I wrote about the Peace Run being a virtual event this year due to Covid and a wonderful surprise changed that here in Rhode Island. We were far enough along in phased reopening to have an actual Peace Run event (no more than 15 people) which included two ceremonies and several runners carrying the Peace Torch between the two locations. We were included in a local TV early morning news segment and a local newspaper did an article on the event. It was an inspiring culmination to all the virtual miles some of us had logged here in Rhode Island since the virtual run began in the Spring. My personal victory was to run the 2 miles along with the others carrying the torch and more or less keeping up with them for the distance! Here is a picture of me holding the Peace Torch on that special day! Read all about it on the Peace Run News from the Road section of the website.
Peace Run 2020 – a virtual journey!
Every two years starting in 1987, the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run (an awesome global torch relay for peace founded by Spiritual visionary Sri Chinmoy) travels across America along with hundreds of other countries spreading a simple message – peace begins with me. By sharing the peace torch in ceremonies and activities with children, politicians, notable world figures and ordinary folks like you and me, seeds of peace and harmony are planted in countless ways.
This year the North American core relay team was going to run through my home state of Rhode Island on Wednesday August 12th. When the global pandemic took hold in mid-March, the actual running of the torch across the U.S. and Canada had to be canceled but like so many other activities during Covid times, we quickly launched a virtual run where the team that would have run decided to do miles in their own neighborhoods, carry the vision of the Peace Run in their hearts while running and walking and tally up the total to see if we could reach the same number of miles that would have been run in real-time.
Since only a couple of weeks ago, I got the Peace Run bug and decided that even though I hadn’t planned to travel across America with the core team that I could dedicate my new-found love of running on the East Bay Bike Path to the Peace Run. I wear the t-shirt (God I wished I owned more than 2 of them!) and sometimes chant or silently sing some of the songs that Sri Chinmoy composed that are like anthems of the run.
In small quiet ways, I feel that imperceptibly this humble effort might be making a difference. I’m much more likely to greet and say hello to the people I pass and them to me. I find myself spontaneously feeling more hopeful and optimistic about the world even though so much is happening in the world right now that is challenging. And I like to imagine that maybe even the trees, flowers, geese, swans, rabbits and deer that I see can share in a spirit of oneness to really bring home the message of the Peace Run into a reality – minus the word virtual despite these different and difficult outer circumstances underway in the world these days.
My precious deer
Since the end of January, I work at a new branch of the same library system where I have worked for many years. It was built amongst some woods and I took this picture of a deer through the window of my work and paired it with this inspiring poem … Continue reading →
International Day of Happiness
Today is the sixth annual International Day of Happiness, first started by the UN and observed on March 20th around the world. I find inspiration for growing happiness in the poems, quotes, prayers and aphorisms of Sri Chinmoy.
Here are a few that provide a spiritual and wise perspective on the subject of happiness.
Be happy, divinely happy.
In your divine happiness
Is your unimaginable progress.
Sri Chinmoy, Twenty-Seven Thousand Aspiration-Plants, Part 236.
Those who run after happiness
Will never be happy.
Happiness is something
That has to come to the fore
From within.
Sri Chinmoy, Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 41.
Offering worship to You,
I am so happy,
My Lord.
I am also happy
Because this happiness of mine
Nobody can steal.
Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames, Part 5.
Happiness
Is always an expansion
Of the heart.
Sri Chinmoy, Seventy-Seven Thousand Service-Trees, Part 21.