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ISSN: 1530-5775
February 2012, Vol.14 #2

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THIS MONTH:
Poetry   Poetry Corner

 

This is a "legacy poem" from our August 2010 issue and another of our most popular poets, Frances Arnett Sbrocchi. 
	
	

Where water falls



      	
Where water falls
dark banks deepen
twisted roots curve 
braiding together
to hold back the earth

Deep caverns fill
and the river rat
finds new dwelling places

In dank reaches
black bats gather

The otters seek new sandbars
for their morning toilet

The black bear picks his way
more carefully climbs to a ledge
where wild raspberries
ripen in August heat

Frances Arnett Sbrocchi

 

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God is on Your Side

God's Role In The Development of Personal Growth

 

When you look at personal growth and personal change you look at where you are and where you want to go. A question that always occurs is that of God. Where do you fit in God's realm? What element does God play in your personal growth and personal change? What or who is God? How do you know God is real? Do you need to understand the bible forward and backwards? Are you a better individual for believing in God? For how much of your personal growth and personal change can you rely on God to develop?

The answers to these questions may go a long way in aiding in your personal growth and personal change. What does God have in store for you? What is the expectation of your lifestyle? What is the purpose of your life?

If you examine each and every religion all over the world you'll discover that each has their own solutions to these inquiries and these folks are mainly all diverse. You'll realize that faith is something you need to depend upon to fill in the blanks.

In the old testament of the Christian bible, faith is what Daniel used once he was put in the lion's den and came out unscathed. It's such a phenomenal story that we are either disbelieve the story or we admire Daniel's relationship with God. If the story is real, what could possibly be the rationalization of a man put in a den of lions that are accustomed to eating people compared to what religion desires us to believe?

Is it possible that there is one more rationalization? I suspect so. I lately witnessed a equivalent event. It had nothing to do using lions but it did have to do with wasps and being on a roof. When it comes to bees a lot folks keep and stay away from them. And a lot of us have been stung by a bee at one time or another--a thing we undoubtedly want to keep away from. We admire bee keepers and have noticed them in their protective suits. And naturally we've noticed somebody where there is no a protective suit close to a bee hive. Certainly, there are many folks who understand how to manage bees--honey bees. But how about wasps?

A fellow I lately hired to install Waterloov gutter guards was on a roof removing some gutter covers to repair. I was nearby on a ladder and noticed a wasp nest about 5 in. in diameter with about a dozen wasps flying about under the gutter cover panels he needed to remove.

I've worked near wasps nests before and observed that as long as I leave them alone, they leave me alone, but this nest had to be removed in order to finish the repair. I descended the ladder to ask the homeowner if she had any bee spray to kill them. She had none and as I returned to inform my new installer that we had a problem I noticed him holding the gutter cover panel in hand with the wasp nest still attached. He took his other hand using a pry bar and merely knocked the wasp nest to the ground.

I expected to see him running away with dozens of wasps chasing him but instead he stood pretty motionless on the roof with a dozen wasps simply flying about him in confusion. He went on about his work and finished his work with no incident. If I hadn't seen this first hand I may have had trouble believing what I had seen.

Later on I asked him if he had ever been stung and he said that he's been working with gutters for fourteen years and never been stung. I was stung two times just last year in my back yard. Was it his belief in God that keeps him from getting stung? He's not even religious and has no emotions about God one way or the other. What could explain his skills with wasps and Daniel's experience with the lions? Naturally my employee is not the only individual who has been in incredibly harmful situations. There are guys who get in bath tubs filled with rattle snakes. But a lot of these snake handlers at one time or another have been bitten by a snake unlike Daniel who wasn't assaulted by the lions and my guy who has by no means been stung.

What could explain their experiences? I imagine it is in the character of God. You don't have to believe in God, in truth God doesn't give a damn whether or not you believe in God or not. And God is very amazing. And guess what? It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in God or not. Your personal growth and personal change can solely be thwarted if you possess confusions about your relationship with God.

So who is God? Rather than who, let's look at what God is. I'm talking about the ultimate God. This is the God of Christians, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Vodun, Scientology, Catholicism, and every other known religion there is believing in a higher supremacy or God. To answer this, its important to look at what we understand to be factual. If God is omnipotent would he/she/it be stupid about details like arithmetic? I don't think so. We by no means think of God be a mathematician, do we? May he be stupid about details like chemistry? Or physics? Or Biology? Or Probability? In simple fact, if everyone had the solutions to all the problems we don't have, it would be God. And maybe that's because God is the laws of mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, and probability.

