Who Cares - What Matters
Seriously. . .Whatever it is that causes you to break out, to Flash Mob in Song, may it happen unexpectedly and repeatedly and more, May you BE the Cause of IT to happen Unexpectedly and Repeatedly (For) to Others.
Discover your very best is so much more than a Season or an event, or an occurrence–a Happening!
Wouldn’t it be great?
You think you’re home for the evening; you have no plans or DO YOU?
Your doorbell rings. You contemplate even answering it, but you do. There’s a man in an elegant tuxedo, top hat, white gloves and a cane. You see over his shoulder that there’s a luxurious limo and he tells you he’s here to escort you to a very special place where “NO” doesn’t exist. You throw on a pair of jeans that don’t have last night’s dinner remains on it and a shirt that doesn’t have the powder sugar your donut snowed all over it just before the doorbell rang.
First time for me in 33 years of Ministry. A double-wedding ceremony.
It took place at the David Simpson Hospice House in Cleveland around 10:15 a.m. on 12/11/13.
Their mother is very sick and is declining rather quickly. “THEY” wanted to do something about as special as a son and a daughter can do for an ailing mother. Take her to a wedding: THEIR’S!
With a small amount of family and friends gathered into The Mediation Room that overlooked an angry Lake Erie on a dishwater gray Winter morning, they wheeled the bed of their mother into that small gathering.
I told them as we began the service, that no matter what Cathedral or highly adorned Sanctuary they’d ever find themselves, it would never be any more sacred than the walls of family and friends that surrounded them right then.
It’s what we seek most in our lives, isn’t it?
A S S U R A N C E.
We may buy Insurance to protect us from financial disaster for crashed cars, burned-down houses, loss of limb or even life. . .but it’s the ASSURANCE of each of these things, the great ‘what-ever’ it is we deem to be LIFE that we ultimately seek.
The Season of Lights. . .does it ever end?
Maybe the real question is: DO YOU LET IT?
Light is always in Season…no Season exists without it.
Let’s prove it. Do YOU a favor. For the next 30 days, three times a day, once in the morning, afternoon and then before bed, repeat the following from, The Candle Maker.
WHEN THE FLAME IS GONE, I AM NOT EXTINGUISHED. . .
I will never cease to be since I am being unceasingly created. I have not been a goal fulfilled. I am a Purpose constantly unfolding and on-going. My flame, flickered and small as it might become, is only promised and portrayed to become a part of an even greater illumination. When the Candle Maker began this good work, this momentous beam in me, it was under the conditions that he would be faithful to complete it. It matters, not how, why, where or when but THAT it’s completed in me! I AM NOW, at this very moment, a part of that Light that is in this World and which makes the one I am ever being melted.
My reward for blazing is only to burnish brighter and without end. I don’t have to wait for some darkened, engulfed ending. I Kindle forever. Once lit–always–eternally glowing. Today I will glow brightest.
This is the last Today I have to live and I will gleam radiantly in it, through it, and just for it. I am grateful for this day; for this darkness entrusted to me to light; for the warm glowing shimmer emanating deathlessly in me.
Nothing can take place on this last Today that will cause me to be extinguished.
My pulse will dance excitedly like a jubilant flame reaching out to the darkness. I will be the last brilliant gleam the long night can ever know, and assuredly, the very first ray the sunshine has to offer in the morning of that day which has no end.
If delegated, I will burn old with an eternally young, exuberant fire.
I will not be extinguished this day because out of all the possibilities,this is the one great impossibility: I know no real endings. . .just endless beginnings. . .starting NOW! Forever!
Hmmmmmm, just about a minute and a half, three times a day.
LIGHT: Is Always in Season. . .No Season exists without it!
Unless. . . .
WARNING: G R A T I T U D E ALERT!
IF Thanksgiving is all about family gathers and feasts upon feasts that last entire weekends. . .
IF Thanksgiving is all about huge football rivalries that have you sitting on the edge of your chairs…
IF Thanksgiving is all about Pilgrims and Indians re-enactment of cute plays with moral meanings…
IF Thanksgiving is all about Gray Thursdays, Black Friday’s Pewter Saturdays, Cyber Mondays. . .
IF Thanksgiving is all about short vacations and getting out of work and school. . .
IF Thanksgiving is all about fine wine, cocktails, the first of holiday parties. . .
IF Thanksgiving is all about leftovers. . .
THEN IT IS O V E R!
But. . .
IF Thanksgiving is all about Gratitude. . .
Then it hasn’t begun. . .
Then it hasn’t concluded. . .
Then it HAS only C O N T I N U E D!
Pass me a Slice of Sincerity and a Cup of Compassion and let us proceed on the Gratitude Trail picking up others along The Way. . . .
I get a Standing Ovation after every talk I give!
Maybe you’d never know unless you were actually There!
Many times near the end of a presentation, as a way of THANKING folks for their attendance and their attention I usually have them stand up all together. I tell them that there are two words they never hear ever enough:
THANK YOU!
