Gandhi on Education

Education does not mean knowledge of letters but it means character building. It means knowledge of a duty. Gandhi

Gibran on Giving

There are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Ultimate measure of a man MLK

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge & controversy. Martin Luther King Jr.

There once was a grape...

There once was a grape

who got himself into a close scrape.

It all turned out fine

he was turned into wine.

We're glad he didn't escape.

Hope by MLK

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope." Martin Luther King Jr.

Trick or Eat & Other Ways to Help on Halloween

Originally published at http://socialcapitalinc.org

Looking to sink your teeth into something more than candy this Halloween? Here are 3 ways you can help Boston area communities on Saturday.

Trick or Eat Canned Food Drive: Dorchester teens are gettting ready once again to coordinate the annual canned food drive initiated several years ago by the SCI Dorchester Youth Council. The drive combats poverty and hunger in Dorchester as teens collect canned goods instead of candy treats as they visit homes in several Dorchester neighborhoods. It helps out Dorchester food pantries during the holiday season when there is very high demand for food. This idea has been spreading in a few ways--youth have replicated the program in other neighborhoods; and we just heard from a Cambridge resident who heard about this online. This woman is now organizing a drive in her neighborhood and will add her collection to that collected by the Youth Council to increase the support for the Dorchester food pantries. If you'd like to participate in Dorchester or organize something in your neighborhood, click here for more details and contact info.

Letter Carriers' Food Drive (Woburn): If you're in Woburn you don't have to travel far to put your extra canned food to good use. Saturday is the bi-annual Letter Carriers Food in Woburn (an extra one that just the local carriers run), so simply leave your canned good donations on your doorstep. Usage is up 35% @ the Woburn Food Pantry, so they really need the help now! More details on this drive can be found here.

Shop Compare Supermarket & Support SCI (Lynn): Compare Supermarket in Lynn, MA, will generously donatea portion of all sales this Saturday (10/31) & next (11/7) to support SCI's community building work. SCI will be on hand to recruit teens for the SCI Lynn Youth Council and share more about our programs. Compare specializes in Latin American products, so it could be a fun chance to pick up some items you might not find at your general grocery store, while supporting SCI. Details and store location here.

The Object of Education...

“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” Robert Maynard Hutchins

Goethe: Treat people as if...

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being." I've always liked this Goethe quote, focus on how we can believe in people's potential and treat them accordingly.

Athens and Freedom

"When in the end the freedom the Athenians wanted most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free." Gibbon

First heard this one in a national service related speech by President Clinton. Though of course he would have been well-served to show more responsibility on the personal side, his policies on things like service did emphasize the need to balance rights with responsibilities, which I appreciate.

The opposite of a profound truth...

"The opposite of a true statement is a false statement, but the opposite of a profound truth can be another profound truth" N. Bohr

Taken from Parker Palmer's The Active Life, where he is talking about how we often see action and contemplation as opposite choices, the key is to integrate these qualities

Un-Civil Discourse, #1

I've been pondering the question of whether the vitriolic debate today over healthcare today is unprecedented or just another example of the rough-and-tumble nature of politics, played out in the 24-7 news cycle. Here, Tom Friedman makes the case that things have ratcheted up to a new and dangerous level. The precedent he cites is Israel shortly before Rabin's assassination.

The tenor of today's debate is surely disturbing, but our political history also includes such events as a sitting a Vice President killing a former cabinet member in a duel and a Senator being caned nearly to death while sitting at his senate desk. I'd like to know more and hear thoughts about whether today's un-civil debate is more-of-the same or has taken things to a whole new level as Friedman suggests.

If one does believe that we have reached new proportions of un-civility, it would seem to be another argument for the importance of working on strengthening our civic fabric. At the time Burr was dueling with Hamilton, there were places in local communities, extolled by de Tocqueville, for people of different backgrounds and opinions to associate and discuss their views. These local mediating structures nurtured bonds of social capital that perhaps served as a counterweight contentious issues of debate.

As I said, I'm interested in exploring further how (un)civil discourse has changed over time. But for now I'd at least put forth the hypothesis that strengthening our local social capital could help improve the dialog over the important issues we face today.

Aging bodies

Pondering the benefits and limitations of exercise. "Physical decline as one ages is inevitable, but we can influence the pace of that decline."

A Deeper Yes Burning Within

Stephen Covey: "It's easy to say no when you have a deeper yes burning within." He makes this comment in the context of the importance of having a personal mission, with clear goals flowing from that overarching purpose. He poses a related question, what is one thing, if done consistently, would move you closer to your goals? I find this a helpful question to think about when prioritizing. It's much more than just coming up with a task list, but focusing on, and blocking chunks of time for those things that will really move me forward to what I want to accomplish.