And guess what? These laws govern each and every living and non living thing. God is in each and every one and each and every thing. God is in the mosquito that we hate and the hummingbird we admire. Humans are the most sophisticated manifestation of God. After all we possess a better comprehension of mathematics, physics, probability, and biology compared to any other animal on this planet. When and if we absolutely understand all these laws of nature we'll know how Daniel survived the lion's den and why the new fellow who works for me could stand on the roof with a dozen indignant wasps flying about him to name just two enigmas. We'll also understand things like deja vous, Edgar Cayce, clairvoyance, esp, the ability to bend metal spoons mentally, life after death, and so on.

There are no subliminal communications from any deity or God informing you what to do with your life or what your aspirations are. Your goals are whatever you choose them to be. Your personal development and personal change is what you make it to be. There is no good and there is no bad. There is no right and there is no wrong. There are merely a lot of different ways of looking at the same thing. The goal is to choose the choices with the lowest psychological and physical cost while being responsible to God. Certainly, it is possible to murder, cheat, and pillage, but these possibilities possess large penalties and are not responsible to God in promoting well being and health.

It's important to also understand that God is in the tornado, the earth quake, the tsunami, Bin Laden, Moammar Gadhafi, your monk or clergy man, your mother, father, our President, politicians, and so on--absolutely everyone and each and every thing. Naturally we have our likes and our dislikes and when the tornado tears down our residence it's up to every one of us to determine a way of getting through it and hopefully profiting from it for personal growth and personal change.

We'd all like to imagine that if we declare our allegiance to God, that he could be pulling for us. That he cares what occurs to us. And that he'll be there in times of need. Naturally this is so. For as you declare your allegiance to God you are declaring your allegiance to you--God. And you undoubtedly care what occurs to you and you undoubtedly want to be creative in times of need. And you are not alone! Your friends, family, and quite a few acquaintances (all God) also care what occurs to you.

In summary, don't let your personal growth or personal change plan get bogged down hanging around waiting for subliminal messages from God. As you are the manifestation of the laws of chemistry, mathematics, probability, and biology, you are God. Learn to listen you yourself.

 

Richard Kuhns. NGH certified has self help mp3 downloads for personal change and personal growth at http://www.DstressDoc.com find a sense of self worth at http://www.SelfEsteemCure.com and SelfEsteemCure.com for weight loss.

 

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Fly Away

Not For Sale
Stop Human Trafficing
from NotForSaleCampaign.org

Across the world, more than 30 million people live in slavery today. Human Trafficking has become the fastest growing criminal industry on the globe, yet a new wave of Modern-Day Abolitionists are taking action to combat it.

Not For Sale creates tools that engage business, government, and grassroots in order to incubate and grow social enterprises to benefit enslaved and vulnerable communities.

Every individual has a skill they can contribute to free those living in bondage, and together, we can end slavery in our lifetime.

I am not for sale. You are not for sale. NO ONE should be for sale. Welcome to the movement.

    1. There are more than 30 million people currently enslaved in the world.
    2. No one should be for sale.
    3. Every single person has a skill that they can give to free an individual living in bondage.

Get information on Domestic violence and violence against women at LadybugBooks.com

We invite any of you to contribute on this subject. We feel it is important to continue the discussion of domestic violence.

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We are looking for your stories remembering women's history. Send in your story and we will publish it.

A site about Extraordinary Women Around the World

Women Exceptional Women are Our History and Our Future:

A New Ambassador Against World Hunger
Ertharin Cousin serves as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies in Rome.

 

This is a blog post about hunger in her own voice, posted at the US Department of State Blog. We think Ertharin Cousin will do well at the World Food Programme.

Improved Nutrition, Agricultural Development Helps Bring Hondurans Out of Poverty and Hunger

Posted by Ertharin Cousin / January 06, 2012

One of the most exciting moments in my recent media tour of U.S. and UN food security projects in Honduras came in the middle of a lush vegetable field in the township of Las Pavas. Surrounded by lettuce, broccoli, carrots and radishes, Nora Diaz told me that thanks to their home garden, her family -- unlike many in Honduras -- was able to stay together.

