| OneLife Newsletter: Autumn 2010 |
Click HERE to download a full-color 6 page PDF of this issue of the newsletter.
|
Notes from the Director
Every individual has a responsibility
to help guide our global family
in the right direction. Good wishes
are not sufficient;
we must become actively engaged.
~ The 14th Dalai Lama
| |
Active engagement is the signature of our featured guest author for this issue of the newsletter. Dr. Ramona Tascoe is both a physician and an ordained minister. Her activism spans four decades - from the student strikes at San Francisco State University that led to the establishment of the first Black Studies Department in the nation, to disaster relief work in Sri Lanka, Kenya, Haiti, and New Orleans. In her article, she reflects on some of her international experience and her humbling encounters with spiritual transformation in the midst of tragedy and suffering.
THURMAN & ONELIFE AT MOAD
OneLife is delighted to announce the release of a new six-CD audio collection, "The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman" (see article below). To celebrate, the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco is hosting a Saturday Salon around the time of Thurman’s birthday. Please join us on November 13th from 2:00- 4:00PM for an interactive lecture / discussion, enhanced by audio and video of Dr. Thurman.
CD sets will be available for purchase at a specially discounted price. For directions or more information, visit the museum website: www.moadsf.org
TRANSFORMATIVE VISIONS
Save the date for Transformative Visions 2011, to be held on Saturday March 12th at Studio One Art Center in Oakland. The call for submissions will go out in November for visual and spoken word artists interested in participating. We would also welcome volunteer support in a variety of areas. Please contact us to learn more. And you can always view artwork and performances from past years' events on our website or YouTube page. To view a 3 minute Transformative Visions video sampler, click here.
RETREAT LOCATION CHANGE!
Our next Spirit, Sound & Silence retreat will be held on Saturday, Nov. 6th. Please note that it will be in a NEW LOCATION. We will meet at Nile Hall/Ginn House in Preservation Park, on Martin Luther King Jr. Way, between 12th and 13th Street in Oakland. Please see our Retreats page for full details. We hope to see you there.
FREE MEDITATION AUDIO
As a reminder, Sis. Destiny Muhammad, our beloved "Harpist from the Hood," and Dr. Liza have recorded a 26-minute guided healing meditation.The
audio is available free for on-line listening or download on either the Retreats or Listening Room
pages of our website. Now
you can access the soothing sounds of our retreats as an "on demand"
personal oasis, 24-7! Our gift to you. Please let others know about
this valuable resource.
SUSTAINING THE SOUL OF ACTIVISM (AND ACTIVISTS)
Our summer workshop series was a great success. We are planning to continue this much-needed programming to help activists and caregivers avoid burnout and cultivate resilience through deepening connections with spirit, self, and one another. Please contact us if you are interested in learning more or receiving invitations when workshops are offered in the future.
Related to this, support groups continue to meet on the second Sunday afternoon and fourth Monday evening of each month at the Ella Baker Center. Great thanks go to Rev. Kamal Hassan and Donald Gerard for co-facilitating these sessions with me. Upcoming dates include: Oct. 10th & 25th, and Nov. 14th & 22th. For more information, including address, visit the Events page of our website.
We
pray you are finding your balance in the midst of these turbulent
times. As OneLife comes to another anniversary (see article below), we are very grateful
for all of you who are part of our extended community. May we continue
to lift one another up as we go forward together.
We bid you peace,
Liza
________________________________________________________________
|
| Don't Get It Twisted
By Ramona Tascoe, MD, MHSA, DMin
Many
who labor in the arena of caregiving, social justice, and human rights
advocacy hold the incorrect assumption that those who struggle at the
margins of life's worst challenges only have a capacity to receive from those generous enough to give. In my earliest days of mission work, I made this mistake.
|
n
1995, I began a career of service abroad as a senior medical consultant
for Kaiser Permanente International. At a time when the U.S. State
Department had issued warnings against travel to the region, I
accompanied a team of experts to Luanda, Angola to examine the existing
healthcare system and determine if a 'Kaiser model' could work in this
southwestern coastal country in Africa. In this land, where human
beings became the expendable commodity of the historic Middle Passage,
is found an endless bounty of diamonds, gold, and oil, that remains an
economic endowment for those already draped in wealth and clad in
corporate uniforms - while Angola's indigenous poor remain diligent in
their quest for justice to make beautiful this obscene social portrait.
We
did not venture deeply into the hospitals and the makeshift community
care facilities. Nor did we engage the people directly to bear witness
to their needs. Looking back, I realize that I personally missed an
opportunity to be blessed by the wisdom of their resilience in the
struggle to survive hardship. After a business decision was made to
scrap the project, I left Kaiser and began a fifteen year journey to
places far away, as a medical missionary and a first-responder in
disaster relief, where I could linger for a while to hear the voices of
the people, in their suffering and strength.