Snow Falling in Valley

softly the snow falls

blanketing the hushed valley

eager boy grabs sled

Margaret Mead

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

We ourselves must be the change...

We ourselves must be the change we want to see in the world." Gandhi

I'm a big Gandhi fan (is anyone not?), and this is one of my favorite quotes, so I'm glad to see it cited a lot on and offline these days. But most often I see it used as a reminder that we can all make a difference in the world. This is part of the point, of course, but I think the subtlety and deeper signficance of Gandhi's thought is lost if we interpret this as simply "we can all make a difference".

The big idea to me reflected in this quote is the concept that the change we want to see needs to start first with ourselves as individuals, who we are, how we carry ourselves in the world. If we want to have peace on earth, we should figure out how to be more peaceful in our daily lives. There are too many people who love humanity but aren't very kind to the person sitting next to them on the train. Gandhi himself struggled with this--if you've seen the big Gandhi film or read about his life you know he wasn't always as kind as he could be to his wife for instance.

The change we can bring to the world is more lasting and powerful the more it is based on public actions that align in an authentic way with who we are in every small interaction we have with those around us. This point is sometimes most apparent when the opposite happens--the preacher or public official know for moralizing that gets caught in some scandal. But it can be seen in the affirmative in someone like Nelson Mandela, who used his years in prison to build up a powerful inner strengthen that led him to be such a compelling leader upon his release.

I see how this applies to our work here at SCI. Our first value, and fundemental premise of social capital, is that relationships matter. Yet its easy to lose sight of this, as we get so caught up in the mechanics of what it takes to run our organization. The importance of relationships can be temporarily lost in the midst of proposal deadlines, meetings, interviews and more. So for SCI, being the change we want to see means among other things making sure we don't lose site of the important relationships we have with each other on our team, our partners, volunteers and everyone else we interact with.

No one is perfect, of course, and can 100% of the time live up perfectly to their values. But Gandhi's quote is a good reminder, that to make change in the world, we must be mindful of who we are in the world we seek to change.

Originally published on http://socialcapitalinc.org

Anwar Sadat Quotes

"Most people seek after what they do not possess and are thus enslaved by the very things they want to acquire." p. 42

"Love is the only force capable of pulling down the barriers which may stand between matter & spirit; between the visible and the invisible, between the individual and God." p. 87

Both from In Search of Identity by Anwar Sadat

Beara Peninsula

The Beara Peninsula looks like a neat part of Ireland to check out some time, written up in today's Globe.

Voltaire: Let's agree to disagree

"I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Voltaire

T.S. Eliot Exploration Quote

"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
T.S. Eliot

Rising in the Dark

rising in the dark

dawn's rosy finger graces

silvery water

Of Dads and Baseball

I imagine it started with soft tosses to build my confidence, but what I remember is your throwing hard fastballs and nasty curves so that I'd be ready for whatever others might throw at me. Shortly after returning from a long day at work, you'd grab the mitt and offer to go out and play ball. A fastball whistling through the air and thumping a catcher's mitt is not only the sound of summer, but an echo of good times with Dad growing up.

Many life lessons were passed on the ball field. Perfection wasn't expected, but an all-out effort certainly was. I remember being miffed about being taken out of the line-up for not hustling out to my position after a disappointing at-bat, but the message was not lost on me or my teammates. The discipline of swinging a weighted bat each day is probably more appreciated now then it was then.

Celebrating my first Father's Day last year lent a new perspective and appreciation for our baseball bonding times. A few weeks ago, sipping beers on the deck and watching my little baby, you told me how as I got into my teen years, those pitching sessions started making you increasingly nervous. You describe the challenge of picking up a lively fastball (which seems to get faster with each passing year) in the waning light. I recall how many of my curves must have fallen a bit short as I was learning, and bounced and hit you who knows where. Yet you wouldn't hesitate to get back in the catcher's crouch.

Now I know the feeling of coming home a bit tired from a day of work, but appreciating the importance of summoning a second wind to spend time with my son. For the time being this entails feeding him mashed peas and reading Curious George more than catching his fastball—but one of my Father's Day gifts was a toy baseball and bat set, so it won't be long!

I have reflected before on how lessons on the ball field have helped me succeed in school and work. But now I see that the most important thing you were teaching is simply how to be a Dad.

Poem for a Summer Night

Good poem for a summer night posted here on Writer's Almanac:

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2009/08/09?refid=0

Everything is Misc.

"The task of knowing is no longer to see the simple. It is to swim in the complex."

David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous

We are spiritual beings...

"We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Teilhard de Chardin

Salmon Sparkling

salmon sparkling in the sun

slips back into the swift stream

gushing toward the bay.