH 5, 2014

“I’ve always been slightly short with people who say, ‘You haven’t written
anything again,’ as if all the nonfiction I’ve written is not writing,”
Arundhati Roy said.

It was July, and we were sitting in Roy’s living room, the windows
closed against the heat of the Delhi summer. Delhi might be roiled over a
slowing economy, rising crimes against women and the coming elections,
but in Jor Bagh, an upscale residential area across from the 16th-century
tombs of the Lodi Gardens, things were quiet. Roy’s dog, Filthy, a stray,
slept on the floor, her belly rising and falling rhythmically. The melancholy
cry of a bird pierced the air. “That’s a hornbill,” Roy said, looking
reflective.

Roy, perhaps best known for “The God of Small Things,” her novel
about relationships that cross lines of caste, class and religion, one of
which leads to murder while another culminates in incest, had only
recently turned again to fiction. It was another novel, but she was keeping
the subject secret for now. She was still trying to shake herself free of her
nearly two-decade-long role as an activist and public intellectual and
spoke, with some reluctance, of one “last commitment.” It was more
daring than her attacks on India’s occupation of Kashmir, the American
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or crony capitalism. This time, she had taken
on Mahatma Gandhi.

(Read more at the link above)

March 10 Tip: Submit a poem to this year's Poetry of the Sacred Contest

Submit a poem to this year's Poetry of the Sacred Contest

(The March 10 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

The Institute for Contemplative Practice is pleased to announce the 2014 Poetry of the Sacred Contest. Complete submissions must be received before midnight on May 1st to qualify. The winning poems will be published in Parabola magazine's Winter 2014 issue. The first place winner will receive a monetary prize of $300, and the honorable mentions will each receive a monetary prize of $100. In addition, this year's Final Judge, Hamza Yusuf, scholar, author, poet, and cofounder and current president of Zaytuna College, will read the winning poem on stage at the Center for Interfaith Relations' Festival of Faiths, May 13 - 18 at Actors Theatre of Louisville. 

RULES AND GUIDELINES:

• Only one unpublished poem written in English may be submitted. 
• Poems should be limited to 100 lines. 
• Email a PDF or Word document of your poem to nicole@interfaithrelations.org. *
• Subject line of the email should read: POETRY OF THE SACRED 2014
• In the body of the email please include: Name, address, phone number, and title of poem.
• Entry fee is $15.00 and checks should be made out to the Center for Interfaith Relations. **
• Mail entry fee to:

The Institute for Contemplative Practice

ATTN: Poetry of the Sacred Contest

Center for Interfaith Relations

415 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd. 

Louisville, KY 40202

• Submissions are considered complete upon arrival of entry fee.
• Only complete submissions received before midnight on May 1, 2014, will be included in the judging process.
• Poems will be judged on literary excellence, spiritual tenor, and human authenticity.

*With the Center for Interfaith Relations' effort to live our core values, we ask that only an electronic copy of poems be submitted to save paper.  

**Only US currency and checks are accepted.

PUBLISHING LOCATION:

Parabola magazine brings together the foremost writers and thinkers of our time to explore timeless themes of human existence through the wisdom of the sacred traditions, myth, symbol, art, folklore, and ritual. Each quarterly issue is organized around a central theme, and the Winter 2014 issue's theme is Goodness. Parabola was also the winner of the 1996 and 1997 FOLIO Award for Editorial Excellence.

FINAL JUDGE:

Hamza Yusuf is a scholar, poet, and cofounder and current president of Zaytuna College, located in Berkeley, California. He is an advisor to Stanford University's Program in Islamic Studies and the Center for Islamic Studies atBerkeley's Graduate Theological Union. He also serves as vice-president for the Global Center for Guidance and Renewal. He has promoted Islamic sciences and classical teaching methodologies throughout the world, and has been a strong advocate for social justice, peace, and conviviality among peoples and places. Hamza Yusuf was ranked as "the Western world's most influential Islamic scholar" by The 500 Most Influential Muslims, edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin (2009). 

