Hunter Pence Reads Gandhi (plus more)

Recently, I've devoted lots of time to trying to help the Western Park Residents Council get organized. We've made some good progress. I now hope to return to writing more, as I continue to drive taxi full-time, hoping to largely retire from cab driving soon. But since my last post here, I have been able to make the following posts to Wade's Wire.

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Hunter Pence Reads Gandhi 

The spiritual leader of the San Francisco Giants baseball team, right fielder Hunter Pence, is known as “The Reverend.” His teammates gave him that nickname after his memorable 2012 clubhouse speech behind closed doors that helped inspire the team to overcome a two-game deficit and win three games on the road to move on toward their eventual World Series victory. That speech prompted the Giants to include his teammates recreating it in their video celebrating the World Series.

Then at the end of the 2014 season on the way to another World Series, Pence gave an incredible speech to a full house of Giants fans at their ballpark.

Now it turns out, as reported yesterday in “He Might Be Giant: A Day in the Life of Hunter Pence,” Pence gets his own inspiration by reading Mahatma Gandhi and The Five Levels of Attachment: Toltec Wisdom for the Modern World by Miguel Ruiz....

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My Community Organizing (Part One) 

As a child, I organized softball games. In high school, I formed a chess club. As an undergraduate, I served in most of the elected leadership positions at our 90-person student co-op at the University of California at Berkeley (where I got my Social Sciences degree). My last semester at Cal, I was nominated and elected to serve as Co-Coordinator of the experimental 150-student Residence College. Those experiences provided me with a valuable sense of community.

My first taste of deep community, however, was the civil rights movement....

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We-Facilitation

The opencollaboration blog  is a stimulating resource. Today’s post, New paradigms of leadership : from leader to facilitator to we-facilitator, is no exception. However, as reflected by my comment that follows their essay, which I posted on their blog, I have some disagreement....

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Being Present and Presence

An essay in today’s Times by Lawrence Berger fascinated me. Titled “Being There: Heidegger on Why Our Presence Matters,” it explores what it means to be “fully human” by comparing the approach of cognitive scientists with the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger....

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Our Purpose 

We take care of ourselves, our families, our communities, our nation, all humanity, and the planet in order to take care of Life itself. Each arena is equally important. To promote the common good of the Earth Community, we need to work in each simultaneously. We need to love ourselves, others, and Life at the same time.

If we neglect one arena, we become unbalanced, less than whole, with a hole in our soul. If we forget why we do what we do, we lose meaning.

It’s not a question of what comes first. We cannot change ourselves without changing the world, and we cannot change the world without changing ourselves. We need to do both at the same time, while avoiding both selfishness and self-sacrifice. Being selfless involves less self, not the denial of self.

Life seeks to survive and evolve. Our calling is to contribute to human evolution.

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ABC of Life

A sculpture by Stephen Schlanser. Text by Evelin Hyde.
Each line begins with a letter of the alphabet.

ACHIEVE HAPPINESS
BELIEVE IN HUMANITY
CELEBRATE LIFE
DISCOVER THE MOMENT
EMBRACE DIVERSITY
FIND LOVE
GIVE UNCONDITIONALLY
HAVE PATIENCE
INSPIRE OTHERS
JUDGE NO ONE
KEEP GOALS
LAUGH OFTEN
MANAGE ANGER
NOTICE MODESTY
OFFER UNDERSTANDING
PLAY FOR FUN
QUESTION EVERYTHING
REALIZE DREAMS
SPEAK TRUTH
TRUST YOURSELF
UNDERSTAND DIFFERENCES
VISUALIZE PEACE
WAKEN CURIOSITY
XXXOOO
YEARN FOR PROGRESS
ZEALOUSLY LIVE LIFE

Found in the office of Rebecca Crabb, Ph. D.