This 6-pillar curriculum teaches the basic literacy we need to be personally and financially successful and to do so in a manner in which together we evolve a culture that supports the emergence of an advanced human civilization.
The Arabs used to say, When a stranger appears at your door, feed him for three days before asking who he is, where he’s from, where he’s headed. That way, he’ll have strength enough to answer. Or, by then you’ll be such good friends you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that. Rice? Pine nuts? Here, take the red brocade pillow. My child will serve water to your horse.
No, I was not busy when you came! I was not preparing to be busy. That’s the armor everyone put on to pretend they had a purpose in the world.
I refuse to be claimed. Your plate is waiting. We will snip fresh mint into your tea.
– Naomi Shihab Nye
One Comment
Thank you, Catherine, for sharing all that you do with us. The information on your website inspires.
I, like you, pass along poems written by Naomi Shihab Nye. And I’m taking this opportunity to pass along a few bits of another poem she wrote, called Kindness.
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Thank you, Catherine, for sharing all that you do with us. The information on your website inspires.
I, like you, pass along poems written by Naomi Shihab Nye. And I’m taking this opportunity to pass along a few bits of another poem she wrote, called Kindness.
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Thank you, Catherine, for sharing all that you do with us. The information on your website inspires.
I, like you, pass along poems written by Naomi Shihab Nye. And I’m taking this opportunity to pass along a few bits of another poem she wrote, called Kindness.
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.