Archive for the Service category
Friday, September 7th, 2012
Kerri Kelly, of Off the Mat, Into the World, teaches yoga at the Huffington Post Oasis at the DNC Some of you already know I’ve been involved with Off the Mat, Into the World for the past four years. As someone who is passionate about justice, and who sees that central government can – and […]
Posted in Being the change, Service, Yoga | 1 Comment »
Saturday, August 4th, 2012
The planet doesn’t need more ‘successful’ people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who will live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these […]
Posted in Being the change, Courage, Doing good, Service | 11 Comments »
Saturday, July 14th, 2012
Last week I was in Portland, OR. Portland is one of my favorite places in the whole world. Partly because some of my favorite people in the world live there, partly because of the food (if you go to Portland please eat tacos here, Thai here, Indian street food here, pie here and icecream here) and partly because of all […]
Posted in Being the change, Connection, Doing good, Service | 20 Comments »
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
Earlier this year Zen Under Fire was published. It’s the story of the two years I spent in Afghanistan – the people I met there, the lessons they taught me. Four and a half years since I was last in Afghanistan, I have the chance to return. I’ve been given the opportunity to combine three […]
Posted in Doing good, Service | No Comments »
Friday, April 20th, 2012
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. ~ Rabindranath Tagore This quote opens my book. It expresses what was possibly the single most beautiful and important thing I learned in Afghanistan. When I remember this, and live as though […]
Posted in Good things, self care, Service | 3 Comments »
Monday, April 16th, 2012
As I write this post, a battle is raging in Kabul. The Taleban have apparently launched their infamous Spring Offensive in the city. I’ve been checking in on friends via Twitter and Facebook all day. My favorite updates came from a friend who was stuck in her office with a cat and a litter of […]
Posted in Doing good, self care, Service | 3 Comments »
Saturday, February 18th, 2012
My favorite link this week is from a journalist writing about the solace she finds in food while working far from home, in Afghanistan. “As I stood in the morning light in my grimy Kabul kitchen, the hot coffee made me feel almost at home,” she writes, evoking my own memories of the very same […]
Posted in Good things, Service | No Comments »
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
Is passion enough when it comes to doing good? Or do we need professional skills and qualifications? A conversation with Maggie Doyne, founder of Kopila Valley Children’s Home and School in Nepal.
Posted in Being the change, Doing good, Service | No Comments »
Friday, January 13th, 2012
This week I had dinner with friends. She’s the casting director for The Hobbit movie. He’s the man who created Gandalf’s nose and King Kong’s hair and who invented the process by which the Navi in Avatar had such extraordinarily life-like faces. These two are, as you might imagine, passionate about their work. So you […]
Posted in Being the change, Doing good, Service | 16 Comments »
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
A couple of weeks ago I talked to Brigitte Lyons about hope. She was asking some really important questions. Like: “What keeps you going when you have a crisis of hope? You know the feeling. The voice of doubt that creeps up when you start to think you can make a difference. The worry that the work […]
Posted in Being the change, Service | 1 Comment »