can be disarming. That’s what Carolyn North discovered. It started with an impulse to save the leftover Thanksgiving turkey her neighbor had discarded as trash. Thirty years later, she and a rotating team of friends-turned-volunteers have been quietly recovering surplus food and delivering it to free food shelters and pantries across the San Francisco Bay Area. At the surface, it’s a simple labor-of-love initiative called Daily Bread. Last year, its 90 local volunteers delivered 32 tons of food with little overhead and virtually no budget. For volunteers, it’s a straightforward weekly routine that takes less than an hour to complete. For food donors, it&... posted on Oct 30 2014 (16,254 reads)

I traveled to a conference and heard bestselling author and scholar Karen Armstrong say to those gathered that "Spiritual and Religious Sages have long known that our egos very often keep us from being our best selves." Along with ego, I might add "insecurity," as it was these two twin chains that held me, and I imagine many other students, back. Starting college is an insecure moment in one's life. We literally leave the security of home where we know we are loved. We leave the familiar space that was high school. Our friendships there were firmly established with years or trust-building adventures and misadventures. Our social status was built via the te... posted on Nov 6 2014 (22,376 reads)

into desperate addicts and leaves medical patients unaffected. If you still believe, as I used to, that chemical hooks are what cause addiction, then this makes no sense. But if you believe Bruce Alexander’s theory, the picture falls into place. The street-addict is like the rats in the first cage, isolated, alone, with only one source of solace to turn to. The medical patient is like the rats in the second cage. She is going home to a life where she is surrounded by the people she loves. The drug is the same, but the environment is different. The opposite of addiction Bob Perkoski This gives us an insight that goes much deeper than the need to understand ad... posted on Mar 24 2015 (27,694 reads)

simply means that we do not give fear the power to silence or stop us. In my own experience, I think there’s an important difference between courage and fearlessness. Courage emerges in the moment, without time for thought. Our heart opens and we immediately move into action. Someone jumps into an icy lake to save a child, or speaks up at a meeting, or puts them self in danger to help another human being. These sudden actions, even if they put us at risk, arise from clear, spontaneous love. Fearlessness, too, has love at its core, but it requires much more of us than instant action. If we react too quickly when we feel afraid, we either flee or act aggressively. True fearlessnes... posted on Apr 25 2015 (18,751 reads)

Kay’s words… Who/what inspires me: I have always been inspired by people who can leave their home country and show love, kindness and mercy to the people who live in desperate poverty and hardship. In Cambodia, that would be someone like Marie Ens from Canada who leads ‘Rescue’ – a home for hundreds of orphan children, AIDS families and grannies. And in Mozambique, Heidi Baker from ‘Iris Global’ children’s homes is a pure example of transforming love into something concrete. Best advice: Love in the midst of pain. Forgive in the midst of evil. Comfort in the mist of agony. Kay Eva was travelling through rural Cambodia o... posted on May 17 2015 (15,555 reads)

get to something like that. Bob: It’s fabulous. Many people have said that. It’s extremely rewarding. Anyway, a year later I was on a business trip to Washington D.C. and saw a Karsh exhibit there at the Portrait Gallery. I was blown away by his prints and spent a good bit of time studying what he’d done, technically. I couldn’t imagine what he’d done in the sitting to get the iconic versions of all those famous and powerful people. I thought, I’d love to be able to do that, but it was so far outside of my thinking it wasn’t as if I was just going to go out and try it. But I did get his book. It still sits in the house here, and I look th... posted on Jun 13 2015 (15,601 reads)

this in the woods while trail riding” 12. A Palestinian Boy Practicing His Parkour Skills… 13. A Little Boy’s Happiness… 14. One Squirrel, One Thumb and LOTS of Cute… “My wife getting a hug from a baby squirrel [named Rocket] that she’s taking care of.” 15. Uplifted by Many Beautiful Smiling Faces… “Sounds cheesy, but what I really love about this is that all the people behind him who’s view he’s blocking are smiling and just seem to be really happy for him.” 16. Love That Lasts… ... posted on Jul 13 2015 (139,210 reads)

I would meet the same troubles of debilitating homesickness. But I found the campus greenhouse. I spent every waking moment between classes there, potting, pruning, watering. And I got through. I still went home twice each month. I told my friends I was needed on the farm. The truth was that I needed the farm. I hid that truth with shame. We called it homesickness, and I saw it as my great weakness. But in How to Raise a Wild Child, Dr. Scott D. Sampson gives it another name: topophilia, a love of place. And he asserts it is the key to restoring sustainability on our planet. As chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and host of the PBS KIDS television series Dinosau... posted on Sep 3 2015 (17,204 reads)

you keep a food journal. If you want to exercise more, you use a step counter. Another one is accountability. Most people do better when someone is holding them accountable…. For some people, it’s essential. It’s the critical piece of allowing them to change their habits. [Another is] the strategy of scheduling. Put something on your schedule, and it’s more likely to get done. One that I took for granted — it seems so obvious to me but many people really loved it — is the strategy of pairing: when you pair something that you like to do with a habit that you perhaps don’t enjoy as much. Very often people will pair going on the treadmill or ... posted on Sep 6 2015 (19,988 reads)