In
the disaster zones of East Congo - where women and girls of all ages
are raped for the mercenary harvest of precious minerals - and in Sri
Lanka, the post-Katrina Gulf coast, and more recently Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, where tsunami, hurricane and earthquake have decimated
populations, I have learned that it is in precisely this experiential
climate that a uniquely sacred process unfolds: givers receive as
receivers give. It is here, where suffering abounds, that one is most
likely to find the powerful expression of faith and the most profound
witness to the divine presence and power of God. The caveat to this
revelation is that giving cannot come from a place of arrogance and
patronization; it must come from the depths of genuine humility and
respect. It must go beneath and below those who suffer, in order to
lift up, look up, and marvel at the signs of spiritual healing that
precede the giver's arrival.
To
illustrate, in 1998, East Africa was the closest and easiest target
accessible to Al Qaeda terrorists who sought to drive a wedge between
the U.S. and its allies. A one-ton bomb was detonated in the center of
downtown Nairobi, adjacent to the American Embassy. Two hundred and
thirteen Kenyans were killed; more than 5,000 were blinded, crippled or
maimed. I arrived after two weeks with what was later described as the
largest shipment of disaster relief supplies received by Kenya. My
stethoscope and bleeding heart found their way to the bedside. The
hospitals and clinics were still full; physical scars and emotional
suffering remained apparent.
But much to my surprise, there was no sign of anger or bitterness. There was just a serene sense of resolve that, regrettably, human nature had expressed its ugliest side, and that God was surely unhappy with the choices made by the perpetrators. Many even expressed worry for the punishment that was certain to fall, far greater, upon those responsible for the attack. Here they were, the afflicted, lying in bed, not just carrying their proverbial cross, but marching to its paradoxical rhythm.
They were not victims, they were survivors. In their witness to the power of the God of creation, they found a mystical peace that transcends circumstances and conditions. They were thanking God for having received family and friends who had died, and for sparing their own lives to see another day.
Imagine my awkwardness and shame when I learned while there that Kenyans were neither warned of escalating threats, nor was security increased in the area threatened, although this embassy was known since 1983 to be one of our most vulnerable. I asked myself if we as Americans had permitted Kenyans to absorb the full risk of a terrorist attack in order to avoid the appearance of capitulation to Al Qaeda. The situation was ripe with possibilities for ambulance-chasers and legal analysts who would argue a negligence theory. I braced myself for an onslaught of anger and resentment that never materialized.
I thought about the lessons of medical malpractice, where it is often advised that when you screw up, be humble and ‘fess up – be sincere, say you’re sorry, make amends as best possible, and be prepared to pay the piper – you might get lucky and find that you are forgiven and not sued. But with nothing less than a tone of grace and humility, Kenyans prayed for the protection of Americans, and for their hope in receiving our assistance in their recovery.
I grappled with the need to become an impromptu ambassador of goodwill. I had to let Kenyans know, in my unpolished diplomatic parlance, that the average American had no idea that Kenyans had unwittingly become geo-political pawns in the war on terrorism. I told them that the magnitude of their suffering was an enormous price to pay for friendship. I thanked them all, one after another, in the hospitals and clinics, in the homes and in the hallways of government, on behalf of all Americans.
I was humbled as a physician. There I was flying in on the magic carpet of medicine, expecting to heal the wounded with my time-honored medical bag of tricks, loaded with the richness of bedside manner – like that of television icon Dr. Marcus Welby making a house-call in the wee hours of the night. But on my arrival, I found that the patients had already received the care of a Higher Power, and begun to heal. Like the biblical Job, the gravity of the assault did not deter their faithfulness as they accepted their cross of suffering, praying for those who had harmed them. They were restored with a wisdom that no prescription could ever have achieved. I watched and marveled as spiritual transformation took root among those whose cross had invited the cultivation of forgiveness, patience, and love. And I was among those who learned from their example.
Through my fifteen years in Africa and recent disaster relief work in Haiti, I have witnessed most clearly the paradox of the cross – that holy junction in life whereby the burden of suffering is mystically robbed of its full weight, and replaced with the subtle atomic power of peace that surpasses understanding. This junction is reached by those whose depth of faith allows them to patiently meet suffering with authoritative trust in the exclusive power and benevolent will and purpose of God.
The war-zone of terrorism was initially an uncomfortable place to be and an unlikely place to experience the ether of love. How did I end up there? Who sent me – or who called me to that place? Was it for those injured in the bombing that I was called, or was it for my own spiritual enlightenment that I was chosen to witness this human drama? Was I there to give or to receive? Or can these two be separated?
As we grow in our work as caregivers, advocates, and activists, we must remain open to the seasoning of time. Let us enter into the humility of giving, the wisdom born out of struggle, and the gift of enlightenment that awaits us at every turn.
