Community of Goodness

Honoring the Dakota 38 Patriots with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Tue, 27 Dec 2022 16:48:20 +0000

Placing the Santee Dakota Nation on reservations for the first time in 1851 was an act of cultural genocide. A mere decade thereafter, deprived of the freedom of the hunt, this ancient people stared starvation in its grim face. In August of 1862, there began a final defense of the Dakota Oyate – the long road to Wounded Knee. When the Wars of August were quelled, 303 Dakota were marked for the gallows. President Lincoln, in commuting the sentences of all but 38, paved the way for the largest mass execution in United States history. Featured songs: Water In The Rain (Honoring the Dakota 38) by Larry Long & Amos Owen (BMI); Lay Hatred Down by Larry Long (BM()

Celebrating Winter with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 17:42:58 +0000

Every winter Mother Nature reminds us that she could kill us if she wanted to. Snowstorms. Ice. While driving along those back road, we recognize that we could freeze to death. Time slows down when you’re cold. There are things you can learn through your body that you can’t learn from your mind. Coldness teaches compassion. Coldness reminds us that a warm bed, enough to eat, and a hot shower are precious gifts that many of our brothers and sisters are not able to attain. Thank God for those places and people who give those in need of a place called home shelter.

Welcoming Strangers with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 19:51:22 +0000

The power of strangers gives us the moral imagination where we have the capacity to care for not only family members but people we do not even know. Mother Teresa was asked, “Mother, why do you do the work you do?” She looked at the reporter and said, “If I hadn’t picked up that first man, probably never would have picked up the other forty-five thousand.” We live in the company of strangers. Do not fear the stranger, welcome the stranger, for whatever we do to the least is most significant.

Celebrating Uncles, Aunts, & Family Members with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:19:54 +0000

All of us have an Uncle Mel, Uncle Dale, Uncle Jimmy, Uncle Jamie, Aunt Florence, or a character in the family who makes us smile whenever we think of them. In times of need they’re always there to help out, asking nothing in return, except our love and affection.

Giving us all the gift of joy that bonds the generations together.

Featured Songs: Uncle Mel | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1976; Renewed 2022 (BMI); Grandmother’s Song | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry :ong 2022 (BMI)

Honoring the Contemplative with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 14:30:41 +0000

Contemplation is the opposite of reaction. It’s the ability to pay attention. Wherever your attention goes your energy flows. Silence is the language of intimacy. Where words are not spoken, yet everything is understood. I am yours and you are mine. We are one, but we imagine that we are not. Contemplation is taking a long loving look at what is real and to receive in the eyes of another human being the reflection of one's own self. The contemplative is so much needed in our society today.

Celebrating Neighbors with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Mon, 03 Oct 2022 18:04:22 +0000

Our neighborhoods are the kernels of democracy. Strangers get to know and depend on each other. We learn this as young children. If we’re going to have enough kids to play baseball, we will need everybody. Stokely Carmichael said, “Politics is what you can see from your living room window.” We may not be able to change everything in Washington DC, but we all can have an impact on what happens right outside of our house. What our neighbors have done or are in need of doing shapes our lives. Neighborhoods are not perfect places; they are human places, where we live. It’s where beauty is born.

Celebrating the Poetry of Autumn with Troubadour Larry Long and Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 13:46:02 +0000

Honoring Caregivers with Troubadour Larry Long and Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 11:08:26 +0000

Care comes from a Greek word that means ‘to cry out’. Who are the people who care for us when we cry out? They are the caregivers, but who cares for the caregiver when the caregiver needs care. Who takes care of that nurse, doctor, therapist, and EMT? Who takes care of the farmer, clerk, and forklift driver? Who takes care of the mother struggling to put food on the table, teaching her children, and struggling to hold onto her job? Today we honor those who cry out and need to be listened to when they, too, cry out. Who takes care of the caregiver? We all do.

Featured Songs: I Love You | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 2011 BMI; It Takes a Lot of Peope | Words & Music by Larry Long | Collectively written with students from Strother Elementary School in Little, Oklahoma | Copyright Larry Long 1989 BMI.

“Celebrating Ben Logan & The Land Remembers” with Troubadour Larry Long & Storyteller Tom Thibodeau.

Mon, 12 Sep 2022 20:21:40 +0000

Once you’ve lived on the land, been a partner with its moods, secrets, and seasons, you cannot leave. The living land remembers, touching you in unguarded moments, saying, “I am here. You are part of me.” When this happens to me, I go home again in mind, or in person, back to that hilltop world in southwestern Wisconsin. . . The land is my genesis. I was born there, cradled by the land and I’m always there even though I’ve been a wanderer. I cannot leave the land. How can I when a thousand sounds, sights, and smells tell me that I’m part of it? Let me hear the murmur of the dusk of the summer nights. Sitting beneath the maple tree in the front yard hearing the voices of the people I have loved.” - Ben Logan, The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People

Featured songs: Farmers, Miners, Preachers, & Cobblers | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1976; Renewed 2022 BMI; John Deere Have a Beer | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1979; Renewed 2022 BMI; Grandma’s Penny Sale (Give a Prayer for the Farmer | Words & Music by Larry Long | Copyright Larry Long 1981; Renewed 2022 BM

Celebrating Poetry with Troubadour Larry Long and Storyteller Tom Thibodeau

Mon, 05 Sep 2022 15:55:09 +0000

Poetry helps us to remember what we’ve forgotten. Poetry gives us images which words cannot capture in definition or doctrine. Poetry gives us comfort in difficult and uncertain times. Poetry lifts our spirits, captures our hearts and imagination in unsuspecting moments. Mary Oliver, one of the great American poets, writes, “It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.