The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

THE THING ABOUT KINDNESS

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Simple Acts of Kindness can change the people we become. When we take the time to support other’s needs, we create habits of change and here’s the real clincher,
WE BECOME BETTER

Here’s a thing about kindness: It’s only a word!  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really nice word but words don’t do much these days and they don’t get us too far down the road; they kind of leave us in an alleyway, don’t they? Dark.  Dingy.  Not always a comforting place to be at midnight with a few streetlights missing.

I mean come on, they’re just words, but when a word like KINDNESS becomes a verb that’s right, verb is just a word too. But when our KINDNESS puts on tennis shoes and workout clothes it all of the sudden becomes kindness is an action. though, When KINDNESS becomes something we do, it really defines who we are.  And then PRESTO:  We just don’t become different but everyone who’s shore our ripple hits and crashes down upon becomes different and a little bit better, too.

IF they become more than just words.          .          .

DEEP PEACE

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While in office one Christmas, President Reagan was asked what he wanted for Christmas and he stated without pause, “PEACE!”  The reporter followed up with the question, what would you like for Christmas that comes in a box and again, without pause, President Reagan said, “If you can wrap it up in a box, I’ll take it!”

AND YOU.         .          .

What would you like, not so much for Christmas, but NOW.       .       .wrapped in a box of unbundantly untethered?  WHAT DO YOU WANT?

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you can hope for. The most you can do is live inside that hope, running down its hallways, touching the walls on both sides”

Barbara Kingsolver
Photography B. Berenika
Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Whatever brings you
P  E  A  C  E
DO
I  T

And then
let the warm rays of your
DEEP
P E A C E
shine about to others
T               H                  I                 S.       .        .

 

 

EVEN HORIZONS HAVE HORIZONS

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Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Even our HORIZONS have HORIZONS
and that is the
GOOD NEWS
Now even though we shouldn’t have an eye to the
F    U    T    U    R    E
what we often focus on in the
W            H            E            N
a  n  d
T             H            E            N
fuzzies  up our
N   O   W ‘ S
making it much more tougher than it should
to not only reach our HORIZON
but all the ones that follow.            .             .
Glance behind

anonymous person with binoculars looking through stacked books

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

LOOK AHEAD


But focus on your precious NOW
and just the very next step

and above all
R   E   M   E   M   B   E   R
just because your
H O R I Z O N
may be hazy
doesn’t mean it isn’t
T H E R E.          .          .

 

TRYING MY BEST

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A            N            D

A            N            D

A            N            D

A            N            D
A            N            D
A            N             D
M O S T L Y

JUST A MOMENT–THREE WORDS

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H   E    Y.            .            .
Wait a Moment
DID YOU.           .           .          ?
Actually about 6 minutes of moments
with a severely powerful, undeniable
TRUTH:
1 out of 1 of us will die;
though we know this brutal truth,
few ACT
as if this is a bonafide truth
and we live, well,
like we’ll live forever.           .          .
THE SECRET:
Life gets Lived best
when every moment is lived
as if it might be the last
or better
as if it’ll never be lived again.          .          .
WAIT A MOMENT:
ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES
.             .          .and.            .              .
LIFE
GOES
ON
R            E            A            L            L            Y
(uhhhhhhhh.   .   .that’s a STATEMENT not a QUESTION)

COMING HOME

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Holidays always have a way of spelling
H-O -M- E
in all of the ways we not only know but experience it best.         .         .

Pssssssssssssssssssst:
The best Holidays are the ones that
A     R     E     N  ‘  T
but we MAKE
(often on the spot)
without any specific date on a calendar
H            O            M            E
KEEP BRINGING IT
KEEP BEING IT
KEEP GIFTING IT

ANGRY SILENCE

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I have blogged this video at least a couple of times before and I love how it pops up for me willy-nilly out of nowhere to remind me about SILENCE.  When Paul Simon wrote this in 1965 it was a song that had a different but very much the same meaning as it does now YES, some nearly 60 years later: NOBODY LISTENS and even fewer actually HEAR which THEN and NOW make for an ANGRY SILENCE


ANGRY SILENCE

Have you heard
what I didn’t say

It’s a silence
that uses no words
needs no catch phrases
or lengthy paragraphs
and often gets misunderstood as
Angry Silence

Harsh as it seems
it delivers a soft message
with a strong meaning
of not to be well known
but to be worth knowing
always not in a way
to be served
but to serve
without angrily being denied
Wordlessly

THESE WORDS

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Guilty I have piles and piles of books that I have not read even even at the moment that I’m ordering other ones that will make a part of yet other piles.

I lie to myself and say oh I’ll get to that or wow this really looks good and I’ll read it immediately and of course it ends up in another pile. Sometimes the nearer the pile the closer I will get to reading it but this past week, my friend Beth told me that I needed to take this book out of a pile and put it on top of the next one to read and I’m glad she did.             .               .

Rarely do, I read the authors note before I write in a story or a book but this time I did and once again, I’m really glad that I did, because on the second page was an excerpt from the Hippocratic oath.

One of the reasons why I like, holding a physical book in my hand is because I can dog ear all the pages; I can write in the margins, I can underline, and I can write what I want to write at that time when I read a passage.            .         .

This excerpt from the Hippocratic oath literally has grabbed me around the throat where I can’t get past too many other pages before I come back to that and oh yes, it is dog eared and oh yes, it has been underlined and exaggerated on the side because even though I’m not a physician, I like to think that I’m a caregiver who tries to offer some kind of comfort to every person that I meet whether I know them or not; whether they are in hospice or in a hospital setting or not. This passage, kind of brings mirror to face and lets me see, allows me to understand and removes some protective buffers I insulate myself with so that I can fully, unabashedly experience my WHY.     .    .it has nothing to do with a vocation or a paycheck so much as a lifestyle.


H            E            R            E

As a mere human just BEING
sit with this again
and this time don’t let it wash over you
so much as
SINK
throughly
INTO YOUR
Y      O      U      E      S      T
OF  YOU

ONE LIGHT, MANY CANDLES

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Are you a LIGHT
that are a part of many Candles.          .          .             ?

ARE YOU A LIGHT THAT IS A PART OF MANY CANDLES
may not be the right question.          .             .
DO 
YOU
WANT 
TO
BE
Pssssssssssssssst:
JOIN ME
There’s songs to be sung
Candles to be lit
Lights
to
be
shared.      .       .

 

WINTERINGS

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iceberg near mountain during day
Photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash
[UNTITLED]
Yasuhara Teishitsu
Translated from the Japanese by R. H Blyth

Ice and water,
Their difference resolved,
Are friends again.


(My thanks to Yasuhara Teishitsu and the translator. 
Unfortunately I can't remember the source of the poem.)
In Northeast Ohio we can often have four seasons in one day
and worse, we can experience all four seasons inside us, too.    .    .
It's up to each of us to bring Sun Shine to each day
.      .      .but will we.           .        .       ?
Now that would be a great (never-ending Season)
WINTERINGS
We need no crumpled calendar pages
to announce the comings and goings
of the Seasons
No synchronized Apps
through an un-weathered Cloud
to Announce our Events
Our seemingly important moments
or lacksadaisical 'To-Do's'
No. . .it all settles down wobblingly
to our eventual Winterings
with one guaranteed Promise:
'There is no Winter that's never not been
Obliterated by the Spring'
. . .Especially when it feels like our
Final One
Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man