Proud.

The director of Neal's Yard Dairy, David Lockwood, explains his cheese selection process ...

When I'm selecting, I take the ones that we at Neal's Yard Dairy will do best with.  There's a bit of variation in there, I think that the cheeses, even if they are different, are all cheeses that I'm proud to have on the counter.

Gratitude.

FDNY Engine 28 Firefighter Mike Kehoe headed up on September 11, 2001.

In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Remember.

Remember Kabul ...

Remember Benghazi ...

Strive.

And yet what precisely is this "greatness"? Just where, or in what, does it lie? I am quite aware it would take a far wiser head than mine to answer such a question, but if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart. What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it ...

There will always be, I realize, those who would claim that any attempt to analyse greatness as I have been doing is quite futile. "You know when somebody’s got it and you know when somebody hasn’t,’"Mr Graham’s argument would always be. "Beyond that there’s nothing much you can say." But I believe we have a duty not to be so defeatist in this matter. It is surely a professional responsibility for all of us to think deeply about these things so that each of us may better strive towards attaining "dignity" for ourselves.

Kazuo Ishiguro, from The Remains of the Day

Content.

From a 19th century English servant's prayer book ...

Almighty Father, who alone art wise, yea wisdom itself, make me to feel that in thy providence thou ordereth all things for the best, and grant that I may be able to be satisfied with the station of which thou hast placed me, not envying those that are richer and higher than I, but content to be poor and lonely in this world.

Remember.

Remember Kabul ...

Remember Benghazi ...

Willing.

It is obvious that here in the USA manual labor doesn’t count anymore; it’s devalued and not honored. Not only when it comes to cooking, also the carpenter, the mechanic, the plumber, the farmer, the gardener and the seamstresses are affected by this. Their knowledge and craft are devaluated. We don’t have time for all those things anymore. We are too busy earning money at often uninteresting jobs. If people were to do more simple, down-to-earth activities like gardening, sewing or cooking they would feel more satisfied and fulfilled, more connected. You won’t get this from watching television. Working with our hands nourishes us. It doesn’t matter, if you cook or do garden work, it will give you a feeling of being connected to the world. You work with the things of this world. Today, if you are a successful person, you hire a cook, a housekeeper, you buy your clothes and somebody buys your food. Nobody touches a broom anymore to sweep the floor. What are hands for? To put chips in your mouth and punch the remote?

What passes for spiritual is following your breath; being mindful. But, as soon as someone starts to practice mindfulness, they apply the same rules, of what I call “the horizontal world” to it. I like to think of the horizontal world where things are compared to other things. “How good is your cooking? Are you a success?” The vertical world is “Show up. Do your best. Be sincere.” You bring your energy and your gifts from beyond this world. That’s my model for what’s spiritual. 

This is something that Dogen emphasized for the cook, being sincere and wholehearted. We’re so involved in this horizontal world. It’s also the world of what I would call performance. In that sense, my encouragement is to shift from performance to a world of presence. You respond to the world as it’s arising and take care of it. You do what you can to bring out the best in others and yourself. But, bringing out the best does not mean that at the end you compare your best to other people’s best and see whose best is better. If you do that, you’re back in the horizontal world. 

At the end of the day, rather than cooking to gain praise, acknowledgment, gratitude or appreciation, you’re cooking, in the spiritual sense, to make an offering from beyond, from the divine, from the source. You’re making an offering to this world.

Edward Espe Brown

They still seemed so willing to carry tea and water ...

Servitude.

All life is servitude. And so a man must become reconciled to his lot, must complain of it as little as possible, and must lay hold of whatever good it may have; no state is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find in its some consolation.  Apply reason to difficulties; it is possible to soften what is hard, to widen what is narrow, and burdens will press less heavily upon those who bear them skillfully.

Seneca

Remember.

Service.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks talks with former Austrailian Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson ...

To see yourself as a victim essentially means to see yourself as powerless. You’ve placed yourself at the hands of the victimizer, the oppressor. Now, you can’t do that. You’re giving away your life.

Freedom means accepting responsibility, and that’s a big leap.

Democracy means abiding by the rules even if you lose. And we’re forgetting that.

When bad things happen to a country or a culture, they can ask one of two questions, and the whole fate of that culture will depend on which of the two they ask. They can ask what did we do wrong, or they can ask who did this to us. If they ask what did we do wrong, then they go through the necessary business of repentance, remorse, whatever it is, putting things right again, and then they go on and they recover.

But when they ask who did this to us, they define themselves as a victim, and any victim must have a victimizer, an oppressor. And when any culture has suffered some kind of major confusion or humiliation, and they say, who did this to us, they are looking for a scapegoat to blame. 



abide (v.)
Old English abidan, gebidan "remain, wait, wait for, delay, remain behind," from ge- completive prefix (denoting onward motion; see a- (1)) + bidan "bide, remain, wait, dwell" (see bide).

Originally intransitive (with genitive of the object: we abidon his "we waited for him"); transitive sense "endure, sustain, stay firm under," also "tolerate, bear, put up with" (now usually with a negative) is from c. 1200. Related: Abided; abiding. The historical conjugation was abide, abode, abidden, but in Modern English the formation generally is weak. Abide with "stay with (someone); live with; remain in the service of" is from c. 1300.

(From the Online Etymology Dictionary)

Thank you, Rachel.

Yes.

When you seek to affirm your unity by denying that you have anything to do with anyone else, by negating everyone else in the universe until you come down to you: what is there left to affirm?

The true way is just the opposite: the more I am able to affirm others, to say “yes” to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I am fully real if my own heart says “yes” to everyone.

Thomas Merton

Serves.

We are all surrounded by generous folks who freely share their lessons, ideas, resources and insights which inspires our own journey, directly or indirectly. 

The critical question then is: If your own journey is inspired by what others shared so generously, how are you making sure that your journey serves as an inspiration for others?

CONNECT

Thank you, Cultural Offering.

Humility.

Brown, Jesus Washing Peter's Feet (detail), 1856

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.

Mother Teresa

Her "How To" on humility ...

1. Speak as little as possible about yourself.

2. Keep busy with your own affairs and not those of others.

3. Avoid being inquisitive.

4. Do not interfere in the affairs of others.

5. Accept small irritations with good humor.

6. Do not dwell on the faults of others.

7. Accept censures even if unmerited.

8. Give in to the will of others.

9. Accept insults and injuries.

10. Accept contempt, being forgotten and disregarded.

11. Be courteous and delicate even when provoked by someone.

12. Do not seek to be admired and loved.

13. Do not protect yourself behind your own dignity.

14. Give in, in discussions, even when you are right.

15. Choose always the more difficult task.