This is your place to publicly comment on the topics and issues addressed in Speaking of Faith programs. React in a personal way, and put into words what this program meant to you.

Submit Your Reflection about "Burma — Buddhism + Power."

Loved the Interview (November 4, 2007)
Ingrid Jordt's comments about the great difference between sadness and compassion resulted in my writing the following notes to myself: Which approach to life do I take? How do I feel or react to a situation is either hopefully positive or it is in the end a viewpoint of defeat? It is either alive or it is dead. It is either fear or it is wholeness.

A response of sadness is a feeling of loss, death, and apathy. A response of anger is usually at its roots also a defeated fearful sense of aloneness and separation. A feeling of compassion or empathy is hopeful, without fear and is alive. Anxiety is the result of a sense of foreboding, or absence of life, while a positive trusting sense of fullness or completeness is without anxiety and is living. Chronic compulsive thinking is anxiety and is incompleteness and is not a sense of wholeness. This is not about a sense of "trust," or "faith," or even "surrender” — it is a "knowing." It is about being with, not being against; there is nothing to be gained or lost.

Stuart Kaufman
Bartlett, IL (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)

Perfect Musical Mantra (November 4, 2007)
The entire production was moving, including the transitional music, which is the subject of my inquiry. If you think note c, the music started with note d to note g to note d to note g like an unending musical mantra. Within the context of the subject matter it was transcendently beautiful.

Doris Dyson
Burlington, MA (WBUR, 90.9 FM)

My Son's First-Hand Account (November 2, 2007)
My 23-year-old son, Hal Fischer, was in Burma in September, just as the protests began. His essay on the oppression and fear he encountered on a personal level in his interactions with the Burmese people was recently published in the Iowa City Free Press and in the Des Moines Register. It is very moving and insightful and may provide important background information to the Sunday broadcast. I am looking forward to hearing the show.

Nancy Cibulka
St. Louis, MO (KWMU, 90.7 FM)

Thank You for Hopefulness (November 1, 2007)
I visited Burma briefly (the only legal way) in 1982. The sadness and fear were palpable. One college graduate took the risk of articulating his sense of lost life to me. He said it would have been better not to have been educated (in Germany) if he had to live on like this. Ingrid Jordt's reflections form the best connection I have heard between that man's desire for progress and the nation's incredible spiritual development. Thank you for that.

Elizabeth Curtiss
Burlington, VT (Listens to SOF OnDemand)