Bible bashing
If you’re using the Bible to hurt other people, you’re using it wrong.
Love does no harm to its neighbour, therefore love is the fulfilment of the law. — Romans 13:10
The Supreme Gift
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” — Luke 7:44-47, New International Version (NIV)
THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not LOVE I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing. — Henry Drummond, The Greatest Thing in the World
The Supreme Gift, a rewrite by Paulo Coelho of The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond, a book that was to greatly influence the life of Paulo Coelho.
The Supreme Gift, is currently only available as an e-book, only available on Amazon and iTunes (it may become available on Kobo).
But why restrict to Amazon and ITunes (and maybe Kobo), when there are distinct advantages to author and reader to release on leanpub?
Writers get a far better deal on leanpub, as do readers.
Leanpub pays 90% royalty to authors, less a 50 cent flat fee.
For the reader, multiple download formats, open source formats, not propriety formats.
Amazon is a propriety format, restricted to an Amazon Kindle. iTunes I do not know.
Kindle spies on what the reader is reading, Amazon can and do arbitrarily delete contents of a Kindle.
Kobo readers are better than Kindle. Open source format for e-books.
Kobo Touch is currently in WHSmith in UK at £30 (approx 45 euros), it was £90. The equivalent six inch e-reader from Amazon, Kindle Touch, is double the price.
For those who do not have an e-reader, download and install Calibre.
Calibre can also be used to manage books on an e-reader.
A few ball park figures (for writer can substitute publisher):
The Supreme Gift on Amazon — $3
Assuming writer gets 40% — $1-20
The Supreme Gift on leanpub — $2
The writers receives 90% less 50 cents — $1-30
Thus reader and writer get a better deal on leanpub.
But let us go a step further, a book about a gift, let us incorporate the principles of the Gift Economy that Charles Eisenstein describes in Sacred Economics.
Charles Eisenstein, in keeping with his idea of a Gift Economy, gift to others with no expectation of return, you can purchase Sacred Economics from a bookshop (if you can find), download as an e-book (pay what you wish), or download for free.
Leanpub lets us do something clever. We can set a low minimum price, say $1, a suggested selling price of say $2. A slider lets us pay what we choose, we can pay more than the suggested price, and we see how much of the price we choose to pay, goes to the author.
If we choose less than the suggested price, the author has granted us a gift. It is then for us to decide what we do with our gift. We may, for example, tell others, we have then passed the gift on, if they choose to download and pay, then we have also repaid the author.
It is what bass player Steve Lawson calls a zero cost transaction. No one has actually lost anything, you do not know where it may lead.
Bandcamp in part, operates in this way. You can listen as often as you wish, you are encouraged to share, sometimes download for free or pay a low minimum price, pay what you wish. And surprisingly it works, people are willing to pay, and if they share, more people discover the music. A complete contrast to the greedy Big Record Labels, who rip off everyone and criminalise those who dare to share.
Steph Bradley spent six moons walking around the country, sharing and collecting tales of what is possible, what people are trying, and collecting together in Tales of Our Times. She was inspired by Paulo Coelho to follow her dreams. On St Valentine’s Day, she will publish on leanpub, Searching for Love, an anthology of love poetry.
The Greatest Thing in the World (1874), a meditation Henry Drummond wrote in 1874 that illuminates the importance of 1 Corinthians 13. Widely read and quoted during his lifetime, it went on to sell over 12 million copies and it continues today to influence people to follow God’s two great commandments: to love God and to love each other.
Without love I am nothing
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
– 1 Corinthians 13: 1-10
BBC Radio 4 dramatised Song of Songs and Book of lamentations, then failed to keep on-line.
The most powerful hallucinogen — Paulo Coelho
The most powerful hallucinogen in this planet is called love. Highly addictive! You will see and hear things that do not exist!
— Paulo Coelho
The Law of Love could be best understood and learned through little children
The Law of Love could be best understood and learned through little children.
— Gandhi
Make your own path
pull dem weeds
Listen with your heart
A worldwide project
has been launched.
The seeds
have been sown.
Follow the path
pull dem weeds
listen to your heart.
Like Santiago:
take risks
follow your dreams
read the signs
listen to your heart.
Break out of the prison
that is your mind.
Cultivate
your mind
other minds.
See that
blank wall
in your
neighbourhood?
Turn it
into
a Hoe Mama mural.
Who
or what
is Hoe Mama?
Hoe Mama
is
an idea
a concept
a state of mind
a project
a community.
You too
can be
a Hoe Mama.
Want to join
what are you waiting for?
– Hoe Mama
– The Alchemist
– Reading the signs
– Live a lie and regret or take risks and follow your dreams
Listen with your heart
pull dem weeds
spiritual war
Make your own path
Hoe Mama is a concept.
Hoe Mama is a community.
Hoe Mama is a gardener of people.
Hoe Mama is a cultivator of minds.
Hoe Mama is planting the seeds of love across the world.
shouting in anger
A master asked his disciples:
‘Why do we shout in anger? Why do people shout at each other when they are upset?’
The disciples thought for a while, and one of them said
‘Because we lose our calm, we shout for that.’
‘But, why to shout when the other person is just next to you? ‘Isn’t it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you shout at a person when you’re angry?’
The disciples gave him some other answers but none satisfied the master.
Finally he explained:
‘When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to shout to hear each other through that great distance.’
Then the master asked:
‘What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly, why? Because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small…’
And he concluded:
‘When they love each other even more, what happens?
‘They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love.
‘Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.’
Posted by Paulo Coelho on his blog.
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