The Power of Breakfast

This morning I'm thinking about the Black Panther's Free Breakfast Program and the ways in which a single community center focused on meeting basic needs of residents was radical, and the conditions were so unequal that the program became radicalizing.

Volunteers would start setting up and preparing food around 6 am, and served the meal from 7-8:30. Most programs took place in churches, schools, or community centers. A typical breakfast often included some combination of bacon, eggs, grits, hotcakes, toast, sausage, and a glass of juice or milk. Various chapters would also provide transportation for children, from home to the chapter's Free Breakfast site, then to school.

A Very Moving Valentine

Yep, I moved, and it's definitely what one of my friends is describing as a spatial upgrade.

Seven hours, 24 floors, and five miles later, it's done and I'm officially ready for a bath.

Let love come to you

The buddhists tell us "attachment is the root of all suffering."

When I did research over the last few years, I found over and over again that suffering was a deficit of love.

How can these both be true? Are they as at odds as they seem?

In fact, when we step back a bit, we can see that the two are sides of a coin, united.

When we are experinecing suffering, we are indeed experiencing a love deficit. And our suffering may in large part be due to how attached we are to our love needs. 

Wait, that sounds weird, right?

It is kind of, yes.

When we are placing expectations on our love relationships, we are chaining them down, stuffing them in a small box, and making our relationships transactional by expecting them to deliver specific behaviors or things in specific ways. This is unfair, and it limits the amount of love we can receive. In effect, our expectations are creating the very love deficeit that is creating our suffering.

Lighten up.

Loosen up.

Let love come to you as it will.

This is the Way.

The Way Will Open

 

 

 

 
NF Challenge -- February 14
This challenge begins during a time of converging paths, each with their own pressures: PhD classes, interpersonal conflict, editing work, physical challenges, emotional balance, spiritual wholeness. At times it feels like I am navigating under a starless sky, and all I can do is trust the sails and be grateful that the water lifts the boat.

I hadn't meant to make an Earthsea challenge, and it's been forever since I read the books, but here we are. Writing often reveals the Way; as Ged found, words have power to restore balance to what has been upset.

The way will open.

The Artist and The World

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." ---Albert Camus