[Oe List ...] New Monk Project

[Herman Greene]

Some of you asked me about the New Monk Project. I finally have something to
send you.

 

Herman

  _____  

From: The New Monk Project [mailto:newmonk at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:37 PM
To: Tim Watson; Sr. Donald Corcoran; Sr. Amala; Ron Free; Rita Ravenhorst;
Pauline Hallam Mason; Nick Guetti; Jon Michael Graznak; Herman Greene; Fr.
John Belloni; Chuck Baroo; Carol Moragas; Beverly Bruck; Barbara
Steinbrenner; Barbara Read; Barbara Henry; alberto dante; Barbara Bishop;
Carolinemyss at aol.com; Gerard Vallone,PhD; Sr. Michelle Guerin, OSU; Weezie
Kinnear, VNM
Subject: Thanksgiving News Update and Memo

 

November 21,2006

Dear New Monk Friends, Old and New

 

     The New Monk Project continues its gradual journey into manifestation
and will soon have its own website.  We are awaiting the final disbursement
of funds from the Platov Estate and will be supporting our newest Vow-Taker,
Jon Graznak, in becoming a certified trainer in Marshall Rosenberg's
Non-Violent Communication.  Jon will be taking his vows on December 16th in
conjunction with a ceremonial sweat lodge presided over by Barbara
Steinbrenner, a pipe-carrier in the Sun Bear tradition.  Jon is taking over
our office and website management this year and is a dynamic addition to our
Founding Crew.  You can learn more about Jon at his website,
<http://www.graznak.com/> www.graznak.com.  

 

Tim Watson, our Board President and Sunder Wells recently attended a 10 day
International Intensive Training in Non-Violent Communication, (see
<http://www.cnvc.org/> www.cnvc.org) and found it life-changing.  Since Sr.
Mariquita's life focus was peace-making and the contemplative life, we know
she would be pleased to see her Now Monks choosing this avenue of work in
the world.

 

We have begun sending out frequent "New Monk Memos" on current topics and
will include the latest one with this News Update.  If you do not wish to
remain on our mailing list, please let us know.  If you did not receive this
via email, and have an email address, please let us know so we may update
our records.  Likewise, if you know of anyone who might wish to be included
in our growing network, please pass our address on to them with an
invitation to contact us.  Our network grows by direct interpersonal
connections.  We want to know the person behind the name and will make every
effort to establish and maintain all our connections on the heart-to-heart
level.  This is our mandate and our challenge in the increasingly impersonal
techno-society.  Whether or not you wish to join our circle, we ask your
prayerful blessings on our work.

 

These words come on the wings of loving wishes for your joy, comfort and
good health as we move toward the Winter Solstice 2006.  

 

 

 

New Monk Memo 

 

On Optimism

 

November 21, 2006

 

"Optimism is the conduit for serendipity" writes Maria Marsten in Wisdom
Magazine ( <http://www.wisdom-magazine.com/> www.wisdom-magazine.com)
Drinking the cup of "Reality" down to its darkest dregs in the past few
years, digesting An Inconvenient Truth, the prophecies of the Mayan Elders,
hearing the political, cultural and economic media's spin doctored version
of life in the U.S.A., I find that optimism becomes the unlikely but
necessary antidote to total despair - not the New Age la-de-da that Mariah
calls a "foolish New Age sugar-coated prophecy of collective awakening" but
something more profound. 

 

We need Optimism that comes out of the other side of experiencing
first-hand, from the center of our expanded transpersonal, heart-mind
selves, the collective sufferings of Mother Earth and all the creatures,
including the very ones whose actions have created and perpetrated this
mountain of psycho-physical pain. 

 

Nothing is transcended that has not been experienced.  The most
compassionate Buddhists say that Bodhisattva is found in hell, that same
realm consciousness to which Jesus descended before his
Resurrection/Transcendence.  This going-through, participation-in experience
is what Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Non-Violent Communication
process, calls empathy and it describes the heart-depth from which all true
change occurs.

 

My Quaker Meeting has been subjected for two years to my heart-felt squeals
of pain and I have questioned the rightness of burdening my Meeting Friends
with the depths of my concern.  My heart became so heavy at times that I
sought medical counsel even though I knew that my pain was spiritual rather
than physiological in origin.  Nevertheless, I was grateful for any remedy
that enabled me to persevere.  I found neediness to be a great remedy for
proud self-sufficiency (Job being a case in point) and an intentional
optimism to be exactly what was needed.

 

Optimism, a consciously engendered reality-oriented, profoundly earned
optimism, is indeed a "conduit to serendipity", but it promises to be much
more.  Optimism is the key that opens the door to the possibility of
resurrection for ourselves and for all creation.  Writes Mariah: "Optimism
used to escape or transcend turmoil is a hollow attempt to disacknowledge
the very 'bitters' that fire the alchemical stew in which our soul cooks.We
have to find the courage to be optimistic while directly braving
disintegration"

 

For more of Mariah's message on optimism contact
<mailto:mariahm at comcast.net> mariahm at comcast.net or visit
<http://www.transformationaltimes.com/> www.transformationaltimes.com .
We'll revisit the topic again and invite your insights.

 

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