Tag Archives: community

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Combat Flip Flops — Enlist in the Unarmed Forces


Many of us talk a lot about the eternal wars we seem to be involved in and that we want peace. Well, a peacenik friend send information about a company who is Paying It Forward. I did some research to see if it was authentic and it really is. Gift giving season is coming and this would be a way to put a check mark next to a name on your list and make a real difference.

 

I plan to join the unarmed forces and I hope that many of you will also join around the world. I am excited to share this company with you and that it will among other things help girls in Afghanistan get education.

Namaste

Barbara

 

BJSquiggel

 

THE MISSION

To create peaceful, forward-thinking opportunities for self-determined entrepreneurs affected by conflict. Our willingness to take bold risks, community connection, and distinct designs communicate, “Business, Not Bullets”–flipping the view on how wars are won. Through persistence, respect, and creativity, we empower the mindful consumer to manufacture peace through trade.

 

As Army Rangers with several Afghanistan tours behind them, Griff and Lee saw a country filled with hard-working, creative people who wanted jobs, not handouts.

Flip flops were just the start. We’ve taken a product that people in nearly every country on the planet wear, and made it a weapon for change. Right now, all our flip flops are made in Bogota, Colombia, providing jobs and investing in people who desperately need it. We’ve done that with all the products we sell.

Our USA made Claymore Bag’s flip the script, on traditional weapons of war. Instead of carrying bombs, these bags act as a carry-all for business tools like iPad’s, laptops and more.

Our Cover and Concealment sarongs are handmade in Afghanistan by local women. Each one takes three days to make, and each sale puts an Afghan girl into secondary school for a week.

The Peacemaker Bangle and Coinwrap are sent to us straight from artisans in Laos – and they’re made from bombs. Each bracelet sold clears 3 square meters of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) from a region rocked by long-term war – saving lives and providing economic opportunity.

UNAPOLOGETICALLY, WE MAKE COOL STUFF IN DANGEROUS PLACES.

We do this because it’s our job to show others what’s possible, then encourage them to join us.


WELCOME TO THE UNARMED FORCES.

 

Their most popular product is their original, the AK47 flipflop:

 

ak_top_500_large

 

 

They also make fabric scarves, called shemaghs, made in Kabul, Afghanistan.  The sale of each shemagh puts one Afghan girl into secondary school for 1 day.  According to their website, 103 girls have been enrolled in school for the full year since Janaruy 2016.

These are the shemaghs available (more are on the website combatflipflops.com)

cff_white_500_large green_whole_shemagh_500_large

 

 

What she needs is an education. We can help give her one.

What she needs is an education. We can help give her one.

 

 

This week, in honor of back to school, charitable donations are increased by 2x

 

The charity supported is:  Aid Afghanistan for Education (AAE)

“When we educate a woman, we educate a family. Unless we educate the Afghan population, there will be no peace.”

~Hassina Sherjan, Executive Director, Aid Afghanistan for Education.

Devastation, war, and violence in Afghanistan created a regressive, fundamentalist education system that prevented modern education for children, and denied opportunities for women to work and fend for their families. We believe education is the only vehicle to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan. Every Afghan has the right to be educated, create opportunity, and add value to their country’s future.

Since 2003, AAE has established 13 schools in 9 provinces that educate marginalized Afghans deprived of an education during the years of conflict in the region—or do not have access to a formal education system. Currently, 3,000 female and 104 male students are attending AAE schools.

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A Holy Day


Today, is the holiest day in the Jewish year. It is a day for assessing oneself and how we are doing living our lives. Adonai gave the ten commandments, but he had other acts in mind that he/she didn’t want people to do. Tonight, begins the high holy day, Yom Kippur. Jews worldwide will be in temple or their homes and they will be honestly looking inside of their hearts and souls.

 

On Yon Kippur, it is said that the names of those who will live through the New Year will be written into the book of life for another year. Wrong doing or sin, is looked at personally and as a community.

 

I like this concept that the community can sin as a whole and we all share responsibility. So what kinds of things is he/she talking about?

 

Assumed the worst in others and the best of ourselves.

Betrayed the trust others have placed in us.

Confused that which is essential with that which is not,

Destroyed ourselves with needless abuses,

Enjoyed the downfall of our adversaries with glee.

Felt superior to others by means of ability, wealth or power.

Given less than our full selves to our community and our world.

Hastened to decry responsibility for our own actions,

Instigated animosity among others,

Junked our world with trash, showing no retard for the environment.

Kindled misplaced passions.

Lied to cover our vanities.

Missed opportunities to better ourselves.

Negated the validity of others in an effort to aggrandize ourselves,

Observed persons in need, and ignored what we saw.

Perverted the blessings of our lives into dangerous obsessions and mere possessions.

Quietly slipped into lived defined by moral decay,

Refused ourselves and other our love.

Seduced ourselves with the lie that “no one is going to get hurt.”

