Another touching story that shows my father

Writing in Science of Mind, April 2008, Rev. Jane Beach, minister of the Conscious Living Center in Mt. View, California, says, “The presence of peace is in all things, awaiting our attention.”

Rev. Beach’s words made me think about how I make the choices in my own life. I determined many years ago that Peace was my number one value. The thing, idea, energy that is the most important to me. Other people use other values: love, joy, wisdom. Always intangibles.   Read more...

It�s a sunny day despite all the previous week�s rain. We pull up onto the rutted, muddy roadside and park. If it weren�t for the rough dirt roads, the neighbourhood could pass for a middle-class neighbourhood in western Europe. A driveway pattern of black and maroon bricks leads up to an impressive house.

This is where Cecilia lives. I�ve been invited to a celebration for her youngest daughter, whose initiation into womanhood concludes today. Cecilia and her family are Ndebele, the ethnic group whose brightly coloured geometric painting and beadwork has come to represent South African art around the globe.   Read more...

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, visionary, science fiction writer, inventor and a good human being passed away on 19th March 2008 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, his adopted home. In many ways, Arthur was responsible for us to stay in Sri Lanka and establish a solar power business in the late 1980s. He was always there to encourage and help us even when we would get discouraged by the various obstacles that were in the way. He was a good friend and we will miss him and so will the world.

It was the summer of 1977 and I was on holiday in Sri Lanka from Canada with my cousin Viren. We had just stumbled into the table tennis room of the Otters Sports Club in Colombo and saw this European playing a hard game of TT banishing his young opponents away. As we stood there, he challenged us for a game and sent us away in no time too. After the game when we asked him whether he was on holiday here, he said - �Oh no, I live here, write a few books and do a bit of diving� only to realize he was Arthur C Clarke, the science fiction writer made real famous recently by �2001, A Space Odyssey�.   Read more...

As I write this, it is Easter Sunday in the Christian calendar. I was intrigued to read the ideas of Marshall Breger, professor of law at the Catholic University of America, reprinted in Utne Reader from Moment, an independent magazine of Jewish politics, culture, and religion, on statecraft, diplomacy and religion.

First I must cop to my own religious status. I would call myself an omnireligionist despite being an ordained minister with a doctorate in divinity. Translation: I don’t really care what you believe, I care that you believe. I believe that belief is a deeply personal matter and that it’s up to each soul to discover what works for her or him.   Read more...

I've just had the privilege of visiting refugee camps in Dadaab, Kenya, as part of my work with Book Aid International (www.bookaid.org).

Home to over 170,000 people the camps have provided a safe haven for refugees fleeing conflict for over 15 years, starting with the flight of people from neighbouring Somalia in 1991. The majority of people living in the camps are still Somali, though there are also refugees from Sudan, Uganda, the Congo and other countries in conflict. Many have lived in Dadaab for over a decade, unable to return to homes still embroiled in chaos.   Read more...

The email was innocent enough. Sent by a well-meaning and always interesting friend, I opened it. Here is part of his text to me . . .

Hi Friends,   Read more...

I decided I want to be more social, make more friends and be less ego-centric. I notice that I don't feel good when if I

My father, an old fashion country doctor, used to make house calls to farms near our town. On days when we kids were not in school, we were allowed to accompany him. Farms are terrific places for youngsters to wear off excess energy. So, we would run and play in the fields, peer at animals in the barn, scramble up haystacks, climb fences, and swim in the creeks. We city kids rode cows and rubbed horses

I have recently written on my personal blog about North America’s consumer societies, and my wish, instead of being a consumer, to be consumed. Consumed with fire, passion, and energy to do what I came to Earth to do.

Tony Kaye, creator of a documentary about both sides of the issue of abortion called Into the Fire, is quoted in the newest edition of Utne Reader.   Read more...

International Women

How old do you have to be to have grown up with the internet, cell phones, text-messaging, social community sites, collaborative sites (wikis), and interactive games? As more and more of you, who have been so reared, enter the work world, the harder and harder it will be for organizations to attempt to manage you by command and control methods. That lesson came clear to the USA Army, according to Steven Mains and Laura W. Geller in their article "Freeing Ideas from Their Silos," in strategy&business' current on-line magazine (http://www.strategy-business.com/li/leadingideas/li00062)   Read more...

Every year, thousands of children arrive to California. These students along with first and second-generation American students look for educational spaces willing to embrace their cultural diversity. Inner-city schools respond to these needs in three different ways. The majority of schools promote a pure assimilation/acculturation to the mainstream culture. Occasionally, the schools

Even though Ode