64-year-old, a former senior officer at the State Bank of India, talks about his disabled and wounded dogs like a father about his children—with the same love, affection, warmth, and tenderness. He is a renowned animal rights activist, the Secretary at People for Animals (PFA), Ahmedabad chapter, and an honorary Animal Welfare Officer. But nothing defines Mahendra better that his immense, undying and undiluted love for animals. It was this love that led him to establish India’s first shelter home for dogs living with disabilities. Today, in Ahmedabad, there are 25 happy dogs living comfortably in his shelter. It all started in 1998 when, while taking a midnight stroll, ... posted on Jan 11 2016 (14,392 reads)

developed its own version of what has been called the Golden Rule – always treat all others as you would wish to be treated yourself – and insisted that this is the core of faith and the test of true religion, taking precedence over all other beliefs and practices; they have also insisted that we cannot confine our benevolence to those we find congenial. We must have what one of the Chinese sages called jian ai, “concern for everybody.” We are to honour the stranger, love even our enemies, and reach out to all tribes and nations. If practised assiduously – “all day and every day”, as Confucius said – we begin to appreciate our profound inte... posted on Feb 16 2016 (15,594 reads)

but sometimes he would say ‘it’s enough already’. “And it is, it’s enough already. For the sake of our children, and our children’s children, we, each of us, have to now stand up and be counted.” Inside the mind of Lawrence Bloom If I could rule the world, I would… help people to understand the intimate connection we have with each other and the planet. If I help another it is not an act of love or even service, in the same way as if I hurt my finger and heal it. It is the simple recognition that I am healing my own body. Also this is truly a realm of love. Every act is either a gift of ... posted on Mar 19 2016 (11,798 reads)

was if my mom asked me to do it. I was so desperate for my independence that I built walls about a mile high and a mile in every direction. Plus thorns. Plus moats. Plus crocodiles (with fangs). Sometime in college, when distance gave me the space the walls had meant to create, I began to take them down; brick by tedious brick. I wish I could say it was for my mom’s sake, or even for my dad who asked me frequently to be nicer. But it was for my own sake. I knew that my mom loved me, and I knew that I loved her too. It felt absolutely terrible to be jerk to her. But jerk is exactly what I was, because the things that came out of my mouth jerked out faster than I had any ... posted on May 5 2016 (24,214 reads)

to the subject of resistance to oppression, Le Guin invokes the memorable words of the poet and onetime slave Phillis Wheatley, who wrote in 1774: “In every human Breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance.” Le Guin considers the discomfiting paradox at the heart of this abiding truth: All that is good in the institutions and politics of my country rests on it. And yet I see that though we love freedom we are mostly patient of oppression, and even refuse deliverance. I see a danger in insisting that our love of freedom always outweighs whatever force or inertia keeps us from resistin... posted on May 7 2016 (9,642 reads)

survived. Those iconic images of the astronauts bouncing on the Moon obscure the alcoholism and depression on Earth. Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk, asked during the time of Apollo, "What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?" And what can we gain by the right to marry if we are not able to cross the acrimony and emotional distance that so often separates us from our love? And not just in marriage. I have seen the most hurtful, destructive, tragic infighting in LGBT and AIDS and breast cancer and non-profit activism, all in the name of lov... posted on Sep 7 2016 (15,253 reads)

a regenerative effect that can build all the way into eternity. Last year, I was asked to join President Obama’s advisory council for addressing poverty and inequality. Quite an honor, and I was happy to serve. At our first White House meeting, we did an introductory circle around the question -- What gives you hope? Before I could think up something smart to say, it was already my turn to speak. And this is what spontaneously came to my mind, "Well, what gives me hope is love. What gives me hope is reading the NY Times story of how one person paid for coffee for the person behind her in line, and 226 people followed suit. Two hundred and twenty six people were volunta... posted on May 31 2016 (48,619 reads)

special child named Binny was the recipient of extraordinary love and care by software engineer Aditya Tiwari. On January 1, 2016, Aditya made history by becoming the youngest single adoptive parent in the country — he adopted Binny. This is the story of his long struggle against the system to bring Binny home. Being blessed with a child with disabilities is an experience that brings unique gifts and challenges. Not all parents are able to embrace both the joy and struggle of raising these special children. Binny was born in a rich family. But they abandoned him because of his special condition. On March 16, 2014, a child was born to a well-to-d... posted on Jun 14 2016 (17,174 reads)

At the time, prevailing wisdom was that if a female attempted to cover this distance, she would likely die in the process. But Gibb harbored an unshakable self-belief—and she knew she had to try. In her own words, here is Gibb’s incredible story of her two-year journey—one that took her across the country and back again before she became the very first woman to cross the Boston Marathon’s finish line. Bobbi’s Story I always loved to run even as a little kid—I would just take off across a green field. Sometimes, I used to go up in the woods and run with the neighborhood dogs. I loved the sense of runn... posted on Jun 23 2016 (25,065 reads)

masters or Jan Steen or just looking at how they portray human joy, and just looking carefully at the aesthetic portrayal of emotion. Again, my dad was an artist. In this very unusual home that was full of these radical ideas, I was a born scientist. In first grade, I got second prize in the cake-baking contest, with my cake that was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. All these young girls got first and third and fourth prizes, and I claimed second prize with a little cake of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. I loved dinosaurs. I pathologically used to keep track of scores of baseball. For a year, I played solitaire and wrote down every outcome of every hand that I got. I had them in little booklets. My m... posted on Nov 4 2016 (30,437 reads)

politeness. He breaks in, corners the teacher and asks, "What is the essence of truth?" The teacher studies him for a moment, slaps him hard and returns to his book. The stunned man goes to a tavern across the road, complaining loudly about his mistreatment. Finally, one of the teacher's disciples takes pity on him, and explains: "The teacher slapped you out of great kindness. He was saying, 'Never surrender a good question for a mere answer.'"  I have loved questions all my life, in different ways. I've loved them out of curiosity and I've loved them out of the hunger for good conversations and I've loved them out of desperation. I'... posted on Aug 1 2016 (19,006 reads)