InSpiritry PODCAST - Community
InSpiritry PODCASTS - Twenty Minutes to Rekindle Your Spirit!
Theme: Community
The word, Community, suggests with-Unity. Are you living in full Community with God, with your inner Self, with Humanity as a whole and with Nature? Join Anne McCrady for this as she takes a look at how we can best make a difference in the world by first living in Unity.
Listen as Anne shares how we need Unity on many levels and how we can use our sense of Community for the Greater Good as we live each day. In this compelling program, Anne inspires listeners to make Unity a personal intention and Community a daily practice. She reminds listeners that when we use our passions within the wider network of God, Self, Humanity and Nature, the outcome can be a better world, a stronger society, a more healthy planet, a more loving family and that greatest of blessings: a peaceful heart.
Quotes from: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Buddha, Psalms, Jimmy Carter, The Quran, Eleanor Roosevelt and others
An Inspirational Story about: Betty Elder, Local Activist for Children of Low Income Families
Books Recommendations for: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community; Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World; How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest; Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Coexistence; A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future
Poems: Heaven and Early Morning, Thinking of Jerusalem by Anne McCrady
Read the complete text for this Twenty-four Minute Podcast!
TODAY’S THEME: COMMUNITY
We are not alone!
That message of affirmation and hope is the essense of the practice of InSpiritry® Greater Good thinking. We can draw on the empowering knowledge that each of us is a the center of a network of goodness that surrounds us. When we live as spiritual beings, we realize we are meant to be in Unity–with God, with Self, with Humanity and with Nature. Those interdependent relationships nurture and empower us, but also come with a complex set of give-and-take gifts and responsibilities. Whether we are concerned with our faith, our health, our family, our friendships, our global community or our environment, we have much we can do to build Unity and Community with our Passion for the Greater Good! Of course, the best news is still: We are not alone!
WISDOM QUOTES:
Be still and know that I am God.
The Bible, Psalms 46:10
The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps is, because man is disunited with himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He who experiences the Unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye. Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism
Endeavor to keep a Unity of spirit in the bond of Peace.
The Bible, Ephesians 4:3
I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.
John Lennon
Civilization is a process…whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great Unity, the unity of mankind.
Sigmund Freud
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Teaching man his relatively small sphere in the Creation also encourages him by its lessons of the Unity of Nature and shows him that his power of comprehension allies him with the great intelligence over-reaching all.
Astronomer Annie Jump Cannon
The motivating force of the theory of a Democratic way of life is still a belief that as individuals we live cooperatively, and, to the best of our ability, serve the Community in which we live, and that our own success, to be real, must contribute to it.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Greater indeed than the creation of man is the creation of the heavens and the earth.
Quran 40:57
It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honour Nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of t The Outdoors will be here forever.
President Jimmy Carter
A STORY FOR THE HEART:
While the idea of community can certainly be widened to include God, our global society and even the environment, sometimes it Unity closer to home. In my small town, there is a woman whose life is an unmatched example of Community in action. Her name is Betty Elder, and I have had the priviledge of working under her mentorship for the past twenty years.
Back in 1985, when my husband and I moved to Henderson, Texas to begin his medical practice, I was introduced to two ladies who even then had big ideas for meeting the needs of the children in our town. Mary Craig was a poet, revered elementary school teacher and a retired Navy WAVE from a family of Methodist circuit riders. Betty Elder was a church woman who had provided cared for the sick and dying as well as their families for years. Both were large woman with formidable ideas, active in the Democratic politics and community concerns. Mary was White; Betty was Black. Together they were a force to be reckoned with!
Hearing of my storytelling and sensing my desires to serve my new hometown, these two women recruited me as a young mother to help with a new project they were founding. They wanted to secure enough local donations to provide school supplies to needy youngsters at the beginning of the school year. Wanting the children to be able to walk to the celebration, we decided to hold the event at a local park. Unfortunately, it was known best for drug deals and trash. Undaunted, we asked city crews to clean it up for us and they did. To our surpise, hundreds of children came for lunch, music, stories and school supllies. Over the years, the program grew and grew. That Christmas, we used leftover money to provide Christmas gifts to foster kids and needy families, many of the same children we served in August.
