"Even
as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is
trying to muzzle American nuns. Who thinks it’s cool to bully nuns?
While continuing to heal and educate, the community of sisters is aging
and dying out because few younger women are willing to make such
sacrifices for a church determined to bring women to heel. Yet the nuns
must be yanked into line by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the
Catholic Church. How can the church hierarchy be more offended by the
nuns’ impassioned advocacy for the poor than by priests’ sordid
pedophilia? How do you take spiritual direction from a church that seems
to be losing its soul?" - Maureen Dowd, on the Vatican's order to punish nuns that don't publicly oppose gay marriage.
When
you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the
fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small,
neither yours nor others’. The place, the way, has not carried over from
the past, and it is not merely arising now.
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North Carolina already has a law barring same-sex marriage, but the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature is not satisfied. It devised a measure to enshrine this obvious discrimination in the State Constitution and placed it on the ballot of the state’s May 8 primary election — a test of tolerance versus bigotry that ought to be watched closely nationwide. [snip] Opponents of marriage equality have never been able to show any evidence that any harm is caused to heterosexual marriages by granting all American adults the right to marry as they choose — because there is no such evidence. With little more than a week to go before the May 8 contest, and early voting already under way, North Carolinians need to consider whether they really want to inflict this gratuitous bigotry on their fellow citizens and their children.Read the full editorial.
"What
immediately became a meme amongst those criticizing Dan is that those
who walked out of his talk felt bullied by him. But that’s impossible.
People get bullied because of who they are: how they look and act, what
they say and do. Perceived as being in some critical way weak or
lacking, victims of bullies are selected for persecution; they are
pulled from the pack before being pointedly and repeatedly victimized.
The people who walked out during Dan’s talk were not separated from
their peers by anyone. They were content to do that themselves. They
were not frightened or cowed. They were offended. They felt that by
disparaging what amounts to their God, Dan had transgressed beyond their
capacity for toleration. And they were pleased to show their
intolerance of Dan’s words by protesting against them in the manner they
did. Theirs was not an act born of suffering. It was a proud show of
disdain." - Christian author John Shore.
Spiritual
practitioners thrive in unpredictable conditions, testing and refining
the inner qualities of heart and mind. Every situation becomes an
opportunity to abandon judgment and opinions and to simply give complete
attention to what is.
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This weekend NOM posted the above story to their blog and Facebook page: "Clarence and Mayme Vail just became
Guinness World Record holders for the longest living married couple —
83 years and counting! So what's their secret?" Bolding is mine because
Clarence and Mayme have both been dead for years. That's their secret! (Via JMG reader Robert)
Some
people think by giving everything away, you end up with nothing. But
the Dharma is an inexhaustible well. However much you give of it, you
can always go back for more, because in this well the more you take from
it, the higher the water will rise.
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Gratitude
is a way of undercutting your ego—that is, it is a way of being
Buddhist. There is an awareness that we get now and then about what we
owe to others, and Shinran feels that that should become the
moving force of one’s life. That awakening, that awareness, transforms
your way of dealing with life, with people, and with all things.
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We
really must verify for ourselves that whatever thought comes into our
mind has never acquired any true existence: thoughts are never born,
they never dwell as something truly existing, and they have nowhere to
go when they disappear from our mind.
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GLAAD today kicked the current Boy Scouts controversy into the lap of Mitt Romney, digging out the above 1994 quote. Over 155,000 people have already signed the petition asking the Boy Scouts to reinstate den mother Jennifer Tyrrell, who was booted from her volunteer position for being gay.
