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Revealing News For a Better World

Inspirational News Stories
Excerpts of Key Inspirational News Stories in Major Media


Below are highly engaging excerpts of key inspirational stories reported in the mainstream media. Links are provided to the original stories on their major media websites. If any link fails to function, read this webpage. These inspirational stories are ordered by date posted to this list. You can explore the same stories listed by order of importance or by article date. Enjoy your inspirational reading!

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


"Out-of-Body Experiences" Can Lead to Profound and Lasting Psychological Transformations, New Research Reports
2024-09-10, The Debrief
Posted: 2024-09-15 18:32:24
https://thedebrief.org/out-of-body-experiences-can-lead-to-profound-and-lasti...

A new study from the University of Virginia's School of Medicine says that out-of-body experiences (OBEs), like near-death experiences, can lead to profound psychological transformations, including increases in empathy and emotional connectivity. The findings ... suggest that these altered states of consciousness transform how people connect with others, fostering greater compassion and understanding. In this state, the sense of self becomes less distinct, allowing individuals to feel a deeper connection to the world around them. "We propose that OBEs might engender these profound changes through the process of ego dissolution," researchers explained. "Ego dissolution fosters a sense of unity and interconnectedness with others. These sensations of interconnectedness can persist beyond the experience itself." Researchers report that 55% of individuals who had an out-of-body experience reported that the experience profoundly changed their lives, and 71% described it as having a lasting benefit. The researchers cite numerous personal accounts that illustrate the transformative power of OBEs. One woman described her experience as being surrounded by "100% unconditional love" and feeling deeply connected to everyone and everything around her. "In an instant, I became part of the Universe. I felt connected to everything. Connected to everyone. I was completely surrounded by 100% unconditional love. I did not want to leave!"

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about near-death experiences and the nature of reality.


In Nigeria, anti-government protests unite a divided country
2024-08-12, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-09-11 14:08:53
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2024/0812/nigeria-protests-muslim-chri...

Since religious riots tore across the central Nigerian city of Jos two decades ago, its Muslim and Christian residents have largely kept apart. They have their own neighborhoods. They vote for different political parties. But the cost-of-living crisis that has swept Nigeria over the past year has blurred some of those boundaries. "If there is hunger in the land, the hunger that the Christian is feeling is not different from the hunger the Muslim is feeling," observes Tony Young Godswill, national secretary of the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria, a pro-democracy group. When nationwide anti-government protests broke out in early August, hungry, angry Jos residents from all backgrounds poured into the streets. When Muslim demonstrators knelt to pray on a busy road one Friday afternoon, hundreds of Christian marchers spontaneously formed a tight, protective circle around them. Nigeria's protests began in response to the soaring costs of food and transport over the past year and a half, which have more than doubled in some cases. Protesters blame the economic stabilization policies of President Bola Tinubu, which have included removing a heavy subsidy on petrol and devaluing the naira, Nigeria's currency. In Abuja, the capital, Ibrahim Abdullahi was among those who marched. As a Muslim, he says he previously thought it was inappropriate for him to protest against a fellow Muslim like Mr. Tinubu. Now, he held a placard that read "We regret Tinubu."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


Boko Haram made them child soldiers. Will their communities take them back?
2024-08-27, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-09-11 14:06:50
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2024/0827/Boko-Haram-child-fighters-co...

Abba Gana was only 10 years old when Boko Haram insurgents attacked his village in northern Nigeria in 2014. Along with the other boys his age, he was kidnapped. By the time he was 15, Mr. Gana had joined the ranks of the group's fighters, carrying out raids like the one on his own village. "Growing up with them, I thought I was fighting for a greater cause," he says of his time with the group, whose goal is to create a fundamentalist Islamic state. In 2022, he heard a government radio program urging Boko Haram members to surrender. "They said ... that we are welcome back [to our communities] if we repent," he recalls. For the first time, Mr. Gana says, he allowed himself to imagine that he might be able to go home. Today, some 160,000 former fighters and their families have been "reintegrated" into Nigerian society, according to estimates by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The experiences of former child soldiers ... point to how complex those efforts can be. Many have struggled to find a place for themselves. But their supporters say it isn't impossible. "Kindness always pays," says Bulama Maina Audu, whose nephew was abducted by Boko Haram in 2014, and who now works with a group helping former child soldiers return home. "The fears and concerns of the communities they are returning to are completely legitimate, but they can only be addressed through dialogue," says Oliver Stolpe, UNODC country representative for Nigeria.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing the war machine.


