Hi there and thank you for reading and listening to the Still Point Project.
My name is Ben Young and OldBen is my moniker here because I’m someone old enough not to care anymore about being popular or what the majority thinks. This is because I am also old enough to see disturbing trends from the sixty-plus-year perspective – things that I expect will be setting on edge more and more people as they begin to question how to navigate life when things around us, once stable, begin to crumble. What sort of future are we looking at?
Our society, most of us living right now, have entered some white-water rapids, we might mark the beginning of the Pandemic as the starting point, but this doesn’t really matter. Regardless, it is certainly time to strap in for a bouncy, possibly treacherous, ride ahead. No Toto, we are not in Kansas anymore.
And what does strapping-in look like?
As far as I am concerned, the best way to prepare for world-wide instability is to discover or reclaim our personal identities and worth by going back to or learning for the very first time (depending on who you are) some very old ideas. To first discover that this life disruption experience isn’t really new at all. Also, to understand that there is a place in our lives that never moves; that is never disturbed by current events. But to go there requires that we turn off the news and turn our backs on our problems, at least for a few minutes daily and face a different direction -- one that will take us into a quiet place.
This project launched in early January 2022 and as is typical, the first few posts were seen by just a few of you. In fact some of the posts I will be reading to you in this podcast have been viewed by only thirteen people – and yet, I wrote them for all of you, not just the first few. Yes I know we are all busy and you only have so much time in your day, so rather than expecting you to go back and read old posts, I am bringing the earliest seven of them to you today.
The titles of these posts are:
1. What is a Still Point? 3:38
2. The Greater the Pain 6:41
3. Where Real Diversity Comes From 9:39
4. Open My Eyes 12:14
5. Arguments and Learning 13:18
6. Here’s a Sobering Thought 16:05
And
7. Stop it 17:23
This is the order they were posted and will be the order I will read them – starting with the earliest.
Readings for February 26