March 9 Tip: Attend today's "Hope and Healing Event Honoring Those Persons Lost to Homicide, Suicide or Tragic Accident

Attend today's "Hope and Healing Event Honoring Those Persons Lost to Homicide, Suicide or Tragic Accident

(The March 9 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

The Hosparus Grief Counseling Center, Interfaith Paths to Peace and the Louisville Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide prevention will host “Hope and Healing,” a program to remember those who have died violent deaths such as homicide, suicide or tragic accident, 

4 – 6:15 p.m., Sunday, March 9 at the Muhammad Ali Center, 144 North Sixth St.: 

4– 5:30 p. m. Healing Space

Individuals, families and children are invited to come to the Healing Space (any time between 4 – 5:30 p.m.) where they will have an opportunity to create a memorial in honor of the person who died. Materials will be provided. Counselors and trained volunteers will be available to help. Participants are invited to bring a picture and/or mementos of the person(s) who died to be included in a memorial display during the Ceremony of Hope.

5:30 – 6:15 p.m. Ceremony of Hope

The memorials made during the Healing Space time will be displayed and a ceremony of hope with
readings and music will take place to honor and celebrate the lives of the people being remembered.

To RSVP, contact the Hosparus Grief Counseling Center at 456-5451.

http://www.hosparus.org/classes-and-programs.php#hope

March 8 Tip: Visualize the Topography of Tears

From the New Yorker Magazine: Visualize "the Topography of Tears"

(The March 8 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/03/slide-show-the-topography-of-tears.html#slide_ss_0=1

Do tears of joy look the same as ones of woe—or ones from chopping onions? In “The Topography of Tears,” the Los Angeles-based photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher explores the physical terrain of one hundred tears emitted during a range of emotional states and physical reactions. Using a Zeiss microscope with an attached digital camera, she captures the composition of tears enclosed in glass slides, magnified between 10x and 40x. “There are many factors that determine the look of each tear image, including the viscosity of the tear, the chemistry of the weeper, the settings of the microscope, and the way I process the images afterwards,” she says.

March 7 Tip: Attend Today's Ecumenical World Day of Prayer Service

Attend Today's Ecumenical World Day of Prayer Service

(The March 7 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

Please join Christian women from throughout the Louisville Metro area at 10 am today at St. Matthews United Methodist Church, 319 Browns Lane, as they observe March 7 as World Day of Prayer. This year's theme is "Egypt: Stream in the Desert."

World Day of Prayer is a Global, ecumenical movement of Christian women joining together to celebrate a common day of prayer on the first Friday of March each year.

http://www.worlddayofprayer.net/

World Day of Prayer is a global, ecumenical movement of Christian women joined together to observe a common day of prayer each year on the first Friday of March.

World Day of Prayer is a global, ecumenical movement of Christian women joined together to observe a common day of prayer each year on the first Friday of March.

World Day of Prayer is a global, ecumenical movement of Christian women joined together to observe a common day of prayer each year on the first Friday of March.

March 6 Tip: Learn about the Family Childcare Program

Learn about the Family Childcare Program

(The March 6 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

The Family Childcare Project

The Family Childcare Project (FCP) is a career development program geared specifically to the needs of Louisville’s refugee population. The purpose of the FCP is to assist refugee women in obtaining self-employment as registered family childcare providers, while creating affordable, culturally and linguistically accessible childcare options for refugee women who choose to enter the workforce.

Refugee women participating in the FCP will complete a training course that provides them with hands-on training in child development; health, safety and nutrition, and business operation and management. Once the participants complete the training course, they will receive individual assistance in starting a Registered Family Childcare Business in their home.

The Family Childcare Program promotes self-sufficiency, allowing providers to earn income while enabling other women to overcome childcare barriers and go to work.