Kids as cooks and dog walkers? How one elementary school encourages independence.
2024-06-25, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-09-11 14:05:05
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2024/0625/las-vegas-elementary-school...

"I can do things by myself more instead of having my dad or my mom do them," says Deven Doutis. Deven's teacher, Amy Wolfe, sensed students were entering higher grades with more needs than in past years. Some couldn't open a water bottle, for instance, or navigate minor conflicts with their peers. So when Ms. Wolfe heard about a program called Let Grow, she decided to pilot it within select classrooms. The program's premise is simple: When children gain independence, they grow into more confident and capable people. In a commentary piece published by The Journal of Pediatrics last year, researchers pointed to evidence showing a correlation between children's dwindling independence and increasing mental health problems over several decades. "We are not suggesting that a decline in opportunities for independent activity is the sole cause of the decline in young people's mental well-being over decades, only that it is a cause, possibly a major cause," the authors wrote. In Ms. Wolfe's classroom each month, students chose an independent activity, loosely tied to a theme, and completed it by themselves. Then they reported back to their classmates and teacher about the experience. There were no grades or critiques. If Ms. Wolfe asked any probing questions, it was to suss out how her students felt after, say, baking a cake or pulling weeds. Her hope is that their newfound confidence carries into the academic realm.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about reimagining education.


How Norway Avoided Becoming a Fascist State
2017-02-16, Yes! Magazine
Posted: 2024-09-04 17:39:19
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/science/2017/02/16/how-norway-avoided-becom...

Consider the Norwegians, who experienced extreme polarization at the same time as the Germans did. The Norwegian economic elite organized against striking laborers and produced a polarized country that included both Nazi Brown Shirts goose-stepping in the streets and Norwegian Communists agitating to overthrow capitalism. The politician Vidkun Quisling, an admirer of Hitler, organized in 1933 a Nazi party, and its uniformed paramilitary wing sought to provoke violent clashes with leftist students. Quisling reportedly held discussions with military officers about a possible coup d'etat.The stage was set for a fascist "solution." Instead, Norway broke through to a social democracy. Progressive movements of farmers and workers, joined by middle-class allies, launched nonviolent direct action campaigns that made the country increasingly ungovernable by the economic elite. The majority forced the economic elite to take a back seat and invented a new economy with arguably the most equality, individual freedom, and shared abundance the developed world has known. The key to avoiding fascism? An organized left with a strong vision and broad support. Grassroots movements built a large infrastructure of co-ops that showed their competency and positivity when the government and political conservatives lacked both. Additionally, activists reached beyond the choir, inviting participation from people who initially feared making large changes. Norwegians also ... chose nonviolent direct action campaigns consisting of strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, and occupations. Norway therefore lacked the dangerous chaos that in Germany led the middle classes to accept the elite's choice of Hitler to bring "law and order."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division and reimagining the economy.


Ending a war by embracing innocence
2024-08-20, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-09-04 17:32:02
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2024/0820/Ending-a-war...

In Sudan ... civilians have endured 16 months of a violent civil war. Last week, talks to end the war began in Switzerland, but only one of the two warring factions showed up. By the weekend, however, each side had taken a critical step. The armed group attending the talks agreed to enable the delivery of emergency aid to parts of the East African country where hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of starvation. About the same time, and seemingly independently, the other faction opened a vital border crossing for the same purpose. The mutual acknowledgment of the need to protect innocent life may have opened a door to solving one of the world's gravest crises. "These constructive decisions by both parties will enable the entry of aid needed to stop the famine, address food insecurity and respond to immense humanitarian needs," international mediators in Geneva said in a joint statement. Recent trends in conflict resolution, the International Committee of the Red Cross noted, have shown that protecting innocent civilians from harm "can have an impact on the success of peace negotiations and agreements, as well as on the chances for post-conflict reconciliation." Humanitarian gestures, the ICRC observed, helped the Colombian government build trust with guerrilla factions and strengthen compliance with a 2016 peace accord. More recently, two armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a mutual pledge in March to respect and protect civilians caught in the vast African country's fragmented wars.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing the war machine.


