Happy Soul Food Friday!
Duck and Cover!
I just found out that Soul Foodies are growing…
WordPress sent me a note, sharing that Soul Food Friday was viewed 7,200 times in 2013, so let’s keep reflecting and refracting the light in our communities and families and keep inspiring (breathing life into) ourselves, as we can’t give away what we don’t have.
That which is most Personal, is most Universal!
After spending the Winter Holiday in India for the first time in 16 years, I met people who were receiving and reading SFF that I have never met in my life. They might be thousands of miles away but are sharing the same intentions and commitment to leaving our world a little bit better than we found it.
Let’s not underestimate the impact each one of us can make…
It IS a small world after all. My new BFF Dr. Alan Daly, Chair of UCSD Educational Studies who is doing transformative work with respect to education outcomes- including but not limited to with the Vista Unified School District where we spent yesterday morning together- has rarified my thinking from the conventional “you are judged by the company you keep” and ‘It is not what you know, but who you know’, to more accurately, “Who you know defines what you know”.
Choosing what we focus on and who we invest our time with in 2014- with intentionality- will make this the best year ever!
This little blue planet is getting smaller.
Are we getting Blinded by Progress?
This is worth a read…
BLINDED BY PROGRESS IS HERE!
Blinded by Progress walks us smack into tough questions about our survival on this planet … and finds possibilities within our reach!
More and more of us are daring to ask: Why do we Americans praise lifestyles and growth economics that require five planets? Why does this five-planet illusion grip us so tightly even though it defies commonsense? Why do we continue to pursue economic growth as if it is economic health when we know it is ecologically suicidal? Are we that sinister? unconscious? Is it blind faith in technology? Are we simply addicted to “More?”
Blinded by Progress takes us into the ring to tussle with these urgent, life-defying questions … and come out empowered with new thoughts and actions. A whole new worldview is spelled out. Reading it releases that “ah-hah” feeling we get when truth breaks in on us and breaks us out of illusion. Read it alone or discuss it in a group.
The author discloses how he unwittingly came under the spell of MultiEarth living and then, as his consciousness shifted, how he began reshaping his life to OneEarth living—a project in process. Readers will follow along with the personal quest of the author, and come to new, life-giving decisions about their own MultiEarth vs. OneEarth choices.
Blinded by Progress makes special contributions to the global conversation on sustainability now underway. The author clearly delineates the contrasts between MultiEarth and OneEarth worldviews. The chapter on the religious devotion given to MultiEarth economics and practices contains perspectives and content typically left out of conversations on the themes treated in this book. The power that myth has to keep us practicing the illusionary MultiEarth worldview is revealed by using John Steinbeck’s magnum opus, East of Eden. That novel’s use of the Cain and Abel myth provides bold guidance for our own MultiEarth-OneEarth choices. The concluding distinction between MultiEarth and OneEarth progress shows us how we got into our illusionary bubble and leaves no doubt that we have the power to choose differently. The personal journey of the author weaves in and out of the chapters, serving to illustrate the book’s themes, the subtleties by which MultiEarth progress blinds us, and the power to choose OneEarth’s satisfying ways.
Lee Van Ham has been working on ecological economics since 2000. This work follows on three decades of experience in leading congregations where his writing and teaching gifts developed. In 2009, he met Michael Johnson; the two came together around their common interest in creating books and film on themes of ecology and economics. Johnson is an Emmy-award winning filmmaker who has begun work on a related documentary. Out of their relationship the OneEarth Project was born.
What Others Are Saying
Blinded by Progress is a work of keen observation, a great deal of scholarship and an abiding care for living beings. There were many paths that we might have taken in the past that would have led to a better world than the one we inhabit. Lee Van Ham’s writing delineates a path going forward that does not repeat the illusions of progress. I hope it opens many eyes.
—Paul Hawken, entrepreneur, environmentalist, and author of Blessed Unrest and Natural Capitalism
Lee has written a book that is a hair-on-fire call to action to free ourselves from our folly of only looking at Me and moving us to We…Pronto.
—Will Marre’, Founder, The American Dream Project
“’El mundo que queremos es uno donde quepan muchos mundos’ – ‘We want a world where many worlds can coexist.’ These words spoken by the Maya Indigenous people in resistance add color and meaning to the important and timely message of this book…. This book is a must read for people and communities committed to collectively raise
consciousness. It is a guide in creating concrete steps toward being responsible citizens of one earth.”
— Marco Tavanti, PhD, International Sustainable Development Prof., DePaul University, Chicago; Pres. of World Engagement Institute (WEI).
Blinded by Progress is an eye-opening look at our current economic and social system that is both heart-centered and intellectually accurate. It’s one-of-a-kind perspective, based on deep research as well as first-hand experience, takes the reader quickly to the very foundation of what is wrong with our current world situation in order to fix it.
—Nikki Lyn Pugh, published author and journalist and 2011 USD Women Peacemaker Project Selected Peace Writer
In Blinded by Progress Van Ham creates a work of great integrity—an integrity that comes from his bringing sound theological and economic thinking together with visionary consciousness, deep commitment, and illusion-breaking stories. The result is a clear and powerful message that the author does not dilute with checklists of minor feel-good actions we can take on our own. Instead, Van Ham dares to call us all to nothing less than a radical change of consciousness, breaking through the illusions of our dominant MultiEarth economy in order to embrace the alternative OneEarthism. And contrary to what many claim, there are real alternatives. There is much truth and wisdom to be found in these pages. — Barry Shelley, PhD, Political economist; Global Agriculture and Climate Change Advisor, Oxfam America
For more information Contact: Lee Van Ham
619-528-8075
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Need a Humor Break?
Enjoy…
Thanks this week go to Michael J and Lee Van Ham, Ron M and Victoria C, Larry H and the thousands of you that take it in and pay it forward!
Love,
Neville
“The collective wisdom of the ages teaches that the whole point of life is not what we get, but what we give… And that we have total control over”
Happy Soul Food Friday! 
I hear Wipeout by the Beach Boys when I look at that duck!