Greetings from Alison Wiley here in Portland, Oregon. I'm a writer/doer/thinker who lives happily by putting people, nature and God ahead of accumulating more stuff. Read more →
My sidekick Hanmi Meyer and I are pleased to be posting this morning our new page Resources For Good Living. It’s a set of links, well-labeled and organized, to cool sites that help us increase our happiness and lower our consumption. While this opening date is a bit behind schedule (the summer solstice had been [...]
Tags: bicycling·carbon footprint·consumption·contest·energy conservation·family·fun·gift certificates·green living·happiness·life·links·Oregon·outdoors·religion·renewable energy·resources·thrift·water
It’s Easter morning! And warmish out! My pear trees and blueberry bushes are blossoming, our baby chicks are growing into leggy adolescents, and I’ll soon walk over to choir practice at Tabor Heights Methodist, where we’ll rehearse — with trumpet players! - for the Easter service. It’s all so climactic. . . . diamond-cut, really. [...]
Tags: church·David Korten·Easter·Great Turning·happiness·Jesus·Joanna Macy·joy·life·music·Oregon·religion
Yesterday the ten of us took my mother in law Joan’s ashes to Cannon Beach here in Oregon. She had loved the beach, felt deeply alive there, and had requested her ashes be scattered there. The day was bright but cold, way down in the 30′s with the wind-chill factor, and we huddled close like [...]
Tags: ancestors·Cannon Beach·consumption·family·Haystack Rock·Oregon·relationships·religion·Sobonfu Some
After being snowed and iced out the last two Sundays in a row, I finally get to go back to church this morning. My connection with God is even more important than usual to me right now because my mother-in-law Joan, in her ninth day at Providence hospital, appears to be dying. Her lungs are [...]
Tags: church·death·gari.baldi·God·life·love·relationships·religion
Later this week I plan to post on election results and also on how to save 40-50% on your electricity bill like my household does. But this morning is that one single morning of the year in which daylight savings time yields us an extra hour — which we can fill as we choose. Given [...]
Tags: consumption·daylight savings time·extra hour·green living·happiness·life·relationships·religion·time poverty
In the past month I’ve been writing energetically (raving?) about the economic crisis and the presidential race. They matter a lot to me. But I think it’s our deep inner lives, the lives of our souls, that guide us into wisdom, joy and what I term the diamond-cut life. A few weeks ago I was [...]
Tags: culture·economics·haiku·happiness·nature·outdoors·photo courtesy of stewf·religion·soul·spirituality
I suggest that the best thing you could read today would be Nicholas Kristof’s piece in the New York Times on the Dalai Lama and China. All that I will do is explain why I’m suggesting that. To go five miles up into the big picture, we human beings as a species are in our [...]
Tags: Dalai Lama·Nicholas Kristof·religion·spirituality·technology
Hybrid: a result of cross-breeding. Easter: a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ — celebrated the Sunday following the first full moon of the vernal equinox.
Wait a minute. Easter is famously Christian, but its timing is completely earth-centered, ruled by nature, which is to say it is pagan. Easter is a hybrid holiday. Christianity has been shown by scholars to have deep roots in the earlier earth-centered religions
Tags: Christ·earth·Easter·equinox·hybrid·life·rebirth·religion·resurrection
Most of us have a closeted part of ourselves, a part we don’t readily reveal. For some, it is sexual orientation, or political beliefs. But for me, it is the fact that I love church and love to worship God there, with others.
Why am I shy about this, when I am not known for shyness in general? There’s more than one reason, but just one I can tackle before I
Tags: Anne Lamott·church·church attendance·culture·environment·God·hymns·Jesus·life·Methodist·Oregon·religion·spirituality·worship
Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream: that America could rise above the selfish institution of segregation. The dream seemed hopelessly idealistic. Too many people in power benefited from segregation, and were willing to violently defend it.
What if Dr. King were alive today? I am convinced his dream would embrace sustainability, i.e. living in a way that ensures future generations can also live. Everything he stood for supports such a
Tags: carbon footprint·climate change·consumption·CSR·culture·Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.·economics·global warming·I Have A Dream·idealism·integration·joy·life·Martin Luther King Jr.·materialism·racism·religion·segregation·social change·social justice·vision
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