What quantum physics can tell us about nonviolence
2024-08-01, Waging Nonviolence
Posted: 2024-09-04 17:30:21
https://wagingnonviolence.org/metta/podcast/what-quantum-physics-can-tell-us-...

Dr. Amit Goswami [is the] founder of the Center for Quantum Activism and former professor at the University of Oregon. the quantum revolution, which started at the beginning of the last century, has put us in the position of an unfinished revolution, otherwise known as a kind of suspended paradigm shift where the world is shifting from a situation of materialist reductionism, as it's called, where everything is regarded as based on material particles, to a world where everything is based on energy cannot be understood apart from consciousness. And that's important for us because nonviolence does not operate materially. Nonviolence operates spiritually in the domain of consciousness. "Matter is just a possibility in consciousness," [said Gaswami]. "So, consciousness chooses out of the matter waves the actual events that we experience. In the process, consciousness identifies with our brain, the observer's brain. We can talk about nonviolence in a very scientific way. If we are all originating from the same source, if we are ultimately the same consciousness that works through us, then it is complete ignorance to be violent to each other. So, the issue of nonviolence is basically a challenge of transformation. How do we transform using creativity, using the archetype of goodness, bring that into the equation of power, and learn to be nonviolent with each other?" There's a lot of mental violence going on. But the point is that the way we approach it as violence begets more violence. So, it never stops. The answer, of course, is that nonviolence has to grow from inside of us. It has to be an intuition that often happens not just once or twice during the day, but becomes a conviction, a faith that I cannot be violent to my fellow human.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


‘Empowering and healing, people's assemblies are the future of democracy'
2024-08-21, Positive News
Posted: 2024-08-26 12:53:01
https://www.positive.news/opinion/galvanising-communities-to-confront-the-cri...

A wave of local democracy is sweeping across Europe. On the streets of Hull ... democracy is coming to life through people's assemblies. Assemblies are public meetings where local people get together to discuss and decide on a specific issue, without political interference or hidden agendas. These assemblies can help us fundamentally rethink how we make decisions in our society, and create strong, active communities in the process. To survive ecological breakdown and the collapse of our failing economy, we need both, urgently. The culture war has gained a lot of ground. Overcoming these divisions is one of our biggest, most pressing challenges. Through assemblies, it's possible to form self-organising communities where we lift each other out of the conditions that these ideologies prey on. Where we are forced to work alongside people we disagree with or even dislike, and organise positive initiatives that feed us, lower our energy bills, give us purpose and contribute to a stronger community spirit. Our assembly ground rules ask us to look for what we have in common, and there is a wealth of agreement to be found if you care to look for it. Cooperation Hull is holding Neighbourhood Assemblies across the city, and in each one we are learning what happens when a room full of strangers upend social norms to break bread, hold hands (an ice-breaker) and voice their honest opinions on the most important questions of our time. Soon we will launch the first citywide assembly: hundreds of people weighing in on a big issue, then attempting to make practical changes with the help of local organisations – and there are groups like us popping up from Cornwall to Glasgow, and Italy and Germany, too. The potential of assemblies is nothing short of revolutionary. It is the potential to change everything.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


China ‘Angel' Stops 469 Suicidal People Jumping off Bridge Over 21 years
2024-08-02, Good News Network
Posted: 2024-08-26 12:50:46
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/china-angel-stops-469-suicidal-people-jumping...

