The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

PRAYER–A UNIVERSAL ONE

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This past Friday, Erin and I took in the aware winning play, COME FROM AWAY, based on a true story following the tragic events surrounding 9/11.  This was one of my favorite songs/scenes because it was a prayer, that became a universal prayer in the middle of the scene, one that is powerfully understood and yes, P R A Y E D.    .    .

As it entered its final weeks in the West End, Come From Away had released a special performance of “Prayer”, a hit number from the multi-award-winning musical. The multi-award-winning musical, had playing at the Phoenix Theatre in London, is based on the events after 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland where a small community welcomed thousands of stranded plane passengers. It first opened in the West End in early 2019, going on to win the Best New Musical Award at the WhatsOnStage Awards the following year with additional Olivier and Critic’s Circle Awards. The final performance was on  7 January 2023. The touring production is set to open in Leicester in February 2024, with additional tour stops currently under wraps. The creative team features Irene Sankoff and David Hein (book, music and lyrics), Christopher Ashley (director), Kelly Devine (musical staging), Ian Eisendrath (music supervision and arrangements), Beowulf Boritt (scenic design), Toni-Leslie James (costume design), Howell Binkley (lighting design), Gareth Owen (sound design), David Brian Brown (hair design), August Eriksmoen (orchestrations), Pippa Ailion CDG and Natalie Gallacher CDG (casting), Joel Goldes (dialect coach), Michael Rubinoff (creative consultant), Bob Hallett (Newfoundland music consultant), Shirley Fishman (dramaturg), Tara Overfield Wilkinson (associate UK director and choreographer) and Kirsty Malpass (assistant director and choreographer).

Plays come and go and is part of the allure of living in the greater Cleveland area; we get the best.  But award winning or not, a great play does more than just entertain; it inspires and a superior one challenges us to be better than when before seeing it.  This scene of the PRAYER just doesn’t show our commonalities, but dares us to see the PRAYER that we are, not just to be prayed or to unite, but to be shared; to be LIFE CHANGING.       .     .THAT we may be such an Instrument, a Channel, a Person, a PRAYER.            .            .

COMMUNION CRUMBS

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He ate his muffin
like a sacred communion
Sweet and meltable on the tongue
His sips were
an ice expresso latte
Dark, like aged blood
that has long ago been pumped
but waiting for the next wound to seep
as it is enlightened with a
a cream of dull lightness

It was sacred
this sweet, energized communioning
as he broke, partook, sipped
away from old memories of past sins
and new promises of, “I’ll do better’s”

With head bowed
eyes tightly closed
lingering tastes
and a renewed grateful spirit

These sacred sips
blessed bits
hold unclaimed promises
hopes of futures
that come to us in the same way
In sips and bits
and not ever usually
in “all at once’s”
Reserved for all
but only granted to the Patient
Communion crumbs
hold what most leave
or annoying just brush away
even while they promise
the tastiest blessings of redemption

JUST A MOMENT: DRESSING IN THE DARK

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The World is sometimes so dark
sometimes so without Power
of any sorts
And even in the specks of  Lightness
dressing in the dark is a labor
that offers no salary
Unmatched socks
Color of shirts and their disorientated designs
Hues of teetered textured ties
Somber suit pants
Gloomy blazers
with tweeds and threads
of senselessnesses  and quizzicalities

Dressing in the Dark
forces what comes so natural in Light
but seemingly stubborn in the
never-quite-adjusted-fuzzy-focus
as if your eyes grew hands;
fingertips of faith that try
but can never quite
grope or furniture walk their ways to
an unseen but known harborage
A dizzy labyrinth that has no idea
of its own way

Dressing in the Dark–
it may be easier just to stay as
nakedly helpless as you feel Undressed
knowing that other eyes
can’t see like yours
or worse–don’t notice
or worse–don’t care to recognize

Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Make sure that the worst kind of
DRESSING IN THE DARK
doesn’t take place
with your eyes wide open
but un-noticing.            .            .

 

NOT ALWAYS SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS

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Yup, I’m one of those guys: ROCKY BALBOA FAN and always have been; in fact, it might be genetic, my kids and several of my grandkids like Rocky, too.  This CLIP is one of the reasons why.  I would have saved it for the day after Father’s Day or saved it for next year’s Father’s Day but THIS advice transcends both.  Or does it?

Sometimes we see the movie and miss the message or worse we pay for the movie and leave before it’s over. I guess I’m not talking about the movie now, am I?  You know, Rocky is right: “It ain’t all sunshine, it ain’t all rainbows.”  Sometimes it’s just nothing but dark skies, lightning, thunder and endless rain. It’s not about not getting wet or how do you keep dry;  you keep being you in the rain, in the sun, in the snow, at night, when it seems like not another day could ever happen and yet there’s not been one night that hasn’t been completely obliterated by the next day or maybe, I’m just making that up because I saw this movie one time.            .            .