Trivialized the power we represent in God’s Universe.

Unleashed hurtful words.

Valued strangers more than our family and friends.

Wished ill upon others,

Xeroxed in violation of copyright and trademark.

Yielded to temptation.

Zestfully pursued happiness to the exclusion of goodness.

—Rabbi David Greenspoon and Steve Kerbel

 

 

A Prayer For Peace

 

Let us live in peace, God.

Let children live in peace, in homes free from brutality and abuse.

Let them go to school in peace, free from violence and fear.

Let them play in peace, God, in safe parks, in safe neighborhoods; watch over them.

Let husbands and wives love in peace, in marriages free from cruelty.

Let men and women work in peace, with no fears of terror or bloodshed.

Let us travel in peace; protect is, God, in the air, on the seas, along whatever road we take.

Let nations dwell together in peace, without the threat of war hovering over them.

Help us, God. Teach all people of all races and faiths, in all the countries all over the world to believe that the peace that seems so far off is in fact within our reach.

Let us all live in peace, God. And let us say, Amen.

—Rabbi Naomi Levy

 

 

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Jewish holy day

Jewish holy day

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Community of BLoggers Award



CommunityofBLoggerz

~~April 10, 2014~~

My dear Dr. Rex returned this lovely award to me.   She has been my friend for some time now, and is one of the reasons why

I feel like I truly am part of a Community!

Her take on this award is something I agree with wholeheartedly, and I’d like to share it with you:

“Much is frequently said about “community“. I see ourselves as a group of people who have similar ideas, concepts, interests and values. Another quality that we have in common is that we had a basic need to share what we have to offer each in a very individualized and different way.

This is our blogging community. “

It is important for creative people to have many communities where they can interact with other creative people, and where love and support are shared like they are in a family.

I think that the concept of community as family is extremely important because, for many artistic or creative people, acceptance by their biological families and many friends may not be forthcoming, because these people think “out of the box” ; their priorities are different, often not as materialistic as the people around them.  It is wonderful to have a community such as this where you can say what you feel, and know that it will be accepted without judgment, and where our innovative ideas won’t leave people gasping in shock.

~~Simple rules~~

Display the logo on a post.

Link back to the person who nominated you.

Nominate 14 readers other bloggers and inform them via comment in their blog sites.

My nominees:

  1.  petchary
  2. Xena
  3. findingmyinnercourage
  4. RoSy
  5. Inavukic
  6. Shaun
  7. ANinePoundHammer
  8. afsheenanjum
  9. Al
  10. Eleganzabello
  11. Matthew
  12. ScrapperJude Designs
  13. SueDreamwalker
  14. BeccaGivens
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The Source of Joy


Experience love

Experience love

” No one knows what makes the soul wake
up so happy! Maybe a dawn breeze has

blown the veil from the face of God.
A thousand new moons appear. Roses

open laughting. Hearts become perfect
rubies like those from Badakshan. The

body turns entirely spirit. Leaves
become branches in this wind. Why is

it now so easy to surrender, even for
those already surrendered? There’s no

answer to any of this. No one knows the source of joy. A poet breathes
into a reed flute, and the tip of every hair makes music. Shams sails

clown clods of dirt from the roof, and we take jobs as doorkeepers for him.

——-Rumi, translated by Robert Bly

We can never give all of our love away.

We can never give all of our love away.

Prayer beads

Do not raise your voice

Rumi's words

Rumi’s words

To know you...

                                                                                                             My One Desire                                                                                                                        

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The Only Being


I am a child of the Universe

I am a child of the Universe

There are many religions and paths to journey in this lifetime. Everyone is certain that their way is the right way. I would like to put forth the theory that everyone is right. There is one Divine Being and it makes no difference what we call him/her/it. It doesn’t matter how we contact Divinity.

There is no God of any people who is not his God, no spiritual teacher of any creed who is not his teacher.There is no sacred scripture that he does not accept, since he is a worshipper of light and a follower of love. Yet he is free from all the world’s distinctions and differences.

The diversity of names in the universe to him is a veil of illusion which covers unity, the one life. Only One lives, and all manifestations are to him the phenomenon of that one life.

Sufi’s call their concept of God, the Beloved. They also call this Divinity Buddha, Mohammend and Jesus and Zoraster. Sufi’s are mystics and have contact with the One during meditation and certain practices. This Divine Being is all that is good and ideal in this universe. It is Beauty in its perfection.

Sufi’s believe that as high as is the ideal of a person, so high he rises in life. Then in the end he sees the Ideal was made by himself.

A Sufi does not withdraw from the world, but instead participates in life both by viewing it from above and from below. His holy book is nature and his community is the entire of mankind. So we are all united in love and adoration of the beauty of the Divinity of this Universe.

The Love of the Universe

The Love of the Universe

Raise the level of your life with thinking good thoughts.

Raise the level of your life with thinking good thoughts.