~*~
Dr. Ramona Tascoe is the US Director of Health for the Kimbanguist Church of Congo. She has led medical missions to Kenya, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, India, Sri Lanka, and Haiti. She is a dedicated activist, educator, minister, and change agent with a long history of engagement in local, national, and international issues.
________________________________________________________________
|
| The Living Wisdom
of Howard Thurman
"All
of us who seek to deepen our lives are in need of trustworthy guides
for the heights and pitfalls of the spiritual journey... Guides whose
own lives portray the truth they have discovered. Guides who care about
us and who endeavor to lead us to our greatest fulfillment. Howard
Thurman is such a guide." ~ Luther E. Smith, Jr.
|
OneLife
is delighted to announce the release of a new six-CD audio collection, "The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman," published by Sounds True. With
digitally re-mastered archival recordings selected and edited by
Vincent Harding, Luther Smith, Liza Rankow, and Dr. Thurman's daughter,
Olive Thurman Wong, this project has been a true labor of love.
Howard
Washington Thurman (1899-1981) was a philosopher, theologian, educator,
pastor, mystic, and author of more than 20 books, including Jesus and the Disinherited and The Inward Journey.
He championed Gandhi's nonviolent methods in the West and inspired many
in the American struggle for Civil Rights, justice, and freedom.
Thurman's life and work reveal the powerful synergy between
spirituality and social action, the inseparability of personal and
social transformation.
Part
of Thurman's legacy is hundreds of hours of audio recordings made over
more than a quarter century. In the past, some of these could be
purchased as cassette tapes from the Howard Thurman Educational Trust,
but it has been many years since they were available. Now, at last, the
richness of Thurman's audio ministry can again be appreciated by
listeners everywhere.
In
his Introduction to the collection, Dr. Vincent Harding writes, "Thurman was a seeker. He was never satisfied with the truth that he
had achieved, knowing always that there was more to come, and that he
must never think that he had found it all. His faith was not a door
that closed in on him as something to be kept, protected, and guarded.
Rather it was a great portal that opened out into the spirit, faith,
dreams, and seekings of humankind. Thurman urges us always to see our
magnificent possibilities, our amazing capacities, not only to dream
great dreams but to realize that those dreams 'will not rest until they
incarnate themselves in us' - in each of us, in all of us, for all of us. Let us listen."
HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:
Introductions by Vincent Harding, Alice Walker, Michael Bernard
Beckwith, Luther Smith, Edward Kaplan, and Liza Rankow
· More than seven hours of audio recordings selected from Dr. Thurman's
most inspiring sermons, meditations, and prayers · CD topics: The
Inward Journey, The Power of Love, Encountering God, Healing Community,
Coping with Difficulty, and The Fullness of Living
· 23-page study guide with introduction, bio, photos, and additional
resources
· Original music composed by Jacqueline B. Hairston
The
CD collection is available as either a boxed set or digital download.
If you order via the link provided below we will
receive a donation from Sounds True for each copy sold. We appreciate
your support!
|
________________________________________________________________
|
|
OneLife's Sixth
Anniversary Update
My mama always told me that the older you get the faster time goes by. It's hard to believe another year has passed and OneLife will celebrate our sixth anniversary this month. As always, it has been a year of amazing blessings. Here is just a small sampling...
|
In January we welcomed Ali Ar Rasheed to our board.
His professional expertise and wealth of experience have added so much
to our operations. Also in January, we began offering free,
twice-monthly support groups, with a special focus on activists and community caregivers.
The month of March brought our third Transformative Visions event.
Eighteen visual artists showed work in a wide range of styles and
media. And a capacity crowd was treated to stellar spoken word
performances and the jazz magic of the Richard Howell quintet.
In May, we met Emmanuelle Regis,
who graciously volunteered her time and skills to develop our
"Sustaining the Soul of Activism (and Activists)" curriculum and
co-facilitate a series of summer workshops for community groups. Her
gift to us was beyond anything we could have asked for, and will
continue to bear fruit even as she goes on to her next adventures. We wish her well!
More than 50 people received certificates of appreciation for their volunteer service during the year. Many of them attended the celebration brunch that we host each Memorial Day to honor our volunteers.
A very special acknowledgment goes to Jeannine Etter, our community
outreach coordinator, and Haben Sebhatu, our volunteer coordinator, for
their tireless efforts throughout the year. We are so grateful for them
both!
OneLife participated in the Juneteenth programming at Deuel Vocational Institution (the state prison in Tracy, CA). Board member Valerie Brown directed her Dominion à cappella ensemble, many of whom are active with OneLife.
And we continued to offer quarterly healing retreats supported by our magnificent Angel Teams and the loving musical ministry of Destiny and Cristwell Muhammad.
Stay tuned for lots more to come as we enter our seventh year of service. We welcome your participation!
________________________________________________________________
|
All articles copyright to individual author, remaining newsletter content
(c) 2010 OneLife Institute.
|
|
