One Big Rice Bowl

A not so novel thought entered my mind today midst meditation....

One Big Rice Bowl

Imagine...

The whole world gathered around one big rice bowl
Partaking in a meal as one big family
sharing in the riches of the earth,
celebrating and appreciating each other
and every step, every part of the effort that made it possible.

When I reflect upon this, an unimaginable, infinite peace overcomes my being.

We are, after all, ONE- One Family living in ONE world joined together

Heart to heart
Soul to soul

rising before the same sun and resting under the same moon,
live within the same world,
all shades of each other, completing each other, and complementing each other.
Together we are ONE!

As I let the rice bowl and the communal meal more fully enter my thoughts
there is no burden; separateness disappears and balance is restored.

The world is our rice bowl!

It invites us everyday, every moment.
All world citizens are honoured family members. How can we turn anyone away?
How can we not share, empower, encourage, or show compassion, love, and understanding
for our sisters or our brothers?

The world is our rice bowl...

the earth we till, the plants and animals, the water,
the resources we have....
No one really owns them.
Rather we are caretakers of the earth, of each other,
bound by sacred contract and reciprocity.

Imagine the rice bowl today.......

Let it fill your heart and mind
with love and peace.
Let its power move through you
flow back into the universe.

The rice bowl is here, my friends.
Will you come to the table of the world
share for the sake of others, appreciate the moment,
the rice that nourishes, the land, sun water and people that made it possible,
love, laugh, and listen and join the family?

One big rice bowl...........

As you ponder these thoughts and step toward the world table,
live and love a little more and
find comfort in the reality that love and peace always abide.

In the spirit of giving,
play the rice game at
http://www.freerice.com
to feed the hungry
while exercising your mind
and increasing your capacity to give
across the miles, building life bridges
extending warmth and light and even better yet
more places at the rice bowl.
Namaste


May I be a boat, a bridge, a passage for those desiring the further shore.

Where is home?

Where is home?

This seems like such a simple question. Yet, for many within the world today, the answer is much different than each one of them probably ever expected it would be.
With a growing number of refugees internationally, globalization and changes in borders and boundaries drawn by men, the answers to this question are both metaphysical and tied to people and place.

If you're wondering how could this be, I'll ask you to contemplate a situation. Imagine that you could not return to the place you loved most, the place where you knew the traditions, how to act, the language, the foods, a place where you were loved and somehow just fit right in. Indeed, you would carry it in your heart like a precious jewel.

So, too, in the age of globalization, a growing number of citizens seek the place that beckons them, the place where they can live to the fullest, offer the most to the world for whatever reason. Some admittedly have lived within their native lands as foreigners, strangers and/or slaves with no ties to the land or its customs, merely experiences to build upon.

For humanitarians, the answer is so very often both metaphysical and tied to people and place. After all, we are all ONE. In that oneness, everywhere is one place and each place is a reflection of every other place. Lands are all at once distant and right here right now within one's minds eye. Yet, the place humanitarians and world citizens often call home is either within the land where they become a more engaged citizen or within the land or place that empowered them to do so.

Interesting, isn't it?

During my time in Huai hua, Hunan Province China, I met persons from more than 60 countries. Some had travelled to many lands seeking health and restoration. Others had travelled and lived abroad for business, educational reasons or for personal reasons, including fleeing persecution due to governmental changes. Yet, the place that each of them called home was as individual as each of them.

One man I met was Saudi Arabian by birth but raised in Italy. He fought the Italian government as a young man for many years, when the government seized his family's lands and cheated them. For years, he lived in Ethiopia and rather paradoxically found himself applying for a visa to live with his family in Saudi Arabia. Because his parents were born there and his brother, as well, they could claim the Saudi nationality. My friend could NOT! Yet, Saudi Arabia was the place he called home.

He was an incredibly gracious and appreciative man who shared his adventures in Italy and his love of the culture, and his love of Ethiopian music. He could talk about the vast and varied changes in many lands and articulate the facts with personal stories. Yet, no matter, where his business led him, he always returned to Saudi Arabia before his visa expired. Despite or inspite of every circumstance, it was home.