Today I spoke at a Quaker Meeting. My thoughts were about dealing with grief. For many people life is bitterly disappointing. Dreams are lost and to go on we have re-invent ourselves and find a new North Star. Our history as humans has darkness and light / we have both within us. My message was that a way to overcome grief is to find meaning in service / mine is to Christ and the message of divine restoration / personal renaissance / freedom from the ways of hate. In our groups and in my r...
Read More
Author: Gib Pellet
The wisdom of those who respect the Creation.
Something I'm sharing with the Friendly Philosophers this week / July 17th, 2023
"My people are not threatened by silence. They are completely at home in it. They have lived for thousands of years with Nature’s quietness. My people today recognise and experience in this quietness the great Life-Giving Spirit, the Father of us all. It is easy for me to experience God’s presence. When I am out hunting, when I am in the bush, among the trees, on a hill or by a billabong; these are the times w...
Read More
Monthly News from Gib / July 1st, 2023
Common Ground Outreach and the Friendly Philosophers ~ July 1st, 2023
The world’s burning. According to Jessie Thompson and my wife Mi there are over 500 wildfires burning (half are out of control) in Canada. The air is hard to breathe. Looking around the neighborhood of South Minneapolis the trees and houses a block away are shrouded like the Twilight Zone.
How much should we focus on this stuff? Is strength to endure really born from understanding… eyes wide open?
Yeah… if w...
Read More
Monthly news from Gib / June, 2023
Common Ground Outreach and the Friendly Philosophers / June 1st, 2023
A friend in life and on Facebook today posted this image and this caption…
“What if our religion was each other? If our practice was our life? What if the temple was the Earth? If forests were our church? If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans? What if meditation was our relationships? If the Teacher was life? If wisdom was knowledge? If love was the center of our being?”
Injustice, violence, environmental and so...
Read More
We all shine on
Everyone experiences dark times at some point in their life. This is something we, as sentient beings,have in common. As human beings, no matter what our political affiliation or what our ideology may be,suffering is as much a part of our lives as breathing is necessary for continued survival. But no matter how bad things may appear to be, there is always a ray of light carrying with it the promise of a better day that often accompanies hope.
Michael was the epitome of hope. No matter how bad...
Read More
A letter to prison
Tonight I’m working on a letter to a guy who’s spent 21 years of his life in solitary confinement. The guy was locked up at the age of 14 with some other “delinquents” in the county jail in Florida a subjected to various forms of torture by the local police before finally being sentenced. The experience created a monster and when our friend was released he rampaged against the people who’d victimized him. Being a foster child had set the man on an early path to feelings of abandonment and his...
Read More
Children gather Moonbeams while Grown-ups stay inside.
9/11/16
Children gather Moonbeams while Grown-Ups Hide Inside. Gib Pellet
+ + +
In preparing for today I was visited many times by thoughts of children … something about children and God was rattling around up there ….
Finally, this morning, as I was rereading some things I might use, it came together.
Let me share a paragraph from Luke.
Luke 11:37-41
37 As Jesus was speaking, one of the Pharisees invited him home for a meal. So he went in and took his place at the tabl...
Read More
Thoughts from the “Friendly Philosophers”
May 6th, 2016
Last night we welcomed more new members and the conversations were great. One member courageously shared his journey in remaking himself philosophically and got great feedback and engagement from the other folks, all who were pretty awed by the effectiveness of our group in bringing the questions of existence and meaning to the table. It feels like a great honor to think this humble idea of gathering to talk and to allow great minds and hearts to connect, can result in a sharing...
Read More
Is God in the Rain?
The following message was given by my friend Frank Bacon at the Quaker Meeting today in South Minneapolis. I think we could call it:
Is God in the rain?
Frank’s talk 2016.02.28
I was raised an atheist. I realized I was a pacifist when I was 12 while watching a TV documentary series about WWII called Victory at Sea. I thought to myself, “These people are crazy.” At 15 I found out that I wasn’t the only pacifist in the world, and started attending the Evanston, Illinois Friends Meeting,...
Read More
Letter from the Director
February 21st, 2016
Today I ran into an old friend at the Y after 3 miles of agony on the track… Father Bill Teska, an Episcopal Priest of my vintage who is somewhat of a legend in the Twin Cities. Bill’s been involved in so many projects he’s lost count (his middle name is outreach). We talked for a minute about a brilliant friend who worked with us on a project to reclaim an historic church in downtown Minneapolis and convert it into a home for community projects. Turns out the guy has kind...
Read More