Sunday Reading 11 November 2007

Sunday morning. Gray skies. Chill air. Frost upon the ground. Fall is here in force, with the first foretaste of winter tugging our awareness. Still, many trees retain their leaves, often still green. Storm, the kitten, has discovered that a warm place to sleep at night is snuggled against the furnace called a human.

The grayness has muffled my mind for the past couple of weeks. This part of Pennsylvania doesn’t get much more sun than areas like Seattle, so dealing with SAD is never-ending.

Much of what I write about is in our search for meaning, the why of living. Many relevant posts have appeared on the net over the past couple of weeks.

Terry Starbucker pointed out a piece of research done by the John Templeton Foundation in Taking on a “Big Question” - Does the Universe Have a Purpose? They asked twelve scholars and scientists if the universe has a purpose. The answers range from Yes to No to I hope so to I don’t know. If nothing else, this shows that meaning or it’s lack does not come from outside, but is something we layer on to our experience, a point I’ve discussed in several places including Atheism is Alogical and What is Your Mythology?

Many people know about Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog. In a way that engages the heart and the mind Liz Strauss asks the same question in Looking at the Abstract.

Am I looking at the abstract
       or am I looking at me?

Much of what we’re doing when we look for meaning in our lives is searching for peace, fulfillment. Michael Weir points to one way to realize peace in in peace of now…, where he talks about the present being the only moment we have. As Michael says

…it is the only moment that is outside of time…

Deb Call gives a practical example of achieving greater peace by focusing on the present in 10 Ways to Eliminate Struggle - Abridged to 1.

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I thank you for continuing to support Shards of Consciousness. May it continue to help you build the you that you really are. Special thanks to those of you who have found something that speaks strongly enough to be worth linking to. Over the past couple of weeks these have included

Lisa Gates in Choose your words carefully…your life is at stake.

John Allison tagged me for an interesting meme about the robot within in his post, In defense of the silent partner. I am working on a post for the project, John.

Adebola Oni kicked off the Creative Dreaming Project with a post from Shards in Creative Dreaming Project Kicks Off. Have you participated?

Nneka included another post from Shards in 2007 Season of Gratitude Week 2. The Season of Gratitude is a month of posts from around the web about gratitude that Nneka runs in the weeks leading up to the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. Each week she posts another group of submissions, as well as creating her own gratitude posts during the week. This year she’s donating $5 dollars to Heifer International for each post submitted. Read. Participate. The attitude it engenders is an important key to the presence discussed by Michael and Deb.

Robyn McMaster tapped me for another meme, the Think Different Challenge, in her post, Thinking Differently about Giving Advice. Robyn, you’re making me think! Finding something I do that results in negatives isn’t the issue. Narrowing it down, that’s the issue for me.

Have a great week!

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