Living Faith
Mystic-Activists: An Introduction
"Lord, I'm down here trying to do what's right. I think I'm right. I think the cause we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I'm weak now. I'm faltering. I'm losing my courage." MLK jr
"... stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world." What is easy isn't always right, and what right isn't always easy but those leaders"...were willing to sacrifice their lives because they believed that it was possible to create a future that was more just and more reconciled."
"There is no God, no Buddha... There is no God, no help." Thoughts of a survivor of Hiroshima as the nuclear bomb was dropped.
"Today, more than ever, we need leaders who choose to resist despair and embrace faith and hope."
It takes one to make a change, a fight for justice, for what's right. It's not an easy road or an easy life, to commit to, but without these people, peace would not thrive & it would not prevail.
"I write with an agenda & a passion."
"Portraitists write to inform and inspire readers; The portraitists inevitably renders a self-portrait that reveals her soul but she also produces a selfless, systematic examination of the actor's images, experiences, and perspectives. This balance- between documenting the authentic portrait of others and drawing one's self into the line of the piece... is the difficult, complex, nuanced work of the portraitist."
"My own journey colors the way I see, interpret & present the journeys of others."
"Indeed, part of my soul is interwoven with the words and lives of these whose stories inspire and encourage me." As I encounter many new people in my extraordinary life, I try to make out their characters by gathering what I know based on the experiences I have encountered in my own personal life. How can I understand their pain or loss if I haven't encountered it first hand and know what it feels like? As the people I meet invite me in and give me pieces of themselves, at the same time I am giving them pieces of me. Only then do we really get to know and learn to love each other by seeing, feeling, and seeing ourselves in one another.
How Can I Help?
Natural Compassion
"It's not something we really think about, merely the instinctive response of an open heart. Caring is a reflex." "You live, you help."
"Caring for one another, we sometimes glimpse an essential quality of our being. We're reminded of who we really are and what we have to offer one another." Sometimes I feel lost and don't know what my place in this world is and that scares me and places fear into my heart. But when I am helping someone I love or having a genuine moment with somebody I just met, I feel at peace and for once I feel like I do have some sort of purpose. Whether or not I know what I am meant to do it is these moments that I strive for.
"But there's usually a maze of other motives: a need for self-esteem, approval, status, power; the desire to feel useful, find intimacy, pay back some debt."
How can I keep my heart open and not go under? I've got my own life to live, after all. Still, I'd like to do more for others. What do I have to offer, and what would help most? Complicated business, all this. Look you do the best you can...
"We may have a difficult time facing the suffering of others because we don't know how to deal with our own pain and fear." <<<Something I struggle with all the time.
"Will we look within? Can we see that to be of most service to others we must face our own doubts, needs, and resistances?"
"Who are we to ourselves and to one another?-it will all come down to that."
"Who are we to ourselves and to one another?-it will all come down to that."
