Summary of Humanity Center projects

What are 'Humanity Centers'?

Why start centers in poor countries?
The difference that exists between people is the same as the division in our own soul. Healing the division between peoples is the same as healing the division in our own soul, only more important, because the scale is so much greater, and so is the suffering. This is a internal way of responding to global injustice.

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Summary of the projects of Humanity Centers

The practical work of Humanity Centers is to create model institutions that demonstrate what is most real and has most life. It is a way of satisfying our thirst to live in the society we envision.

We may produce a local monthly or bimonthly newspaper, as a vehicle for our programs and a public expression of our point of view. (We have been publishing a free newspaper in Alaska, Alaska Humanity News, for over a year.)

We will create various forums for understanding, in public and private spaces, based on our experience in running an alternative school for adults. This is an interactive and provocative process of raising questions about fundamental choices about humanity and society

Elemental Society is an attempt to bring depth to existing social institutions, and we could begin with projects to address the three pillars of society, culture, economics and government. In culture, we could develop an event or program called Beautiful Books, which is a way to stand up for what is good and healing in culture. In economics, we could promote a Conscious Business Alliance, which promotes humane ways of buying and selling. In government, we could even create a Humanity Political Party, designed to ask fundamental questions about contemporary issues, not fleeting political ones.

Help centers – Connecting diverse people and cultures.
We can overcome barriers that seem impenetrable. We can bind together people of different backgrounds, education, language, race, ethnicity, culture, religion, and nations.

The Moral Commons is reclaiming our public spaces (and cultural life) through spiritual direct activism.

True Relations is a process of forming relationships that naturally transform society.

Humanity Movement is a way of finding connections between the multitude of groups, organizations, political parties, and religions that are often set at odds with each other even though they are striving for a better world. And we will create special spaces for life affirming movements.

We may want to create a small restaurant or cafe, in order to make the center a comfortable and accessible place, and also to bring our ideas about relationships to eating.

What are 'Humanity Centers'?

Just as in our private life we want to strive for integrity, to know who we are and be true to this, we also need a container for our life in society that would sustain us. We are lacking a natural home for our actual self: a center that sees and responds to our inner life, our deep needs, our profound senses, our whole being. This center is just as vital as our own personal center.

We need a home for that part of ourselves that is adrift. It would seek out people who lacked and knew they lacked just this beautiful center, and it would have a spirit strong enough to take in someone who was suffering because what is beautiful in them was wounded, and to nurture this and provide opportunities to express it in the world.

What kind of center would radiate a spirit of life so strong that anyone who walked in would recognize it? This is our goal. It is to ask fundamental questions on humanity and society, to find inspiration in the dimensions of reality (truth, beauty, love, the good, and the sacred). It is a place where we can develop our profound senses, and our capacity to live and build into reality the highest version of what we comprehend. It is to make challenges about what is necessary to become a person who could help bring depth to social institutions, and live into being a society based on care and understanding.

These centers would be a shelter for insights about what is beautiful, protecting and strengthening what we become aware of in special moments. They would explore the ways we are woven together, breathing the same molecules, sharing the same needs and realities. They would establish relationships based on infinity: a striving to recognize what is most beautiful and most lasting in each other. And they would be places where the un-dogmatic, non-ideological pursuit of what is highest and best in human beings is nourished.

If nothing else the purity of our intention in asking these questions, making these challenges, and sheltering these insights would be sufficient to create the spirit which is the truth at the center of these centers.

What is the difference between mediocrity and vitality, between superficiality and depth? In my view it is access to the ‘dimensions of reality’ – beauty, truth, good, love, and the sacred. This is what is rare in existing society, and what we want to bring to life in tangible ways in our centers.

Such a center, in ourselves and in society, is possible. It IS possible to nurture, cultivate, support, cradle, sustain and embrace the good and beautiful center of people who are suffering because they perceive what is missing. It IS possible to develop, expand, demonstrate, offer alternatives and opportunities, show trust in, and grasp hands and reach upwards with those who perceive the subtle, inner reality that gives meaning.

The reason these people suffer is that they lack and sense that they lack means to express what is of most importance. It is the people with beautiful hearts, who are suffering, that would form the natural core of our centers. We should activity seek them out, and offer them this home as a place that welcomes them.

Ultimately the ‘center’ could, should and would (and does) exist in nearly every place. But for the time being we can build them ourselves, and if we built several of them they could create a synergy that would circulate our life-blood like a heart. Of course this is a big project, because it involves a near total re-conceiving of life and society. But it is also simple, because it is founded on a natural, original sense of what it means to be a human being.

Commitment and principles

There is no special commitment required to join Humanity centers. Each person self-determines their suitability to become a member by:
-- Saying ‘yes’ to the bond of friendship and union in the community.
-- Evaluating whether their spiritual integrity – the extent to which inwardness, compassion, justice and holiness are to be found in action – is intact.

More possible projects (especially in poor countries)

‘Reality travel’
Similar to Global Exchange ‘reality tours,’ but for independent travelers. It would provide resources to experience the political, economic and cultural life of the country from a human (rather than a political) point of view.

Resource and help center
Tools to connect travelers and residents with opportunities for learning, experiencing and helping. A place where those seeking help and those with resources and the desire to help can find each other.

Practical projects that respond to tangible needs
Such as for health, education, shelter, food, etc.

Network of centers
A network of Humanity Centers could support and strengthen each local group. There would be educational exchanges, perhaps classes taking place simultaneously in distant parts of the world, and many other shared projects. For instance, the centers could coordinate sister-community relationships, and facilitate true fair trade. Members would have the opportunity to travel between communities.

Huzanity Hostels
A Huzanity Hostel would be a hostel of another color. It would combine study about local issues (and their global implications), useful work in the village together with community members, and shared meals with fellow travelers. In a setting like a small, intentional community, it could be a place where we learn and become more than we know and are.
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