Amy Durfee West’s Blog
“Throw your heart over the bars and your body will follow.”

posted by Amy on Mar 14

Early this year I got the idea (from a book) to start drinking raw milk. I got online to find a place to buy it, and I found the Selene Whole Foods Co-op, in Media, PA. It’s less than 10 miles from where I live. By Colorado standards, that’s quite close, but here they think it’s remarkable that I drive “that far.” Media is a very charming town, and I’m glad I found it. It reminds me of Boulder.

I joined the Co-op. They do sell a delicious, grass fed, organic milk from a heritage breed of milk cows. The cream comes up to the top of the bottle, and you have to shake it to get the cream distributed. The last time I bought some, I pasteurized it myself, but that’s another story. They have a lot of other things I like to buy, including bulk grains, beans, and flours.

I am a “working member” of the Co-op, which means I get amazing discounts in exchange for donating four hours of my time every month. In February I noticed they were looking for new board members. I have experience on nonprofit boards, and I thought that might be a more valuable contribution than sweeping floors and rearranging displays, so I threw my hat in the ring.

That’s how I met Maura. She was the head of the nominating committee. I later decided to “un-nominate” myself to the board, but Maura and I hit it off, and she invited me to go to Media this afternoon to hang out with her, along with another co-op board member and longtime supporter, whose name is also Amy.

We went to a kids’ play in which the daughter of one of the other board members was performing. That reminded me of many such performances by my own children, and I had fun. Then Maura took me to browse through books that had been donated to the Media library. Some of them had come from a retired (or deceased?) pastor, and she thought I might especially like to see them. I love browsing through old books, and I had a wonderful time. Then we went to her place for a meal.

At the table, Maura and Amy asked me if I had ever heard of Karen Armstrong. I hadn’t. They told me a bit about her, and said she had done an interesting interview with Bill Moyers. We had a very nice visit, and I returned to my apartment, and got on the internet to browse stories.

In reading the comments to a story about the role of the press in exposing the duplicity and lies of major public figures (in the context of the current financial crisis) I found a link to that Bill Moyers/Karen Anderson interview. It’s quite fascinating, it has to do with religion, and I think it’s quite remarkable that it just popped up into my consciousness today. You can watch it here.

Karen Armstrong says that compassion is at the core of every major religion, and that we must all practice compassion as a discipline, “all day and every day.” Compassion is nothing more or less than adhering to the Golden Rule. She says that people who think this is simple, or simplistic, have never actually tried it.

Tags: Bill Moyers | Compassion | Golden Rule | Karen Armstrong | Serendipity