I was in a conversation the other day with some friends. It wasn’t long before we were bemoaning the ‘state of the world’. We moved from politics in Washington DC to global warming and the Middle East, then took on the environment, the media and the latest arrest of suspected terrorists in Spain. In a few minutes, we were feeling a bit of despair at the seemingly endless list of intractable problems, most of which are threatening our quality of life—if not the future of our entire species.
Tag Archives: elder
Philanthropy Day
Yesterday was Philanthropy Day. I went to a luncheon for 1,300 people in San Francisco hosted by one of my favorite ‘causes’, the Pachamama Alliance. The organization was founded 12 years ago by Bill and Lynne Twist as a partnership between the indigenous peoples of the Rainforest and the modern world. They prefer to say the Alliance found them. The purpose of the Alliance is to create a world that is “environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just”. It would seem
Discernment: Harold’s Story
By Stu Whitley
Bio
This is the first post in a three-part series.
O body swayed to music,O brightening glance,How can we know the dancer from the dance?—W.B. Yeats (Among School Children)I had lunch with an old friend, a Tlingit
elder, Harold, today. I’ve known Harold for nearly a dozen years. And I
know him to be a serious, thoughtful man; he’s someone who has taught
me many things, not the least of which was the powerful consequence of
even the smallest positive intervention in someone’s life. I have seen
it in action: Harold is the embodiment
Riverboats and Bone Yards I
By Stu Whitley
Bio
This is the first post in a five-part series.
As a young boy growing up in England, I was consumed with tales of the ‘Dark Continent’. The memoirs and descriptions of Burton, Speke, Livingston and Stanley enthralled me, especially their references to the fabled graveyard of elephants, where the fading behemoths of the Serengeti went to die. Trying to conceive of a place like this was such an effort that it faltered on the steps of my young imagination. The African elephant can live as long as 70 years or more: the idea that this intelligent beast should know its time nears and be drawn to a resting place with its kin seemed fantastic.These thoughts eventually released their hold on me
till nearly half a century later. I was on a canoe trip down a stretch
of the Yukon River known as the ‘Forty-Mile’, where the broad Teslin
River has its confluence. Suddenly, on the riverbank, there loomed the
enormous remains of several paddlewheel steamers. It was still easily
possible to imagine these vast engines of commerce, now in various
Taxis in Turkey
By Elizabeth Russell
Bio
My
first experience was in Izmir, Turkey, where I was teaching English at
Ege University. Some of the time, I took a dolmus (share taxi) to and
from the university. I had no problem getting a space in the taxi going
to the university because we lived at the beginning of the route, but
coming home was a different matter.
The first few times I was
waiting at the taxi stand, I noticed that the taxis coming by were full
and so I backed away from the stop. Then one
My Father in His House of Logs
I was in a conversation the other day with some friends. It wasn’t long before we were bemoaning the ‘state of the world’. We moved from politics in Washington DC to global warming and the Middle East, then took on the environment, the media and the latest brouhaha about China shooting down a satellite. In a few minutes, we were feeling a bit of despair at the seemingly endless list of intractable problems, most of which are threatening our quality of life—if not the future of our
Learning from Older People
I am thinking about all the things older people told me over the
years—don’t worry, relax, smell the roses, live life in the moment,
learn from your mistakes, and, above all, love other people and
yourself. Much of my life hasn’t been spent practicing these gems from
my predecessors. It’s been about struggling to do it right, doing it my
way, resisting anything I didn’t like, and (in one way or another)
controlling myself and other people.
Love,
when it appeared, was like a fleeting
Mentoring
I had a great meeting with David Korten yesterday. He is the very
inspiring thought-leader I mentioned in a past blog and the author of The Great Turning.
His vision of some of the underlying issues that perpetuate the
persistence of many of the world’s nastiest problems is brilliant and
offers a framework for creating a ‘new story’ of who we are and what’s
possible.
Part
of his vision and mine is for our whole generation to declare our
responsibility for the world and become
Labels & Gender
Most of the attempts to categorize people who are older (“temporally
challenged”, seniors, golden oldies and so forth) are usually attempts
to find a label to make a state or condition that most people relate to
as ‘negative’ seem nicer. Ronni Bennett has some interesting thoughts about language
and how our labels often reveal a lot about how we observe and relate
to others and the world in general. I agree with her that most of it is
nonsense, and I like the term Elder.
When
talk
Life Coaching
Crabby Old Lady took a swipe at life coaches
yesterday. I commented to her that the same might be said of lawyers,
heath care providers and financial counselors. The fact is there are
many opportunistic and unqualified people calling themselves coaches.
While I can agree with her concern, I cannot let her sweeping
generalization impune the work of thousands of committed and competent
individuals.
What I want to point out is that, as an emerging field and
profession, coaching is attempting