{"id":1883,"date":"2011-11-19T07:57:47","date_gmt":"2011-11-19T12:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/?p=1883"},"modified":"2011-11-20T08:14:50","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T13:14:50","slug":"humanity-our-path-to-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/19\/humanity-our-path-to-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanity – Our Path to Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Celebrating<\/a>

Celebrating freedom in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - photographed August 31, 2008.<\/p><\/div>\n

Splashing and jumping in the water \u2013 meditating in the woods \u2013 hiking together in the mountains \u2013 playing games \u2013 laughing \u2013 painting one another\u2019s faces \u2013 hugging one another \u2013 looking into each other\u2019s eyes in trust \u2013 learning from each other \u2013 sharing and exchanging treasures generously \u2013 forgiving each other \u2013 preparing for and enjoying a feast \u2013\u00a0joining together in disaster preparation and recovery efforts \u2013 serving each other and\u00a0working together \u2013 being victorious together \u2013 singing \u2013 dancing \u2013 telling stories \u2026 the wondrous gift of our humanity, this is who we all are and where we need to invest our energies, concerns, and works.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our life-giving humanity has been described in terms of needs and abilities by many people such as Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, and Ashley Montagu, an anthropologist. These descriptions include our needs and abilities to love and be loved, to sensitively and authentically relate to one another, to let life unfold by respecting the freedom and growth of others, to honestly accept ourselves for who we are, to appreciate our differences objectively, to have strong ethical standards, and to be concerned for the well-being of everyone. We also have tremendous capacities to be enthused, to be curious, to appreciate and be caught up in the wonder of life, to be spontaneous, to be playful, to be humorous, to be joyful, to show affection, to share laughter and tears, and to express gratitude. We have boundless growth abilities too. Today, step by step, we can overcome the failings of yesterday through our needs and abilities to organize, to communicate ideas, to be flexible, to be resilient, to be creative, to identify difficulties and find solutions, to be optimistic, to try new things, to be open minded, to listen to ones heart and grow through self-reflection, to think soundly, to listen to and trust in others, to grow within and beyond our own culture, to win together, and to celebrate wholeheartedly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is our journey together. As Howard Thurmond, a theologian, has said, \u201cDon’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.\u201d So let\u2019s \u201cChoose life!\u201d with our whole heart and with our whole soul and with all our strength (see Deuteronomy 6:4 and 30:19). In the same full spirit, let\u2019s \u201cChoose our humanity!\u201d by embracing visionary understandings of all that we perceive and all that is beyond us; deep, altruistic intentions in all that we are about; gentle, truthful, compassionate interactions and relationships between us; respectful, helpful, healing actions; life-giving livelihoods; wholesome, vigorous effort; alert, empathetic mindfulness; and hope-based, needs-based, empowering concentration (see the Eightfold Path of Buddhism). Let\u2019s be responsible and answer our call to be fully human, alive, and free! Let\u2019s, as a human family, get in our zone, find healing, and be victorious together!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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I am very interested in your thoughts about this. This may seem very theoretical but this is the first of a several posts that are heading toward something very practical. What do you think about humanity? Also what do you think about the call to love<\/em><\/strong>, the topic of our next post,\u00a0or should I call it the love revolution<\/em><\/strong>? Please make comments here or send me your thoughts at\u00a0denton2100@gmail.com<\/a>. Thanks much!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Splashing and jumping in the water \u2013 meditating in the woods \u2013 hiking together in the mountains \u2013 playing games \u2013 laughing \u2013 painting one another\u2019s faces \u2013 hugging one another \u2013 looking into each other\u2019s eyes in trust \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97,83],"tags":[169],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-positive-energy","tag-humanity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1899,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions\/1899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/umpteenhorizons.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}