As part of the USAID ACCESSO initiative that targets 18,000 poor rural households in Honduras, the Diaz family was given assistance in the form of training, fertilizer, seed, and irrigation that allowed them to grow better and more nutritious food for their family. It also allowed them to produce a surplus that can be sold to generate income. Thanks to this, Mr. Diaz did not need to leave his family in search of work in the city, or abroad.

Mario Corea Pineda has gone a step further. He is a small farmer -- a carrot producer -- who, with the support of the ACCESSO program, has been able to improve the quality of his carrots so that they now meet market requirements, and are readily sold.

In my role as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Food and Agriculture agencies in Rome, I went to Honduras accompanied by five journalists from Central and South America to see the work the United States and the UN Food and Agriculture agencies are doing in the field. For me it is an opportunity to hear from U.S. and UN staff on the ground about their challenges and successes and, more importantly, from the people such as Nora and Mario, who benefit from the programs.

For the journalists who accompany me -- in this case all young and eager -- the tours are a precious opportunity to learn hands-on about what the United States is doing to improve food security through USAID and the Feed the Future program, and how its strong financial support of UN agencies such as the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is improving the lives of poor and hungry rural families in the region.

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, with 65 percent of Hondurans living in poverty. It is sparsely populated and, as we discovered in just two days driving through the countryside, many rural communities are very isolated. It took us two hours driving on unpaved back-roads through beautiful, mostly uninhabited green hills, and past very primitive isolated homes, to reach the town of Reitoca. There, very much in the middle of nowhere, is a lively town of 1,000 people with a committed mayor and Municipal Grain Bank supported by FAO.

The Grain Bank has changed the lives of the farmers of Reitoca. They now have a communal facility in which to store their maize and beans so they can weather fluctuations of price and times of scarcity. The Bank buys grains at harvest time, when prices are low, and loans grains to needy families when prices rise, contingent on their commitment to use sustainable agricultural practices and evidence of shortages in the household.

In the hills of Reitoca, we also met with a farmer involved in a FAO project that is making a difference in rural mountain communities. Local famer Celso Sierra, dressed for the occasion in a brand-new shirt and shiny silver cowboy hat, explained how the agro-forestry techniques FAO advocates have enabled him to produce more, and in an environmentally sustainable way. "Now I re-harvest my own seed, I have planted trees to prevent soil erosion, and my maize yield has increased to four tons per hectare!" Celso Sierra told me.

WFP is the UN's "first response" organization for emergencies around the globe, providing timely food relief to areas hit by disasters as well as preventing hunger through programs to help communities become more food secure. In Honduras we visited a site that combined both of these roles. In Los Llanitos, a town hit by a flood last October, we observed WFP's School Feeding program in action. WEP's School Feeding program provides meals to school children, ensuring they get at least one nutritious meal a day and serving as an incentive for families to send their children to school.

Of the many promising projects that are making a difference in Honduras, the FAO/WFP organized urban gardens in the capital of Tegucigalpa were particularly striking. On the edges of an already poor city sit the colonias, or slums. In the heart of this slum of wood and tin shacks and mud, where there is no running water, vegetables are growing in the most unexpected places: truck tires, buckets, hanging coke bottles, suspended hammocks of plastic. 347 of these home gardens have been created in five poor city neighborhoods, providing women with vegetables, a sense of pride and accomplishment, and a community group. Twenty-year-old Zullema Ulloa, her best dress and heels contrasting with the shack behind her, told me how this garden made her feel good. "I not only spend less on these foods, and save money, but I am also contributing to the household economy, in addition to taking care of my son," she said.

All the projects we saw are making a difference. Now we must scale them up, so more people can participate and benefit, and ultimately break free of assistance. To do this we must work in partnership with UN agencies, NGOs, and national governments to ensure they invest in agricultural development and in women as well as promote involvement by the private sector. I was encouraged in Honduras by the active participation of the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Jacobo Ragalado, who I thank, along with my fellow U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kubiske for accompanying us enthusiastically on the tour, as well as by the eagerness of the representatives of the U.S. government and the UN agencies to strengthen their work in the future.

And I am happy to know that Nora Diaz, her two children, and her husband will be together this year.

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