i have just [finally] finished reading 'Community' by Peter Block. It has taken me a while - and i did sneak in a three-day reading of Neil Gaiman's 'Anansi Boys' just as something a little quicker and lighter - but it was overall a good and thoroughly challenging read and i feel like it has inspired me to think differently about a number of things. The book 'Community' is included in the pack of [...]
i am busy reading the book Community - The Structure of Belonging, by Peter Block. It is very similar to The Art of Possibility which i read recently and shared some thoughts from over here - by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander - in theme at least, but it is a little more of a dense book, requiring multiple rereadings of paragraphs and sections. But i am enjoying it. Particularly the invitation to [...]
Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of Life during Lockdown where Beauty Bokwani will be telling us a little bit about herself and her experiences. Let's start with her bio:My name is Beauty Bokwani. I'm the owner of Zoe Educare in Extention 13 Belhar. I love to tell stories; writing children's stories memoirs, and poetry.Question 1: What has your experience of lockdown been so far?"My fellow South Africans..." This was how the president introduced [...]
A lot of people hate social media - and with good reason. Those bridge lurkers have ruined it for us. But it is important to remember that social media in itself cannot be good or bad. It is simply a tool. People use tools for good or bad. And i have a deep-seated theory that 'People tend towards stupid' which is why some tools have warnings that look something like this: Which [...]
The other day i wrote a poem titled 'to them who have ears' and just thinking about it a little more today, have dubbed it a choir poem - as in those who get what it's about and who agree will totally be reading and nodding and cheering and liking and sharing... but those who don't, are unlikely to even read it and if they somehow do, unlikely to understand the point trying to be made... [...]
well, not really, but i think the permanent ADT guard who lives in a little wooden hut across from my buddy Dunc's house where i stay may be suspecting that's what i do... purely for the number of different cars of all shapes and sizes that he has seen me drive into 2 Smithers Road over the last two months... i am always friendly and i always wave at him [or hims, because i think [...]
this is also my 800th blog post altho that is completely irrelevant but a nice round number nonetheless... so if you are reading this, then by now you know that myself and tbV are heading to Oakland, California to work with Common Change, and you also probably have some idea of what our specific roles with CC look like, and so the last thing i want to comment on is the support aspect. Val and [...]
so this is the last of the ten ways to Love and it might be good to mention again that i got these on a list and just expounded on them - this was originally number 4 but i bumped it to the end, not because it is any less important but because the others were more relevant to everyone whereas this one is specific to people of faith... Colossians 1.9 reads, 'For this reason, [...]
this is a long psalm, with much stuff in it, but i am just going to focus on one or two things: 'He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.' [vs 34] when i was young, in a galaxy far far away, there was a song we used to sing that went like this: 'it is God who trains my hands for battle, my arms can bend a bow [...]
and on to psalm 14: 'The fool says in his heart, "There is no God!" [vs.1] as Mr T's B.A. Baracus from the A-Team would say, "I pity the fool!" and that's an apt combination of thoughts. and 'pity' has such strongly negative connotations where what i feel when i look at friends lives who do not know God and are going through stuff and trying to carry it all by themselves is totally a [...]
