@JoyfullyDazed Hello my dear friend!

@CinnamonGirlE Good morning buddy!

Good morning groovy souls!

The body feels so tired and weary today, so I am taking a rest day. The Gods seem insistent as well.

Listening to Old Path, White Clouds, I heard the teaching on the Sitar.

"If the Sitar is to loose, it will be out of tune, if the string are to tight, they will break. Only in balance can you make music."

Ok... Ok... I get it. :P ^_^

The balance holds all life.

@dauphin87 Thanks buddy!

@dauphin87 Define personal if you would. I've known friends and family that have had abortions but I've never been part of the decision.

@LnzyHou Yeah. I was wondering why I was feeling tired, oh and I also did a store run... Then I realized... I have every right to feel tired!

@LnzyHou That is a whole entire mood.

Today I've done a 4 mile run, made tofu, done laundry, edited, and written a new chapter.

I'm back on my story! I've got a new chapter written!

@process @stueytheround He quietly shared his own experience, and his journey. It changed my world, and helped me to further question. I started to realize there were other ways out of the trap I found myself in.

Though him, others, and just more reading, more exposure and a lot of patience, I started to find out that the world was far more colorful than my black and white.

None of that would have happened if he had shouted, or attacked, or hated.

@process @stueytheround My first couple years of college were my last few years as an Evangelical Christian. It really had its hooks in me and while I wanted to be compassionate, there was also a lot of judgement and hatred instilled in me.

On top of that I was struggling and repressing my own identity to the point of feeling fractured from myself within.

I ended up living next door to a gay man, Berry, who was patient and kind.

@thereg001 I learned it from a Coso friend who passed by a few days ago!

I'm happy to pass it along ^_^

@process @stueytheround That must have been an incredible experience. To be surrounded by all nationalities while simultaneously experiencing the division and segregation of apartheid.

@Vozy Soon....

@process @stueytheround

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." -Thomas Paine, the Rights of Man

My favorite though is the misattribution of this quote.

The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.

@process @stueytheround I started to learn this imperfectly when I was a Junior in High School, and it has taken me my lifetime to refine it. Christianity first, then Buddhism, the Writings of Camus, and King all have led me down this path.

I cannot compare my experience to living in a war zone, the shocking and horrible violence that people perpetuate on others, but I also know that what is true in small ways must be also true in big ways.

@process @stueytheround I'd fight back, get in trouble, get in school suspended, and I'd be right back there the next week and it would all start over again.

It was a cycle that repeated. Suffering compounded on suffering. They dished it out, I took it so long, then I gave some back.

It solved nothing.

Learning how to let go of that anger, learning to reach beyond it, was a titanic struggle, but responding to fire with fire only ensures there will be more fire.

@process @stueytheround

I was horribly bullied when I was growing up. I've been beaten down, spit on, mentally abused, even had knives pulled on me. School was a daily gauntlet of being picked on for most of my tenure there.

It's easy to feel righteous anger. It's natural to want to fight back, but that story, others like it, and my journey to this point, well beyond those tumultuous years has shown me that there is something beyond that that is worth striving for.

@process @stueytheround Thich Nhat Hanh told a story of a brother Monk that was angry because of the American Soldiers and the way they mistreated the Vietnamese People during the Vietnam war.

Now he had every right to be upset. But Hanh challenged him saying, if you were raised the way they were, and grew up in New York, you would feel the same as they do.

We must remember the Americans are suffering too. They'd have to be, to behave that way.

That has stuck with me so much.

@process @stueytheround

All have suffered, suffering is the shadow cast by mortal life.

Everyone responds to that suffering differently, and has their own unique perspectives and challenges which leads to divisions and camps.

That is reason enough for me to want to be kind, and as understanding as is possible to all. I am on the side of peace, and compassion. That includes all.