Martin Luther King, Jr. 739 words, 19K views, 28 comments
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On Dec 7, 2010Catherine Todd wrote :
Derek, that's a great comment with a lot to think about. I haven't seen the movie or read the book "
Eat, Pray, Love" but maybe I should. Right away. I am finding a much richer balance where I live part time at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, and a much more fruitful spiritual life, but I am only there part time as I still work in the United States. My friends and I all wish for a "spiritual life" here in the good ole USA in the midst of materialism and war. It's quite different when you live in a cultural that SUPPORTS a more spiritual life, but that oftens comes with a much "poorer" country in material goods & "progress."
As much fundraising and "help" I give the indigenous people in Guatemala, I am aware that I am helping to destroy the very things I enjoy about their culture and the benefits I hold most dear. Modern conveniences and "information exposure" can have a terrible cost. "Education" in the wrong ways doesn't help anyone; it hinders them. And we gringos are "educating" the poor Guatemalans left and right. If we are not careful, we'll turn them into a welfare state as we have here in the states; greedy, grasping, lazy and complaining. Things you never see where I live now.
Well, the "greedy" part sometimes, and corruption for sure, but none of the rest since the government gives no handouts, which I always believed in before I saw the difference when people work for themselves and together and don't just wait around for someone else to do it, or wait for it to be handed to them. But this is probably another discussion - or is it?
Their children are being raised reading and writing, working computers (that I bring to them) and it is opening doors they never knew existed. Yet, when I see people from the capital or Antigua coming to the lake and bringing all their modern dress and modern conveniences, and modern attitudes, it's a crying shame. What are we doing in our world, and how to make the "best of things" in the midst of a spiritual life?
On Dec 7, 2010 Catherine Todd wrote :
Derek, that's a great comment with a lot to think about. I haven't seen the movie or read the book "
Eat, Pray, Love" but maybe I should. Right away. I am finding a much richer balance where I live part time at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, and a much more fruitful spiritual life, but I am only there part time as I still work in the United States. My friends and I all wish for a "spiritual life" here in the good ole USA in the midst of materialism and war. It's quite different when you live in a cultural that SUPPORTS a more spiritual life, but that oftens comes with a much "poorer" country in material goods & "progress."
As much fundraising and "help" I give the indigenous people in Guatemala, I am aware that I am helping to destroy the very things I enjoy about their culture and the benefits I hold most dear. Modern conveniences and "information exposure" can have a terrible cost. "Education" in the wrong ways doesn't help anyone; it hinders them. And we gringos are "educating" the poor Guatemalans left and right. If we are not careful, we'll turn them into a welfare state as we have here in the states; greedy, grasping, lazy and complaining. Things you never see where I live now.
Well, the "greedy" part sometimes, and corruption for sure, but none of the rest since the government gives no handouts, which I always believed in before I saw the difference when people work for themselves and together and don't just wait around for someone else to do it, or wait for it to be handed to them. But this is probably another discussion - or is it?
Their children are being raised reading and writing, working computers (that I bring to them) and it is opening doors they never knew existed. Yet, when I see people from the capital or Antigua coming to the lake and bringing all their modern dress and modern conveniences, and modern attitudes, it's a crying shame. What are we doing in our world, and how to make the "best of things" in the midst of a spiritual life?