Weekly Tidbits
ServiceSpace
--ServiceSpace
6 minute read
Apr 27, 2017

 

--Don't you just love it when you open the papers (okay, fine, visit newspaper dot com) and read a story about your project?  That's what happened with this sweet story on Karma Kitchen by Vanessa Hua, that we didn't even know about. She was actually dining there with her twins. "It feels good, like we went to church -- without going to church."

--India's Laddership Circle just completed, with many beautiful notes of gratitude from the fellows. But it equally transformed the hard-working anchors, like Meghna: "It took just 6 weeks of reading, reflections and 6 calls to find a family amongst strangers. I've been amazed to get a sneak peak into each one's window and noticing the little patterns of Grace that is flowing from one to the other. It's an Oak tree moment for me. I also noticed how each participant and volunteer has been so extremely committed to this process without any agenda and with so much love. I'm completely Moved By Love :)"

--Nimo is in Philippines this week. At school with thousands of students, they memorized lyrics to 'grateful'. Our "secret service" agents haven't (yet!) been able to get that bootleg video, but here's one with the girls singing that will make you smile.  

--Britain goes a day without coal-fired power for first time since the 1880s. #GoodNews  

--Yes, walls are becoming green and smart.  But don't get too happy about tech. "In the next 30 years, the world will see much more pain than happiness," Jack Ma, billionaire founder of Alibaba, warned this week about unchecked power of technology.  Even Elon Musk is spending a billion dollars to avoid AI Apocalypse.

--Courtesy of Richard, Parabola and Tracy Cochran have been close friends of ServiceSpace for years. Every issue of their magazine typically features something from the ServiceSpace ecosystem. This month issue on 'Happiness' features Pavi's interview with Barbara Cooker on poetry as a form of love and Guri's interview with Ann Siebens (a remarkable pilgrim who lives without money).

--There's really no reason to bring basketball playoffs into this feed again -- except that Zilong went to China, heard Jon Kabbat Zinn's talk to monks, and what did he speak about? Warriors and mindfulness. :)  Neerav points to this story, which is about the last game, but really about importance of culture. 

--New research: 50% of millennials say, 'Someone should make a movie about my life.' 33% of millennials say, 'There isn't really such a thing as the truth.'" #Hmmmmmm

--Speaking of kids, Tejas wrote an email saying: "Right where I'm sitting now, I now see a huge crane. Atop the crane is a guy armed with a chainsaw cutting the trunk of four ancient trees, 10 feet at a time. A few birds who left home early will return to nothing. Please send your love."  Few minutes later, Bradley reads that email to his 12th grade calculus class and they do a minute of silence together.

--Deepak is out to change the work place -- with Karma Circles. It's a great idea, and here's more on it (and did you know, he's even got a TEDx Talk!).

--In an Ethics "fish bowl" with Jacob Needleman, Sherry Wong, Doug Powers, R. Rajagopalan and about 25 others from the community, we explored deep "unanswerable questions". Here's Arathi: "Jacob's ending remarks rang very deep and reminded me of this quote by Rilke: 'Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.'"

--Man who was suicidal runs marathon with the stranger who talked him down from a bridge.  #GoodNews

--Mamoon-bhai (Akhtar) might be one of the most inspiring people one could meet. He's changing lives of thousands of kids, in an area that even police think is too dangerous to enter. He wrote to us this week: "I just wanted to share a small story of your action, Smile Cards. My daughter has taken up a small initiative of watering the plant as little act of kindness. I am so thank full to you. GOD bless you."

--Kozo, Anne Marie and Anuj anchored a circle on Healing + Transformation. Very powerful stories (with many tears and many LOLs), all coming soon to a blog near you.  Till then, our group photo.  One potential ripple -- Laddership Circle just for healers!

--This is something we're terrible at. The Art of Writing One-Sentence Product Descriptions. Cheat sheet: "You do X and Y happens."

--Ari got tagged with a "Gandhi kurta" at Gandhi 3.0. This week, he wore that kurta, ran into Senator Corey Booker (who is on KarmaTube!) -- who was moved because Gandhi had inspired him to go vegetarian. In his talk, he then spoke about Gandhi, citing the kurta inspiration. What is it about t-shirts (and kurtas) that have a long history of ripples in ServiceSpace?  BTW, if you're in Iran, it's called pish-kesh.

--When Rivers Hold Legal Rights. And in case you haven't heard, it took four days for this millenia old river to just completely run dry.

--From Laurel: "Good people @ KARMATUBE. I have been watching,weeping,smiling,laughing,nodding,sobbing! along with the masses and want to contribute in any way that I can. It's impossible for me to be here and NOT feel that each and every story won't touch,change or help, individuals which quickly evolves to the masses..In this way we can make important change that can teach one person how to begin to reach a goal, or change our planet. Thank you KARMATUBE!"

--Fortunately, Karmatube is not Netflix.  Because Netflix CEO says their biggest competition is ... sleep!  "You know, think about it, when you watch a show from Netflix and you get addicted to it, you stay up late at night,” Reed Hastings said. “We’re competing with sleep, on the margin. And so, it’s a very large pool of time."  Next innovation will be Netflix pills to avoid sleep?  #GoodForGDP

--KindSpring runs a small kindness contest and we get many touching ideas every week.  Like this from couple days ago: "Wherever there is an untended patch of dirt, our family would like to plant wildflowers. We would use the money to buy seed and sand (which is what you mix with wildflower seeds to plant them.)  Thanks!"

--Krishan and Sarika are hosting a "Super Soul Saturday" in New York.  And yup, Sarika is in the final trimester of pregnancy! It used to be that Trishna was a "cub" in our community of Tigers. Whole different story now. :)

--Speaking of Trishna, if you're on Linked In, this is what you'd see as her job title. #Grateful

--How's this, for a sorry-can't-make-it email? Helen to Audrey: "Although I am unable to attend the event tomorrow at Teance, I am so grateful to have found some amazing work at Service Space from the numerous links on your email!  I was just reading and listening to this week's Awakin Call. It is amazing and inspiring! I'm in awe :-)  I was also reading up on a couple of the future guest speakers and their stories. They are all also very inspiring.  I look forward to read more and hopefully participate in one of the calls someday!  So, with much gratitude, thank you and everyone at ServiceSpace for your incredible heart and work!  I have found myself changing how I live my life, for the better."  

 

Posted by ServiceSpace on Apr 27, 2017