For More Information Please Contact:

Cynthia Brown -Special Projects Coordinator

502-452-6341 ext. 360 or cbrown@jfcslouisville.org

Applicant Requirements:

• Refugee Status with preference to women and those who have arrived in the last five years

• Basic competency in English language

• Appropriate space to operate a home-based childcare business

• Ability to attend Morning course sessions three times per week for 4 weeks

NEW CLASS STARTING MARCH 2014

Cynthia Bown

Special Projects Coordinator, Navigate Enterprise Center

Subsidiary of Jewish Family & Career Services

2821 Klempner Way

Louisville, KY  40205

502-452-6341 ext 360

502-452-6718 (Fax)

www.navigatecenter.org

www.jfcslouisville.org

March 5 Tip: Honor Today's 50th Anniversary Civil Rights March on Frankfort

Honor Today's 50th Anniversary Civil Rights March on Frankfort

(The March 5 Compassionate Living Tip from Interfaith Paths to Peace)

The 50th Anniversary Civil Rights March on Frankfort to the capitol steps will be Wednesday, March 5, at 10 a.m. (EST). Participants are asked to gather at the corner of 2nd Street and Capital Avenue at 9:30 a.m., for the approximate two-block walk to the State Capitol building at 700 Capital Avenue Bay, in Frankfort, Ky., 40601. In the case of inclement weather, the event will be in the Frankfort Convention Center at 405 Mero Street, a few blocks away from the Capitol.  The Allied Organizations for Civil Rights (AOCR) will host the event and includes government and non-government entities from all over the state including the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. The AOCR was formed for the sole purpose of facilitating the anniversary march.

The anniversary event commemorates an incredible moment in the nation’s history, the 1964 Civil Rights March on Frankfort, when 10,000 people in a southern state walked in mass to the Kentucky Capitol to push for the end of segregation. The march ultimately helped lead the nation and the state to end legal segregation and establish civil rights laws to make discrimination illegal. The anniversary march will celebrate Kentucky’s historic role and will also urge full voter participation, voter equality, and voter access in future elections; this includes restoration of voting rights to former felons.

The AOCR urges everyone who can to attend to do so to help demonstrate that Kentuckians support equal opportunity, equal treatment, and justice in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and that this is a southern state leading the way for civil and human rights.

Participants are welcomed to march without registering in advance, but are asked to do so for planning purposes by contacting Mary Ann Taylor of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights at 1.800.292.5566. Or, email her at AOCR@ky.gov.

Governor’s Mansion tours and 1964 March on Frankfort exhibit at Education Center

The Governor’s Mansion will be open for tours all day and will be serving light refreshments in conjunction with the march. This is also part of the centennial celebration of the mansion that will feature events throughout the year. Next door to the mansion at the Capitol Education Center, the Kentucky Historical Society and Division of Historic Properties will have a historic exhibit of multi-media collections of the 1964 Civil Rights March on Frankfort and other Kentucky civil rights history. For information on the Education Center 1964 Civil Rights March on Frankfort exhibit, contact Laurel Harper, director of Marketing Communications of the Kentucky Historical Society, at 502.564.1792.

Afternoon Forum on African Americans and Future of Kentucky Politics

Also in conjunction with the march will be the William McAnulty Forum on African Americans and the Future of Kentucky Politics to be held at 2 p.m. The panel discussion addressing participation by Kentucky African Americans in the political process is being hosted by the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission (KAAHC) in partnership with the Kentucky Heritage Council/State Historic Preservation Office, the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights.

The forum will be in the Brown-Forman Room at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in downtown Frankfort. The event honors the late Justice William E. McAnulty Jr., the first African American to serve on the Kentucky Supreme Court. The forum is free.

Panelists will be Bardstown Mayor Bill Sheckles, Perryville Mayor Anne Sleet, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Councilman Chris Ford, and Owensboro City Commissioner Pamela Smith-Wright, in addition to several guest panelists. The moderator will be Renee Shaw, producer and host of KET’s minority affairs program “Connections with Renee Shaw.”

The forum will explore past and present political participation by African Americans as candidates, party leaders and voters, and also examine opportunities awaiting African Americans in future state and local elections, according to Dr. Gerald Smith, KAAHC chair and associate professor of history/Martin Luther King Jr. Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Kentucky.

For more information about the forum, contact Tressa Brown, Kentucky Heritage Council African American heritage coordinator, at 502.564.7005, ext. 125 or tressa.brown@ky.gov.