Mr. Chen Si, known as the Angel of Nanjing, has volunteered to patrol the Yangtze Bridge every day, and over a 21-year career, he has saved 469 people from committing suicide. One of the most famous bridges in the country, it is also the world's most popular location to commit suicide. Almost daily there are people lingering alone or wandering aimlessly along its sidewalk, and Chen engages them in conversation to test whether or not they are prospective jumpers. It started for Chen back in 2000, when he saw a desperate-looking girl wandering on the bridge. He was worried something might happen to her so he brought lunch for them to share and started to chat with her. He eventually paid for a bus ticket for her to go home, but realized that this was something that must happen all the time. For the past 21 years, he's crossed the bridge 10 times a day on his electric scooter wearing his red jacket with the words "cherish all life" written across the back, he's charismatic, he's determined, he can be almost rude, in a certain Chinese way, in his efforts saving people's life, and he's become an expert. "People with an extreme internal struggle don't have relaxed body movements, their bodies look heavy," Chen [said]. He's caught suicidal people who've been cheated on by their spouses, those who can't afford school, and many other reasons. He has spare rooms in his house to keep those he pulls off the bridge in a safe environment.

Note: Watch the trailer for a 2015 documentary about Chen. Explore more positive human interest stories focused on solutions and bridging divides.


How doulas and cafes help people break the last taboo – talking about death
2024-05-20, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-08-26 12:48:00
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2024/0520/death-taboo-conversation-educ...

Ms. Gatto is Green-Wood [Cemetery's] resident death educator. She coordinates programs that include financial end-of-life planning seminars and the Mortality & Me book club. For much of human history, the issues of death and dying have been predominantly handled though religion and rites of organized faith. But as the United States became more secular, the loss of customs left a void. "Many people are raised with different ideas about fear connected to death. People end up carrying this stuff with them throughout their whole lives ... It's creating these more positive outlets for processing these kinds of feelings with community. I get to see what people are yearning for, and then create events and programs around it – and make it, dare I say, a little fun, right?" [Gatto] says. The goal of today's death education, says Anita Hannig, an anthropologist and author who studies death, is to find ways to address mortality without taking on the baggage that often accompanies it. "We're trying to create a safe container for us to have those conversations and not be labeled as morbid, suicidal, or weird and obsessed with death," she says. Some people's first encounter might be a death cafe. The unstructuredness of death cafes means participants can steer the conversation to larger topics, like questions of an afterlife, legacy, or a bucket list. But they can also find it helpful to dig into more functional topics, like funeral planning, wills, and burial methods. These gatherings numbering in the thousands have taken place across 90 countries. The rules of death cafes are simple: They are respectful and confidential. They shouldn't have any particular agenda. They shouldn't be held with the intention of leading participants to any particular conclusion. And they should, ideally, involve cake.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


Inside the L.A.P.D.'s Experiment in Trust-Based Policing
2021-02-25, Reasons to be Cheerful
Posted: 2024-08-20 19:35:51
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/lapd-community-safety-partnership-policing/

[Captain Emada] Tingirides, 50, is only the second Black female officer in Los Angeles to reach the position of Deputy Chief. Since September 1, 2020, she has been in charge of the Department's new Community Safety Partnership Bureau (CSP). "It's about trust," Tingirides says when asked to describe CSP. "The community has to hold law enforcement accountable, and law enforcement has to hold communities accountable. We ask the communities what they expect from us, and we take their goals seriously." CSP represents a major shift in L.A.'s notoriously hardline approach to policing. But there's reason to believe it could stick – independent studies have shown that the CSP has increased trust in police, reduced violent crime and saved the city millions of dollars. Under the CSP concept, police officers are stationed in an area for at least five years. They become part of the community, attend neighborhood meetings, organize soccer tournaments, hand out "Donuts for Dads," and "Muffins for Moms." They work closely with gang intervention workers, social workers, non-profits and, most important, neighborhood residents. "I thought all cops were bad," a nine-year old boy admits. But now, he says, he loves Community Officer Jeff Joyce, who started "Nicks Kids," a soccer club for youths. "Our methods are unconventional, and we are adaptable," Tingirides says. "Each neighborhood is different."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice.


Sending Unarmed Responders Instead of Police: What We've Learned
2024-07-25, The Marshall Project
Posted: 2024-08-20 19:33:48
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2024/07/25/police-mental-health-alternativ...

