Aaron Biber is aged 89 but that hasn’t stopped him raising £35,000 for the benefit of small traders whose businesses were wrecked in the Tottenham riot. Thanks to all the good Samaritan well wishing donators. Shiva Kandish nearly cried when his Hackney convenience store was looted. Then he received £16,000 to help repair his premises from donations. … Continue reading Good Samaritans
There are probably several complex factors that can throw light on the causes of the riots. This is the second of four articles looking at different aspects of the problem. Is the shocking behaviour a symptom of permissive parenting? We tend to still assume that the role of a parent is to supervise children and teach them right and wrong. But to what extent is this still happening?
Many people have been shocked, frightened and angry at the breakdown of law and order that has caused great damage in some of the larger cities across England; violence against unarmed police, arson and destructive behaviour together with widespread looting and mugging which terrorised shopkeepers and residents. A lot of those going on the rampage were teenagers. How has this happened? How do we make any sense of these disgraceful scenes that have brought shame on a nation?
Stephen writes that when he was 14 years old he became depressed because he had severe acne and other children picked on him at school. “I took an overdose of sleeping tablets and was admitted to hospital, this was the first time I had contact with a psychiatrist. Throughout my teenage years I had a … Continue reading Social work working
I know who my enemy is: the individual who maliciously damages my property: tramps all over the flower-bed in the garden: scratches the car with a key: trashes the home during a burglary. I feel angered by anyone who threatens to harm my sense of well-being. These are the people I want to complain about and get my own back on. So how on earth does one stop hating such people. How do you love your enemy?
Retreat Weekend: Dancing with the Beloved 16:00 Friday 16 September 2011 to 14:00 Sunday 18 September 2011 Purley Chase Centre, Warwickshire The Lord invites us to be his Bride. How often do we recognise this? We are used to calling God ‘Our Father’ and thinking of ourselves as his children. We think of him as … Continue reading Sacred Dance
Do you lack confidence when it comes to certain situations? It could be anything: dancing, playing sport, chatting with strangers, doing your job, making love. Yet, even confident people can get unstuck somewhere along the line. Calamities oblige us to reconsider the bigger picture. So when it comes down to it, in what can we place our confidence? In our own abilities? In the ideas of others? Or in something beyond all of us? One example of the last of these three possibilities is to do with what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called `the whole of Being’.
Distance Learning Tutored Course from SOLCe This course invites you to research a few parallels between the spiritual and physical worlds and then to present your insights and ideas to your tutor and fellow students, when possible. The Creator communicates with us through natural-world images as these are what we readily understand. We have the … Continue reading Correspondence of Symbols
Anders Behring Breivik murdered dozens of people in cold blood in Norway as a horrendous way of protesting about Islamic immigration. How should we respond? By reiterating democratic liberal values in favour of multiculturalism? Or seeing a warning sign about a society’s limits to tolerance of what is alien?
I must wash my hands repeatedly. Such an idea or mental picture may pop into your head unasked. Such ideas are unwanted if they are repetitive, unpleasant or difficult to resist. In addition to compulsive acts, they can exacerbate jealousy, temptation, or unreasonable guilt. Swedenborg’s account of unconscious inflow from a spirit realm can give the sufferer some confidence that unwanted thoughts can be ignored and got rid of.