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The Seasons of our Life


In the silence, we hear the voice of God from wirhin

In the silence, we hear the voice of God from within

Birth, growth, fading, death, the wheel of life turns and we turn with it. Ideas are born, projects are consummated, plans prove impractical and die. We are born, we suffer loss, we fall in love and out of love, we give birth and we grow old.

When we are conscious of Mother Earth, we see ourselves as parts of the whole .We come to the point where we can let go of trying to control our lives. We are constantly reminded of the changes in life. We need to accept the change of seasons, feast and famine. good health and illness. We live with light and dark, cold and warmth. We are full of life and at times we are empty. All of these things control our experience of  life. We could experience this as the experience of human consciousness.

Inevitably into every life comes times for action and then times of waiting. As we live longer and longer we find we must start to learn how to fit ourselves into the kind of human being we need to be in each new phase of life. We are going to need to look at our dreams and learn to dream new dreams that corresponds to life as it is experienced at that time.

There is the time for sowing the seeds of our life, a time to harvest those seeds, sometimes there is leavetaking and loss. Life can feel as if it is in decline.

There are those who say we have a resting cycle. We become closer to our inner selves and to the Divinity which dwells there. I personally, look to learning new things and doing what I have never done before. Life is fertile and there is nothing to fear in the darkness…the light will return.

“It is our quiet time.
We do not speak, because the voices are within us.
It is our quiet time.
We do not walk, because the earth is all within us.
It is our quiet time…
—–Nancy Wood

“Again, again we come and go.
changed, changing Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear.
Grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.”
—-Wendell Berry

Cycles of our lives

Cycles of our lives

” Behold, my brothers, the spring has come;
The earth has received the embraces of the sun
And we shall soon see the results of that love!

Every seed is awakened and so has all animal life.
It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being
And we therefore yield to our neighbors,
Even our animal neighbors,
The same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land.”

—–Sitting Bull

Our life cycles are in conjunction with our Mother Earth. Do not betray her.

Our life cycles are in conjunction with our Mother Earth. Do not betray her.

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Amish Country


the quiet beauty of Amish Country

the quiet beauty of Amish Country

I belong to a group of women who all used to work together. We are all very different but we had the bond of working together. We call ourselves the Fabulous Wenches. We go out to dinner once a month and then we go on road trips and attractions here in town. Whoever is available goes. It really is good fun. We live in the west suburbs of Cleveland and the Ohio Amish country is quite a bit south of the city.

The Amish people live quiet, spiritual lives. Non-Amish people are referred to in Amish communities as English. The Amish live without electricity and cars and phones. So candles are necessary and no one heats up a Lean Cuisine for dinner. I have worked with the Amish, Quakers and Mennonites while I was a nurse and when I worked for the American Red Cross.

These wonderful people embrace a sense of “divine ordinariness.” This is a delicate balance of the outward and the inward. They also exude a wholeness of simple things in their lives.

They build some of the nicest, strongest furniture in the world. They farm and sell their produce and they make candles, quilts and cheese. This is some of the best cheese in the world.

The Amish spin wool and use a loom to make clothes and rugs

The Amish spin wool and use a loom to make clothes and rugs

“Art is the communication of a state of mind.” —Kant
Plato suggests that a work of art exists in its own right, not images of beauty, but realities.

Amish in horse-drawn buggy.

Amish in horse-drawn buggy.

An Amish horse pulling a closed carriage.

An Amish horse pulling a closed carriage.

“Give Thy blessing we pray Thee, to our daily work. that we may do it in faith, and heartily.”
–Thomas Arnold

“Things must be right in themselves, and good for use.”
—Eric Gill

Amish wagon and buggy

Amish wagon and buggy

We saw one very interesting thing while we were in Amish Country: a building where the Amish had built a staircase up to the roof and they went up and down as they felt so inclined. Not only the people, but their goats took advantage of the staircase to the roof.  The goats walked around on the roof and some lay down in the sun.

The goats on the roof

The goats on the roof

“We are united with all life that is in nature. Man can no longer live his life for himself alone.”
—Albert Schweitzer

Buggy ride in Amish dress

Buggy ride in Amish dress

More goat experience

More goat experience

“Caring is the greatest thing, caring matters most.”
—Last words of Freiderich Von Hugel

Feeding the horses

Feeding the horses

Enclosed carriage and horse

Enclosed carriage and horse

Berllin, Ohio and the surrounding areas are full of quaint buildings.

Berllin, Ohio and the surrounding areas are full of quaint buildings.

Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit.” —-George Fox

 

So I count the day a terrific experience and if any of you live near the Amish, Mennonites, Pennsylvania Dutch,or Quakers take a day trip. It is well worth your time and gasoline. Plan on bringing home baked goods, cheeses and bacon. We took a cooler and it worked perfectly for us. If you ever have the opportunity to visit such a community, take advantage of the chance at a wonderful day.