Many sweeping attempts to reform policing have faltered. But one proposal that has taken hold across the country, and continues to spread, is launching alternative first response units that send unarmed civilians, instead of armed officers, to some emergencies. In Dayton, Ohio, trained mediators are dispatched to neighbor disputes and trespassing calls. In Los Angeles, outreach workers who have lived through homelessness, incarceration or addiction respond to 911 calls concerning people living on the street. In Anchorage, Alaska, trained clinicians and paramedics are showing up to mental health crises. Researchers have tracked over 100 alternative crisis response units operating across the U.S. Some distinguish between mobile crisis teams, which exclusively send clinicians to mental health emergencies, and community responder programs, which send civilians to a wider range of calls. The key tenets are that they can be the first response to an emergency situation and that they arrive without armed officers. There have been no known major injuries of any community responder on the job. Eventually, a large portion of current police work could be handed off to alternative responders. A 2020 review of 911 calls ... estimates that up to 68% of calls "could be handled without sending an armed officer," according to a report by the Center for American Progress and the Law Enforcement Action Partnership.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on repairing criminal justice.


There was no medicine, so this Ukrainian nurse sang lullabies to wounded soldiers
2024-03-19, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-08-20 19:31:29
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/0319/There-was-no-medicine-so-thi...

Not long after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Oksana Sokhan found herself in an evacuation minibus, wedged between two stricken soldiers in the dark, as the vehicle tried to safely get away from the front line. She began singing Ukrainian lullabies to the wounded fighters, and stroking them as a mother would. Their anxiety eased. If she stopped the soothing singing for a moment, she saw their anxiety surge again. "I was surprised myself that it worked – surely it worked on a subconscious level for both of them," recalls the nurse. Ms. Sokhan still laughs about that moment of serendipitous support with the lullabies in the minibus, and about how – after they had all arrived safely at the hospital – a nurse came out to report that one of the men was convinced his mother had been with him during the evacuation. Ms. Sokhan may be just one senior nurse, but she is emblematic of the legions of Ukrainian military medics devoted to preserving the lives of the country's outnumbered forces. For years a member of the 128th Separate Transcarpathian Mountain Assault Brigade, she has seen a whirlwind of casualties at different points along the front line since Russia's all-out invasion. "We want to save everyone," she says. "Of course, it's very important to see the results of your work, because when they come here" the soldiers are traumatized, in pain, "and when they leave ... they are already waving sometimes."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.


How Nature Inspires Technology: The Field of Biomimicry
2023-06-09, Mirage
Posted: 2024-08-12 22:42:53
https://www.miragenews.com/how-nature-inspires-technology-the-field-of-1023128/

Biomimicry is grounded in the concept that nature, with its 3.8 billion years of evolution, has already solved many of the problems we grapple with today. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. Rather than designing new technology from scratch, scientists and engineers often look to nature for inspiration. In its approach, biomimicry involves three essential aspects: Emulating natural forms, mimicking natural processes, and imitating ecosystems. Nature operates under specific principles: it runs on sunlight, uses only the energy it needs, fits form to function, recycles everything, rewards cooperation, banks on diversity, demands local expertise, curbs excesses from within, and taps the power of limits. By aligning our technologies and practices with these principles, we can create not only innovative but also sustainable solutions to our challenges. Architects and engineers are designing buildings that mimic termite mounds, which maintain constant temperature despite external fluctuations. This biomimetic approach reduces energy consumption for heating and cooling. The self-cleaning properties of lotus leaves have inspired a whole range of products. The microscopic structure of a lotus leaf repels water and dirt particles. Today, we have self-cleaning paints and fabrics based on this principle. The bumps on the fins of humpback whales, called tubercles, increase their efficiency in water. Applying this concept to the design of wind turbines has led to blades that produce power more efficiently. Corals can heal themselves by producing an organic mineral in response to physical damage. Scientists have mimicked this process to create a type of concrete that can "heal" its own cracks.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the Earth and technology for good.