That was not enough! Mary and Betty wanted to start an after school program. With the help of a local investor, they secured an abandoned elementary school in a low income neighborhood close to the children they wanted to serve. That project too became a success, though the two woman were exhausted from their fundraising efforts. Again, I joined them by volunteering, donating funds and even hosting a cultural arts camp with the local Rotary Club.
In between all that, Mary was organizing a youth poetry contest and a youth arts award, and Betty was sharing her upbeat, gentle care with people who were hurting. Five years ago, when we lost suddenly lost Mary to a heart attack, Betty and I picked up where she left off and continued on.
Twenty years later, the Yates Park Help the Youth Project and its devoted donors serve nearly 750 children every year with school supplies, shots and health information. I am still working with that project and helping out at the Boys & Girls Club as a volunteer. I also have taken on organizing and hosting Mary’s poetry awards. For her own part, Betty is still serving families in need between working her two jobs, during the day as a teacher aid with special needs kids and at night as a certified healthcare sitter. Yes, she is in service to her community almost 24-7!
Recently, someone asked me why the Yates Park Project is so important to me. Having watched Mary Craig and Betty Elder, I gave this answer:
I am honored to be a part of a project that brings our community together; the money comes from folks right here who care and goes to their neighbors who need it. Yates Park is a small way for us to take care of each other. That is, I think, what we are supposed to be doing all the time! And I know Betty and Mary would say, Amen!
COMMENTARY:
What a great source of comfort it is to know we are not alone, that we belong to one another and are ultimately also connected to God and to the earth. The wonderful outcome of Greater Good thinking is that the needs of the whole become balanced against the desires of any individual. By actively communing with God, Self, Humanity and Nature, we grow to value not just family, religion and citizenship, but more powerful ideas like faith, equality, environmentalism, justice, globalism, ethics, self-actualization and peace. There are, of course, challenges to this idea of Unity.
First, our faith can get in the way. Because our religious beliefs (or unbelief) often represents the basis for our very concept of the world, finding unity with those in other religions (or even sects or denominations) can prove difficult. When we are sure we are right, we are sure the other person is wrong. The key comes in seeing things from a God’s Eye View. When we do that, manmade distinctions and diversity of practice become trivial compared to the Unity of Life itself.
Our second obstacle is our self interest. Faced with the idea that Unity and Community require us to balance our own happiness and prosperity against that of the Greater Good, we can feel threatened. Keeping those interests balanced can be hard work, even for the most devoted. While an open-heart is the best antidote for self-centeredness, it is important to keep in mind the very rational advice of a friend of mine: What is good for each of us is what is good for all of us!
Another obstacle in finding Unity, especially as it relates to others, is the temptation to tighten our circle of community, leaving out those whose differences we fear or those who just don’t “fit in.” It begins when we are young as we form our first social circles and continues into adulthood in the form of “exclusive” communities. Nationalism, Sectarianism, Racism, Gender Bias, Religion Intolerance and Homophobia are all examples of exclusion. Only when we look first for common ground can we accomplish the Greater Good.
Finally, and most disturbing of late, our Unity is thwarted by a lack of even the basic recognition of our Comm-Unity with the earth. For generations, most of the world has viewed Nature as either something to be conquered or a storehouse of resources for man’s pleasure. Now we are beginning to see how interconnected life is. We are finding out in one more way that It’s Not Just About Us! How we redevelop our Unity with Nature.
The power of InSpiritry® is that our lives can be blessed by living in Comm-Unity.
Take a moment to assess your own life.
- Do you ever feel alone or know others who do?
- What are your most powerful faith practices?
- Do you take care of yourself so you can serve others?
- Are you strengthening your connections with other people?
- When is the last time you spent time outdoors in unity with Nature?
- What passions of yours could contribute to Community?
- How could you develop a better sense of Unity in your life?
- How can your understanding of Unity serve the Greater Good?
BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
Here are some inspiring books on Unity and Community you may find helpful:
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam, Lewis M. Feldstein, Don Cohen
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY: “If you don’t go to somebody’s funeral, they won’t come to yours,” Yogi Berra once said, neatly articulating the value of social networks. In this alarming and important study, Putnam, a professor of sociology at Harvard, charts the grievous deterioration over the past two generations of the organized ways in which people relate to one another and partake in civil life in the U.S.
Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World by Marc Kielburger & Craig Kielburger
This books offers an approach to life that leads us to recognize what is truly valuable, make new decisions about the way we want to live, and redefine the goals we set for ourselves and the legacy we want to leave. Above all, it creates new ways of measuring meaning, happiness, and success in our lives, and makes these elusive goals attainable at last.
Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Coexistence by Zachary Karabell
As he explores the growing tensions of the modern era, Karabell traces the rise of Arab nationalism, the redrawing of the Middle East map in the wake of World War I, and the increased hostilities following the creation of the state of Israel. Through it all, he reminds us that dialogue and friendship have always punctuated times of war and discord.
How Are We to Live? Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest by Pete Singer
Singer explores the way in which standard contemporary assumptions about human nature and self-interest have led to a world that is fraught with social and environmental problems. Singer asks whether selfishness is in our genes and concludes that we do not have to accept the bleak view of human nature sometimes b believed to be inevitable, given our evolutionary origins.
A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future by Roger S. Gottlieb
When faith is applied to environmentalism, we can reconsider distinctions between religion and politics, theology and social activism. Equally important, such a world-making political agenda transcends the limited interests of one or another social special interest group. This author shows how care of the environment is not simply interest groups argueing about forests and toxic incinerators. Rather, faith should lead us to a comprehensive vision of what human beings are and how we should treat each other and the rest of life.
POETRY:
Heaven
by Anne McCrady
The most holy man
I know
swears he can
take one deep breath
in a soup kitchen
full of work-worn men
on a winter day
and stand squarely
in the persence
of Almighty God.
Early Morning, Thinking of Jerusalem
by Anne McCrady
The rooster outside in our yard
crows his heart out.
His loneliness grows louder and louder.
A gift from an adopted grandparent
whose rural passions made her sure
my children needed a chicken,
the rooster does not let us forget
the importance of community.
Lying here, listening to him,
I think of all the exiles, all the outcasts,
all those lost or displaced or forsaken.
Even a dying Christ, at the dawn
of the Era of Great Forgiveness,
cried out for an explanation
of his solitary pain.
There is a truth:
we need each other.
Communes. Communities. Home Lands.
An intentioned God made it so.
As this day’s light finds dusty streets
half a pious world away,
angry children will throw stones
at young soldiers who will shoot back
at angry children.
Such longing and loneliness. Such sadness.
Let us put away the rocks and guns.
When the rooster crows next,
let us hear in his call
the desperate song of those
still searching for a place
to belong.
TEN WAYS TO LIVE IN COMM-UNITY:
The mystic poet Rumi wrote that there are “a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” a hundred ways to be holy, a hundred ways to bless the earth. Here are ten of the hundred ways to live in Comm-Unity!
- Develop Spiritually - commune, meditate, pray, consider, read, worship
- Enjoy Solitude - rest, be silent, exercise, think, breathe
- Affirm Family - forgive, take care of, remember, appreciate
- Nurture Friendships - call, write, visit, laugh, cry, encourage, support
- Resist Exclusion - welcome, celebrate diversity, resist fear
- Commune with Nature - plants, animals, mountains, oceans, air
- Love the Earth - recycle, reuse, reduce, consider the future
- Go Global - listen, learn, explore, blog, travel
- Build Community - find common ground, see connections, be a unifier
- Celebrate Unity - You are not alone!
TODAY’S PROMISE:
InSpiritry is the practice of living for the Greater Good as a way to inspire others to do the same. Here’s something we can all pledge to do:
This week I will become a Person in Community with God, Myself, Mankind and Nature. I will seek unity in the thoughts I allow, in the words I use, in the actions I take and in the prayers of my heart. While seeking Community, I will also look for ways to inspire others to do the same. In my everyday life, I will live for the Greater Good, because I know I Can Be a Blessing!
In the days ahead, may you find ways to practice InSpiritry®!
Compassion, Creativity, Collaboration, Consilience, Courage, Celebration
Read More About Anne McCrady and InSpiritry
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Join the InSpiritry Conversation on Community–
You Can Be a Blessing!
