What a long week that was…
Yesterday morning, in addition to our coffee shop meeting, “the crew” [as the barista calls us], went to Frank’s for breakfast. It was a small diner, close to central campus but quiet. I love diners [the Wolverine is my favorite in Ypsi] & I’ll definitely be back.
Frank's
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At our GROCS meeting yesterday, we had the chance to go into the carillon on North Campus and play the bells. One of the groups is exploring how to create spaces with the bells & the music. Together as a group, we helped to play a piece of music. Each of us had a bell to toll – which bell and the number of times it was tolled was determined from information we got in the local obituaries. It was beautiful & felt sacred to be remembering someone’s life.
I put some photos & a video on Flickr.
Lurie Tower & Carillon
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I absolutely love these Nerd Merit Badges, especially the “zero inbox” & “homonyms” badges.
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Today begins the ‘season of nonviolence,’ something I learned about from the church we attended before we moved. It begins each year on January 30th [the anniversary of Gandhi's assassination] & ends on April 4th [the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination]. This site has a daily practice for each of the 64 days of the season which will help to cultivate nonviolence.
This is a good time for me to reflect on the lives of these two men & to try to incorporate more peace into my life. Lately I’ve been disillusioned – with blogging, with school, with technology & with living my life at an ever faster pace. A lot of times I just want to leave it all behind, move to a simple cabin in the mountains & live a quiet life. But as luxurious as that sounds, I realize I can’t. My freshman year in college, while in New York City working in soup kitchens for spring break, I realized that the reason I had been given so much in my life was because I needed to give it back & work on behalf of those who don’t have as much. My life is dedicated to that simple realization. Most times I feel like I’m not doing enough, not helping enough, not changing enough; but, if I work hard enough, I hope that some day I will have affected change.
My duty moves along with my song:
I am I am not: that is my destiny.
I exist not if I do not attend to the pain
of those who suffer: they are my pains.
For I cannot be without existing for all,
for all who are silent and oppressed,
I come from the people and I sing for them:
my poetry is song and punishment.
I am told: you belong to darkness.
Perhaps, perhaps, but I walk toward the light.
I am the man of bread and fish
and you will not find me among books
but with women and men:
they have taught me the infinite.
[Pablo Neruda - So is My Life]