Does your Sun always shine.               .               .
Is your Rainbow always in sight.               .               .
We’ve all been
HIT HARD
and getting UP
going on
is more about
WANT-TO
then
HOW-TO

S E M A N T I C S

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I love words.           .          .
I kind of use them to make a living
If I’m not speaking them, I’m writing with them and always in search of using them better.          .        .
I was recently reading a LinkedIn post by a
National Speakers Association, colleague, Lou Heckler
who shared:
“I’ve been thinking about “the heat of the afternoon versus the cool of the evening.”  It’s a phrase I first heard in a journalism class at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The professor was talking about reporting on an event that had stirred up your emotions and had prompted you to want to act a little to quickly.  (We had lots of subjects in that category at that time: the Vietnam War, race relations, political hanky-panky, to name a few).  It was his version of “count to ten,” I guess.  Step back, get your perspective, take a few extra breaths…and then place your hands on the keyboard.  I have heard his advice in my head many times in my business and personal life.  I’m not sure that’s a frequently practiced technique these days as I read all the invective in news coverage, in online posts, even in conversations.  My hope for you this week is that you won’t react too soon as you face whatever your challenges are — in fact, see if you can “hold” for a few moments in the heat of the afternoon and then decide what to do in the cool of the evening.”

Which got me thinking
just because you know what you’ve said
doesn’t mean you have any idea what’s been heard.          .          .
H E N C E:
Feeling like the first day of Spring
has a whole other feeling than
Feeling like the last day of Winter

Semantics, huh?

Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford LanguagesLearn more
noun
  1. the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. There are a number of branches and subbranches of semantics, including formal semantics, which studies the logical aspects of meaning, such as sense, reference, implication, and logical form, lexical semantics, which studies word meanings and word relations, and conceptual semantics, which studies the cognitive structure of meaning.
    • the meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, or text.
      plural noun: semantics
      “such quibbling over semantics may seem petty stuff”

I love words
I love using them
speaking themn
writing them
reading them
hearing them
and now,
being ever cautious of them.          .          .
Sometimes the right word
at the wrong time
is the very essence of
STICKS AND STONE WILL BREAK MY BONES
BUT  WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME
or did we read that
W R O N G.          .          .

JUST A MOMENT: WHAT’S THE USE(S)

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The older we get the less USE we have
is usually a lie we tell ourselves
even if it’s not our Birthday
So even when the World as a whole doesn’t recognize it
OR WORSE
just have USE of us any longer.            .            .
Never forget that we can still do
what no one else
CAN
Yeah, that kind of
C     A     N
t o o.          .           .

HAP HAP HAPPY BIRTHDAY

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Here’s the deal about Birthday’s,
there are candles to be lit
and wishes to be made.       .      .
B               U               T
you don’t have to wait for the celebration
of your actual birth date.          .          .
why waste another moment?
CELEBRATE NOW
and forget to stop…
The best wishes aren’t wished,
but lived
until they become more true
than any wish, wished
or dream, dreamt…
SEE.           .           .
It’s ALL worth celebrating
N O W
So, I’ll leave this with you as a simple wish of mine before the 
candles are fully extinguised
and the cake and ice-cream
passed around:

LET ME BE A STORY

Let me be a story you tell
because you have experienced it fully
with no exceptions
no if’s
no but’s
no until’s
no excepts
but with an openness you’ve never known before
but now can’t help but to share
because you have known it so well

Let me be a story you tell
sprinkled with moments of humor
loaded with once upon a time’s
and an unlimited amount of
“what about the time’s?”

Let me be a story you tell
not because you’ve heard it with your ears
but deeply have known it in your soul

Let me be a story you tell
in a timeless generation yet to be born
not because the story is so infamous
but it’s moral is so absolutely right

Let me be a story you tell
A tune you hum
A poem you read
A life you now live a little better
and more inspired and hopeful

And may you too be the story someone else tells
A story uniquely yours
One that doesn’t mirror the same
but reflects even more

A manifesto poem
One that is known before it’s told or pondered
One that is lived well
One that is shared
One that is once upon a time’d
One that is fire to your wick
                  a flicker to your flame
                  a light to your lane
One that Is~~always IS

SPILLAGE

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“You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?

“Because someone bumped into me!!!”
Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out.

It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

So we have to ask ourselves… “what’s in my cup?”

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratitude, peace and humility?

Anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting tendencies?

Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it.

Work towards filling our cups with gratitude,

forgiveness,

joy,

words of affirmation,

resilience,

positivity;

and kindness,

gentleness and love for others.”
We most likely have heard that story before or some version of it but until what SPILLS out of us takes on another consistency, hear, read the story again and again and again and .          .          .

IN JUST A MOMENT: USING SPACES

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Ohhhhhhhh the LIE
of an empty space.          .          .
If we just had a little bit more time.            .            .
if we just had an extra day.            .            .
give me a minute.            .            .
wait a second.            .            .
We’ve all said these things before
and guess what
if we literally
magically
were given an extra day
and extra hour
and extra minute
a moment
we most likely wouldn’t do anything differently to make a difference~~
NOW THAT IS A TRAGIC WASTE OF SPACE.          .           .
(one you don’t have to waste at all with no extra time needed)

LOVED INTO BEING

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https://youtu.be/jmFEKCwONkg?si=rFaYlvdZZ9xdDTs

WHO HAS LOVED YOU 
WHO HAS LOVED YOU INTO BEING

I truly hope you took 
A MINUTE
with Mr. Rogers and Lloyd 
and experienced the
WONDER OF YOU
and how you are 
LOVED
TO LOVE
Is it really
JUST THIS EASY
Mr. Rogers would lie.          .          .
LOVED TO LOVE
(beginning with yourself)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man