How time in nature builds happier, healthier and more social children
2024-08-04, Washington Post
Posted: 2024-08-12 22:40:53
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/08/04/outdoor-nature-children-co...

The average American today spends nearly 90 percent of their time indoors. Yet research indicates that children benefit greatly from time spent in nature; that not only does it improve their cognition, mood, self-esteem and social skills, but it can also make them physically healthier and less anxious. "Outdoor time for children is beneficial not just for physical health but also mental health for a multitude of reasons," says Janine Domingues, a senior psychologist in the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute. "It fosters curiosity and independence. It helps kids get creative about what they can do … and then just moving around and expending energy has a lot of physical health benefits." [A] 2022 systematic review found that time outdoors can improve prosocial behaviors, including sharing, cooperating and comforting others. Research has found that nature can be particularly helpful for those who've had adverse childhood experiences. Such experiences can include growing up with poverty, abuse or violence. One 2023 study published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology looked at how making art in nature affected about 100 children in a low-income neighborhood in England. Their confidence, self-esteem and agency all improved. For all these reasons, it's important for even very young children to have access to nature where they already are, says Nilda Cosco, a research professor.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about reimagining education.


Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows
2024-07-02, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
Posted: 2024-08-12 22:39:09
https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jul/02/ants-emergency-amputa...

It sounds like a scene from a Spielberg film: an injured worker undergoes an emergency amputation, performed by one of her colleagues, allowing her to live another day. But this is not a human story – it is behaviour seen in ants. While it is not the first time wound care has been seen in ants, scientists say their discovery is the first example of a non-human animal carrying out life-saving amputations. Surprisingly, the insects appear to tailor the treatment they give to the location of injury. "The ants are able to diagnose, to some extent, the wounds and treat them accordingly to maximise the survival of the injured," said Dr Erik Frank, from the University of Lausanne. Writing in the journal Current Biology, Frank and colleagues report how they cut Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) on their right hind limb, then observed the responses of their nest mates for a week. "Nest mates would begin licking the wound before moving up the injured limb with their mouthparts until they reached the trochanter. The nest mates then proceeded to repeatedly bite the injured leg until it was cut off," the team wrote. By contrast, no amputations were observed for the nine ants with injuries on their tibia, or lower leg. Instead, these ants received only wound care from their nest mates in the form of licking. "It is another example of an adaptation in the lives of social insect workers in which workers help each other to work for their colony and to help their colony," [Prof Francis Ratnieks at the University of Sussex] said. "Such as when a worker honeybee makes a waggle dance to direct a nest mate to food, or when a worker sacrifices its life in defence of the colony, or here where workers amputate the limbs of an injured or infected worker."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about animal wonders.


‘A disposition of the heart': Exploring the power of civility to heal divides
2023-11-03, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-08-05 19:45:46
https://www.csmonitor.com/Podcasts/Why-We-Wrote-This/wwwt_2341

As the Monitor's chief culture writer, Stephen Humphries stays open to a sprawling landscape of story ideas. Lately that has meant exploring empathy gaps – situations where, in some cases, groups hail the misfortune and losses of those whom they view as their ideological foes. No-tolerance side-taking has emerged over everything from the Mideast conflict to stances on policing or vaccines. That got Stephen talking to a solution-seeker on the matter of fraying human connections: Alexandra Hudson, author of "The Soul of Civility." "I am hopeful," she says, "because I've spoken to thousands of people who are working to be part of the solutions in their every day." Through the power of connection, she says, "we can reclaim the soul of civility and heal our broken world." As these traditional touchstones of meaning in life, family, faith, friendship, community, have been on the [decline] in recent decades, more and more people have found their ultimate meaning in public life, in political issues. Now it's easy for people to feel like their very identity is being assaulted because of that disagreement, because their identity has been misplaced in a public and political issue. Democracy depends on reasonable, deliberative discourse and conversation and debate. And if people are constantly being thrown into fight or flight mode, we're not doing our public issues well, we're not doing democracy well. We're not doing life together very well. We live in this era of a strange perfectionism. We take one aspect of who a person is and extrapolate that: "OK, that's all I need to know about who you are and what you stand for." But that's so reductive and it's degrading to the dignity of the human person. Unbundling people is seeing the part in light of the whole, seeing someone's mistakes even in light of the dignity and an irreducible worth they have as human beings.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


Poland appears torn by abortion. Research hints divide isn't so deep.
2024-02-09, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2024-08-05 19:43:37
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2024/0209/Poland-appears-torn-by-abort...

