The Uses of Sorrow

[ from inward/outward ]

Mary Oliver

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

Source: Thirst

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Words Matter

"Words not only convey something, but are something; words have color, depth, texture of their own, and the power to evoke vastly more than they mean; words can be used not merely to make things clear, make things vivid, make things interesting and whatever else, but to make things happen inside the one who reads them or hears them."

- Frederick Buechner's English teacher, Mr. Martin

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Sustainable Sanitation

Bulgarian organization Earth Forever has as one of it's areas of interest how to handle the problem of so much water being used to dispose of human waste. Their solution? Don't use any...

Their Mission: "We consider our mission to promote community sustainable development through proper environmental management, efficient economic practice, social justice."

You can check out their research here.

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The Real Thing

[ from inward/outward ]

Alessandro Pronzato

The crowded bus, the long queue, the railway platform, the traffic jam, the neighbor's television sets, the heavy-footed people on the floor above you, the person who still keeps getting the wrong number on your phone. These are the real conditions of your desert. Do not allow yourself to be irritated. Do not try to escape. Do not postpone your prayer. Kneel down. Enter that disturbed solitude. Let your silence be spoiled by those sounds. It is the beginning of your desert.

Source: Meditations on the Sand

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So Much for "No Copies"

Two brothers in Wisconsin recently bowled perfect 300 games whilst playing for the same team in the same game.

Ed and Tom Shircel are both decent bowlers with a combined 10 perfect games to their credit, but they never imagined anything like this.

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Facing the World with a New Face

Details of the first almost-complete face transplant from a dead donor performed in the United States have emerged.

Eight specialists transplanted bone, muscle, blood vessels and nerves in the 22-hour operation in Cleveland, Ohio.

After such transplants, the new face does not look like the donor because its shape is altered by the muscles and bones of the patient's face.

But some experts have warned of possible psychological side-effects which may include remorse, disappointment, or grief and guilt towards the donor.

The hope is that as this procedure becomes more commonplace, people who avoid others due to their appearance may have an option to help them feel better about themselves.

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Women At Risk

Women At Risk International is an organization whose aim is fighting "gendercide".

THE PROBLEM
UNVEILING THE HIDDEN GENDERCIDE is our goal. Every 2-4 years the world looks away from a victim count on the scale of Hitler�s Holocaust. Women face nothing short of a �Hidden Gendercide��114 to 200 million women are �demographically missing� from dowry deaths, infanticide, domestic violence and all manner of risk. (UN Secretary General).

THE SOLUTION
OUR PASSION is to give voice to the silenced cries of women of the world who flow through our projects, creating circles of protection and hope. We offer a safe place to turn crisis into a story of hope by wrapping arms of love and whispering the message of worth.

Check out the W.A.R. Chest online shop.

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It Was a Good Week After All

I read recently where one non-chemical way to doze off gracefully is to lay in bed thinking of all that you have been blessed with.

There is a group on Flickr called "52 Blessings" who encourage their members to upload a photo once a week for a year for what they have been blessed by in their lives that week. If you're intentional about looking for it, you'll have a better chance of finding it.

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69 Marathons for Pauline

A British woman has just completed her 69th marathon - on her 69th birthday.

Pauline Newsholme of Devon began long distance running in 1982, to raise money for a children's charity after her young daughter, Clare, was paralyzed following complications from measles. Clare recovered and Pauline continued to run for charity.

Her latest marathon was in Edinburgh, and she has raised about �20,000 so far. "I may be at the age when most grannies are taking it easy, but not me," she said. "I'm not ready to hang up my running shoes just yet."

Go, granny, go.

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The Blue Man Group is Green

They never say a word, do some pretty strange things on stage to make music and get you to ask "How'd they do that?" All in all, they come across as relatively harmless and it turns out, they respect the planet. [read more]

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Rocco Come Home!

Five years after running away from his home in Queens, N.Y., a beagle named Rocco was reunited with his owners after he turned up 850 miles away. Thanks to a microchip embedded in his skin, the Liberty County Animal Control in Hinesville, Ga. revealed that he belonged to the Villacis family.



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A Night in the Boiler Room

Our house church had the opportunity to learn more about a neighborhood ministry known as the stockbridge boiler room, which was featured in a local newspaper article yesterday. One of the three interns and a friend came over to talk with us about his life's journey and how he ended up where he's at now. Then we walked to the house for a quick tour and an hour of prayer and worship. We met some awesome people doing some great things - I guess you had to be there.

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Rescue Deja Vu

A Chinese man is being hailed as a hero for diving into a pond to save a drowning 7-year-old boy - 20 years after he jumped into the same pond to save the boy's father. Wang Weiqing, 58, sprang into action when he saw the child struggling in the water as he walked past. Only when the boy's grandfather arrived did the two men recall their previous encounter two decades earlier.

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On Death and Dying

Today would have been my mom�s 73rd birthday � if she hadn�t died 3 weeks ago. Mom had been under hospice care for 9 months, living in a nursing home. I was able to be with her when she died and I gained a great appreciation for those who provide comfort to the dying. I held her hand, wiped the sweat from her brow, stroked her hair and told her it was okay.

Earlier in the day, she had become fixated on a screw head holding up the bulletin board next to her bed. She wasn�t able to speak well at this point so we weren�t able to figure out why she was staring at it and rubbing it with her fingers. Did she see it as part of the gate into heaven, the face of Jesus, a shining light, or simply a point at which to focus while she put herself into a meditative state. I�d like to believe it was all of the above. When she finally fell asleep, I kept watching her chest moving up and down with her shallow breaths, the only indication I had that she was still there.

I sat next to the bed reading and 90 minutes later, she gave a heavy sigh with her voice and her last breath. I know that there were many others that would have wanted to be with her at the end, but I view it as one of the greatest gifts I have been given, to be alone with her, just like when I was born.

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Reverse Graffiti

What if instead of spraying paint on public property to form images, you instead wiped off years of grime to reveal the clean walls of a tunnel? That's exactly what Alexandre Orion did in a S�o Paulo street tunnel: He wasn't painting city property, he was cleaning it. For over two weeks last year, the Brazilian artist selectively scrubbed soot from the tunnel until the white surface underneath stared through as a cemetery's worth of skulls.

Every night he worked, the reverse graffiti artist says, he had at least five encounters with state police or the city traffic department. They sound less than pleasant.

"The S�o Paulo state police are usually very forceful, often holding guns trained on my face, and shouting very loudly," he says. "When they had confirmed that I really was cleaning, they eased the authoritarian attitude and lowered their guns, a few smiled hesitantly, made a few remarks among themselves, and there were even a few words of support."

The only way the city could put a stop to this inconvenient spoof was to beat Orion at his own game. Early in the morning of July 26, they washed the skulls away. When he kept working on the rest of the tunnel, they washed the whole thing. Then, for good measure, they washed all the other tunnels in the city. Check out his clean getaway:



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