Community Kindness

“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.”

The 14th Dalai Lama

What a beautiful piece of wisdom. Not that we should be surprised, the Dalai Lama is nothing if not wise. Simple truths have a way of reaching in and touching us in quiet, yet reflective ways. This one touches me. I think of what it means to cultivate rich, fertile soil....

I have a garden in my back yard. I grow all kinds of vegetables, herbs and perennials, with lots of help from my friend and community garden specialist, Carolin. The trouble is the soil in my garden is almost dead. It has taken three years, organic sheep manure, compost, importing worms, and lots of love to refurbish and restore the soil so that we could grow something, anything. It still isn't fertile enough, but we're getting there. With my own composter, installed this past spring, I feel like my soil will be happy again soon. All this time and effort, to make dirt healthy.

Now, imagine cultivating an appreciation of goodness, of kindness. What would that look like? What would grow? According to the Dalai Lama, goodness and kindness. Seems worth it to me. And it seems to me that Hamid Chaudhry, a Dairy Queen owner from Reading Pennsylvania, is an expert. In an article in the New York Times, a story is told about a man who understands what it means to till the soil of goodness. And because the dakband project is all about harvesting goodness, we'll be sending him some dakbands to share with his customers and community.

I don't have a picture of Hamid, but I can share some photos of goodness from my garden.....(but you can see a slide show of the article on our facebook page)