Sunny Banana
YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@sanibonani-y2g?si=09LymOLYjP7sE3cY
I am a school chaplain and the content is intended to encourage curiosity about Faith and it's impact on day to day life
The Sunny Banana, is a play upon the Zulu greeting, Sanibonani, meaning I see you.
As tech wrenches us from real life, we are not seeing each other. The Greek word 'idea' means to see. It is as if we have lost the idea of what it means to be human; social, communal, relational. The same word, to see, in Old English is 'seon' which has connotations of understanding.
Let's start seeing each other again, listening, respecting, and understanding each other and ourselves. After all, we are people through other people.
Sunny Banana
The Birds and the Beards
"What will the birds eat?" With these five simple words, Elder Thaddeus of Vitnovica offers us a perspective shift that could transform our lives and relationships.
This brief but powerful episode explores the wisdom of Elder Thaddeus, an Orthodox monk whose philosophy is captured in the book title: "Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives." When a well-meaning pilgrim suggested the elder clean the breadcrumbs from his flowing beard, Thaddeus revealed that what appeared as untidiness was actually compassion—those crumbs fed the sparrows who would visit him. This charming anecdote opens the door to a much deeper contemplation about how we move through the world.
The heart of this wisdom challenges us to reconsider our fundamental orientation toward life. Do we enter rooms asking "What is mine by right?" or do we ask "How can I make others' lives better?" In a culture that increasingly celebrates individualism and personal rights, Elder Thaddeus invites us to find peace through giving rather than taking, through sustaining others rather than merely serving ourselves. Though this teaching is remarkably simple, as the host reminds us, "simple does not mean easy." The practice requires constant vigilance over our thoughts, cultivating those that bring peace, joy, and love rather than following every thought that arises. Ready to transform your inner landscape and, consequently, your outer reality? Listen now, and discover how breadcrumbs in a beard might contain the secret to a more meaningful existence.
Sunny Bunani. Welcome to the Sunny Banana. I see you and it's good to see you, Welcome. I have a very, very short one today and it's a story about a monk called Elder Thaddeus of Vitnovica. That's a mouthful Elder Thaddeus of Vitnovica and he has a book or it's a book that was printed for him or about him called Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives. Our thoughts determine our lives. And when a storyteller, master storyteller, called Martin Shaw, who has the Jawbone YouTube channel I recommend you listen to it and watch that In one of his videos he held up this book and I have the book too Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives, and what he said struck me as a chaplain to teenagers, and that is that every teenager should be reading this book.
Speaker 1:In a nutshell, Elder Thaddeus teaches us to watch our thoughts, not to follow every thought. In this chaotic world, we need to find inner peace and it's our thoughts that will bring that. In a nutshell, if we have peaceful thoughts, joyful thoughts, loving thoughts, then we will have peaceful, joyful, loving lives. It's that simple. But simple does not mean easy. As I say all the time to the students here, Simple does not mean easy. Simple is complex, but that is it, and so the story I want to tell you today involves Elder Thaddeus. I'm going to call him Elder Thaddeus from now on.
Speaker 1:One day a pilgrim came to see Elder Thaddeus and after sitting down to speak, and because they ate bread, Elder Thaddeus, in his beautiful, flowing, mystical beard, had crumbs of bread in it, decorated like a Christmas tree said oh, holy monk, father, you might want to clean your beard because you never know what other pilgrims might think of you. And Elder Thaddeus looked at him and said then what will the birds eat? And following that, the pilgrim witnessed Elder Thaddeus sit on a bench, look up to the skies, aiming his beard up to the heavens, and said come sparrows, come sparrows, come get some food. And lo and behold, sparrows came down and ate up every single crumb that was in his beard. Now I'd like to stop there.
Speaker 1:I'm tempted to just stop the video, but I want to ask one question from the story that I want to share with you today, and as the thought of the week perhaps, is how do our lives, how do we bring peace to others? With Albert Thaddeus, he was providing sustenance through his beard, through giving breadcrumbs. So the question I want to ask again when we walk into a room. How do we sustain and provide for others? How do we bring peace and joy and make other people happy? In our modern day, it can feel like it's all about us and what we can get by our rights. You walk into a room and you look around and you say, what is mine? What is mine by right, I'll have that, I'll have this, I want this. But what if you walked in a room and you thought about others and how your life is making the lives of other people better? Sunny Bunani, this is the Sani Banana. I see you. May we all be seen and loved Amen.