Spring & Community

Hello World!

Spring? I think nature...stuff starts growing. We can eat food that was grown locally and in Kentucky, spring is beautiful! The trees are in bloom and everyone's at the parks.

Community is a context and a psychological process. What does spring mean for the psych process? new beginnings, maybe...

Depending on your sense of community, spring time happiness may make you burrow deeper into self-satisfaction, etc. For others, and myself, I hope the content and inspired feelings of spring leads us to embrace a new sense of community. Love thy neighbor, even the ones in OTR! Who are your neighbors? I hope that beauty of spring can remind me that I have neighbors all around the world. Maybe spring can help us remember to love others as we love ourselves, extend helping hands, etc...

Spring means new things, especially newborn babies everywhere! I was listening to NPR once and they were talking about ladies who're complete strangers talk as though they known each other for years. Babies are the source of conversation. They inspire hope, love and the abandonment of the walls to which we typically cling--we're thrown walls around ourselves to stay tough, to stay uninvolved, to keep from feeling guilty. Maybe spring can remind us how arbitrary and artificial many of those walls are....

The community is in our bones...deep in KY, mountains sleep, opening an eye every so often to gaze at the hardworking and struggling coal miners...sleepy dew, bright greens, this is the spirituality of my ancestors. I hope that an instinctual desire to do something with it will be done.

Author: Jeanine

Don't Become Homeless

My name is Brenda and I am homeless. Right now, I am living at the shelter downtown Cincinnati. Life is more than being homeless. There is a whole life outside the shelter. I say to the public never do drugs, maintain a job, respect people around you, stay out of trouble, take care of your family, and enjoy life because it's too short and you never know what God may have in store for you.

Be the best you can be in the world. Be somebody. Live your dreams and never give up because we are all God's children and everyone deserves a second chance in life. So make your parents and your friends proud of you. Everyone makes mistakes in their life and they are to be corrected. God bless you always.

Author: Brenda

Woman to Woman: Advice on Being Homeless

Homelessness can happen to anyone. The test is how you deal with this unexpected life crisis. I am sure that there are books on how to survive this event, and that there are success stories to let you know that there is a rainbow at the end of the tunnel. Going through this tunnel, I need support. I am not through it yet, but I will be.

There are some rules that you should know when you are homeless:

1. Let it go! Don't worry, you are not the first homeless person
2. If you are shy, get over it. Learn to share your feelings with each other
3. Find an art teacher. Take your mind off of things
4. It is OK to cry
5. Keep a journal and write, write, write!

And seek your higher power and thank him for your situation and ask him for guidance. Celebrate life and the successes with your new friends.

Author: Edith