The issue of abortion has neatly cleaved the Polish political class, yet researchers find that Poles themselves feel much more empathy around it than their elected leaders. And the idea that people hold compassion around many divisive issues presents an opportunity to bridge a societal divide, says Zofia WĹ‚odarczyk, a researcher at the social science think tank More in Common, which published a study. "We basically only talk [in politics] about abortion – are you for, or are you against, but there's so much in between that's gray," she says. And when she and her colleagues interviewed voters of all stripes, they saw the gray. Even among the most staunchly conservative, religious group – about 6% of those surveyed – about a third of men and women surveyed would support someone close to them getting an abortion. The vast majority of Polish men and women of all persuasions oppose punishing women who choose abortion. Anna WĂłjcik, a legal scholar ... says people are ready to move past what she calls "civil war conditions," after eight years in which the conservative majority questioned loyalty to country for simply expressing divergent views. "I feel that Polish people are tired of this polarizing political scene and division," says Ms. WĂłjcik. "Basically people want to move forward, to be able to discuss topics in democracy that we have conflicting views on, like energy transition and education and stuff like that."

Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.


5 Countries That Ditched Their Military Forces
2024-04-16, Howstuffworks.com
Posted: 2024-08-05 19:41:48
https://science.howstuffworks.com/5-countries-without-military-forces.htm

Between 136.5 and 148.5 million people became casualties of war in the 20th century alone. The economics are equally staggering. For instance, U.S. spending on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan could top $4 trillion. Despite the exorbitant human and financial costs, the vast majority of governments consider defense spending to be a necessity. A few renegade countries have opted to shed their militaries, however. The first country is the most recent one on our list to get rid of its armed forces. After Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected president [of Haiti] on Dec. 16, 1990, his government was overrun by a military coup. Aristide ... moved quickly to disband Haiti's armed forces before they could pose any further problems. What prompted Costa Rica to eliminate its armed forces? In 1948, after an unusual period of political upheaval ... the new government drafted a constitution that not only guaranteed free and open elections but also abolished the country's armed forces. The island nation of Mauritius is home to more than a million people and one of the strongest economies in Africa. What you won't find, however, are regular military forces. Thanks to the deep distrust Panamanians held for the military, the government adopted a constitutional amendment disbanding the military in 1994. In 1986, Micronesia entered into a Compact of Free Association with the United States.

Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing the war machine.


Arts on Prescription: Embracing a New Culture of Health with "Social Prescribing"
2023-10-23, Bloomberg
Posted: 2024-07-29 15:43:54
https://www.bloomberg.org/blog/arts-on-prescription-embracing-a-new-culture-o...

Someday soon, in addition to prescribing medication or therapy, doctors may begin directing patients to visit a museum or join a choir. The growing practice of "social prescribing" is a way for healthcare providers to address patients' health and wellbeing by connecting them to a range of nonclinical services, often taking the form of community arts and cultural activities. Attention on the healing power of the arts grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. A UK study found that during lockdown in 2020, individuals who spent 30 minutes per day on arts activities had lower rates of depression and anxiety, as well as greater life satisfaction. The first social prescribing pilots in the United States are kicking off on the heels of research demonstrating the long-term health benefits of arts engagement. Adolescents who regularly engage in arts activities have lower odds of behavioral problems, criminalized behaviors, and substance use and higher odds of maintaining strong social support networks. Creatively engaged older adults have 20% lower odds of depression and are more likely to have better memory, life satisfaction, and overall aging experiences. One particularly striking study found that older adults with frequent cultural engagement are less likely to use inpatient healthcare or nursing home stays. In a study of people experiencing chronic pain, doing monthly arts activities is associated with better physical wellbeing, specifically less difficulty with everyday activities.

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