And then, because none seldom do, and THEY never would, standing there, I tell them to give themselves a long over due, sincere, well-deserved Standing Ovation. And they do! Loudly! Exuberantly! With Smiles, Whistling, Yaaaaaaaa-hooooooing included…and, and exactly to the penny, what did it cost? What did it deposit in their respective emotional 401k’s?
You can Suppose about it all you want, but it’s more than mere theory or hunch now. Studies have been done and documented with not so surprising results: IT WORKS! IT’S LIFE-CHANGING!
These studies have actually concluded that the expression of sincere gratitude can have some fairly profound and positive effects on our health, our mood and most definitely our relationships. Shocker, huh?
Ok, don’t believe the Studies from the University of Texas Health Science Center or the University of California at Davis or the University of Miami or the University of Washington…use yourself as your own laboratory.
Keep a daily journal of just three things you are thankful for and why.
Make it a practice to tell someone that’s significant to you something you appreciate about them every day.
Look in the mirror when your combing your hair or brushing your teeth and think about something you have done well recently or something you like about yourself.
Maybe it’s true: If you’ve forgotten the language of gratitude, you’ll never be on speaking terms with happiness.
The world doesn’t always have to have a reason to kick you in the teeth every time you smile, but it does. Still, walk in your field and cultivate this attitude of gratitude, and PRESTO: things don’t just look better–THEY ACTUALLY GET BETTER!
Thankfulness feels good, it’s good for you and it’s a blessing for the people around you. It’s such a win-win-win that I’d say we have a cause for gratitude…even without a day just for THAT.
Please, Stand, Give yourself a Standing Ovation! And. . .
Thank You!
Happy Thanksgiving.
So often we don’t think COMPASSION is an Inside Job or our Responsibility–It’s Someone Else’s job or at least their turn and it’s something, at the least, just mystically happens.
WRONG!
It doesn’t matter if it’s Health Care, or Education or Politics, or the Arts. It doesn’t matter what Gender or age or weight or height. Compassion is more than a Feeling or even a glancing high-tech Touch.
Enough!
Sympathy says, “I’m sorry,”
Compassion Yells, “HOW CAN I HELP?”
Studies actually show that when we feel most in tune with another, even our autonomic nervous systems join a in a harmonious rhythm.
Compassion is more than a “Good Thing.” “A Nice thing to do” “A Good way to be.”
Our world has never been in more need of this one simple, consistent Act as it is right now.
Compassion is the least expensive, less evasive, most powerful non-pharmological means to actually change, heal, complete another’s life.
You really want to know how to spell C-O-M-P-A-S-S-I-0-N?
It’s this simple: Y-O-U!
Y O U have the ability to not only enhance and actually change a life. . .but actually SAVE ONE!
Now! Do this now!
Even reading this has wasted precious time for Someone you can help with a word, a deed, a look, a smile, a touch, a hand attached to an arm you could drape around a shoulder and hug a little closer.
Y-O-U. . .”The Answer!”
Well?
Everyone has a story that not only desperately needs to be told, but absolutely, unequivocally needs to be heard. Are you THAT Person? Or do you make sure person after person walks past you without caring, ever really trying to even begin to hear, understand, wonder if indeed, this is the worst day of their life?
Did you hear what I didn’t say? Many don’t. . .but DID YOU?
I might not want to share. It might not feel safe. I don’t want to waste your time or bother you.
But. . . .
Wait, linger a second or two longer and you might not, in fact, hear what I didn’t say, but actually understand, empathize and even make the story lighter, easier to carry, tell, hear.
And. . .and yes, if it hasn’t happened yet or many times over, there will be THAT time when your story needs to be told, desperately heard by another defeated, unsuspecting Someone who too has a untold, unheard Story!
If we truly could see in the Hearts of another, we’d better hear what wasn’t said but needs noticing.
Be THAT Someone. . .Often. And repeat, always, more than necessary!
Everyone has it: GARBAGE!
Garbage day is never missed is it? We all have THAT day, and we, in a strange sort of way SAVE up for it all week, don’t we? All week long, we bag, pack, haul our garbage to place where it finally can get picked up and shipped away for good. . .or, or does it?
Imagine taking piles of garbage to the curb and as the Garbage truck comes down the street and is just about ready to pull up and haul your garbage away, you frantically run out, STOP, prevent them from doing their job and in fact, bring all of your garbage back into the house again—the whole week’s worth! Plus, you have the truck back up to your front door and have them dump all they’ve collected from their daily pick up right there in your LIVING ROOM!
Absurd? Unheard of? Ludicrous?
It is, isn’t it. . . until we bring back all that garbage we’ve allegedly long discarded to find out we’re worse than Hoarders keeping out of date fliers and junk mail piled to the ceiling.
It’s THIS simple: When you throw out YOUR Garbage, KEEP IT OUT. There’s a reason it’s garbage and IT STINKS! Why keep it or worse, Still Carry It Around?
To the Curb!
Leave IT!
Don’t Bring IT back in again.
Carry Yourself. . .and NOT IT!