Hope — Page 78

I H O P E

April 18, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

What’s Your’s?

When you’re flipping through your remote with wild abandon,

what’s the Movie (s) that makes you stop your f l i p p i n g ?

Little Miss Sunshine

Rocky (any of them)

St. Vincent

Simon Birch

While You Were Sleeping

The Christmas Story

It’s A Wonderful Life

The Mighty

Begin Again

The African Queen

Billy Madison

Happy Gilmore

The Bucket List

The Tin Cup

As Good As It Gets

The God Father (Any of them)

For The Love of the Game

Dances with Wolves

Die Hard (Any of Them)

Blended

Shawshank Redemption

(or anything with Morgan Freeman’s voice)

What’s Y o u r s ?

I love this last scene

Maybe it’s the words:

“GET BUSY LIVING OR GET BUSY DYING”

Maybe it’s

H O P E

“I hope I can make it across the border. . .

I hope I can see my friend and shake his hand. . .

I hope the Pacific is as blue as it is in my dreams. . .

h o p e “

Y O U ?

What not only makes you

p a u s e

but put down your soul’s remote

and

h o p e ?

Y e a h. . .

what’s your

h o p e

your evidence of things NOT YET S E E N. . . ?

Is it getting you busy to

l i v e

d i e

Medicinals

February 26, 2016 By ChuckBehrens 4 Comments

The greatest events that take place in our lives. . .

sometimes take place without ever being on the calendar.

I was scheduled to speak at an event a week ago to a group of Nurses, Social Workers, Case Managers, and Administrators at an area hospital and when I arrived I showed up at the wrong place.

I was standing just outside of the reception area, calling my contact person and

I T H A P P E N E D . . .

The UN-Calendared E V E N T:

An elderly lady and her granddaughter walked out of the swooshing hospital doors and one cue when they hit the cold air of the late morning she burst into a loud, uncontrollable wail of deep woe:

“I can’t, can’t, can’t believe what I just heard. The Dr, the Dr, he just told me that I have, that I have can-can-can-cancer! Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God, Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh God. . . .”

The phone was still ringing and I had my back partially to them.

Before I could respond

Before I could hang up the ringing phone from the other end

Before I could offer any consolation or comfort

B E F O R E

. . .the granddaughter did the most

pure

simplest

kind

loving

compassionate

caring

a m a z i n g

a c t:

She held her grandmother,

hugged her. . .

let her cry. . .

and then said,

“Grandma, I know he just said the worst thing we should ever have to hear but he doesn’t know us, he doesn’t know how well we all fight together with each other, he doesn’t know how strong our family is and how we don’t ever do anything alone. . .I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,”

. . .she whispered to her grandmother over and over again as she held, gently rocked her like I could only imagine she was once rocked by her when she fell or was afraid or had her feelings hurt or. . .

O B L I V O U S

that I was standing just a few feet away

that a crash cart was just on the other side of the swooshing doors

that several nurses and one doctor were talking at the receptionists desk

t h a t

anything else or anyone were available or necessary.

In a simple, significantly powerfully way

I witnessed

what I know

what I know I know

what I’d bet my life I know

but for the life of me

I don’t always a c t l i k e I k n o w

t h a t

medicine

interventions

therapies

treatments

blind studies

experimental aids

placebos

d o n o t h e a l u s

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

heal us.

Are you a Caring Catalyst?

Do you want to be?

You may be just a mere

h u g

a g e n t l e t o u c h

a h e l d h a n d

away.

t h a t

hug

gentle touch

an open and willing holding hand

Your words will never tell what your actions always will. . .

The greatest things in our lives sometimes take place without ever being c a l e n d a r e d

Are you Ready?

The Best Medicine

January 18, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Sometimes. . .

The Best

most effective

least evasive

cost efficient

non-addictive

m e d i c i n e

isn’t found in a

syringe

capsule

elixir

pill

intervention

therapy

treatment. . .

b u t a t t h e e n d o f y o u r e x t e n d e d h a n d

Sometimes. . .

it takes more than medicine.

C O M P A S S I O N

(s u f f e ri n g w i t h)

a powerful antidote

for the human condition

F I L L

. . .D E L I V E R

that Prescription

Every Time!

Two Buck Chuck

January 15, 2016 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Well. . .

Now you know. . .

Now you know that I didn’t win the 1.6Billion-dollar PowerBall

and I’m fairly sure that no one who happens to have split those winnings three ways, is reading this either.

Now you know. . .

maybe what you know,

know that you know,

and bet your life that you know. . .

but for the life of you don’t act like you know

or. . .even recognize.

I didn’t fully

until this morning when I, like millions of others, found out that what

W I N N E R S

we really are.

I found out that the odds of winning were about 1 in 292 million, which we are told are to be worse odds of being mauled by a bear and being attacked by a shark and marrying a supermodel–

A L L C O M B I N E D.

You know what my Two-Bucks bought me?

H O P E :

If you think about it–for two-bucks it’s a great deal, no matter what the odds. I mean, come on, for just two-bucks, I bought a chance for 1.6 Billion dollars. That’s a pretty great deal, isn’t it? H O P E ! It took no skill, no special prayers, I was on equal ground with everyone else without nothing to do or with anyone to compete.

Two-bucks bought me

P E R S P E C T I V E:

The simple experience of playing and actually l o s i n g was worth it. This two-bucks lasted longer than an amusement ride or a movie or a Broadway show; this p e r s p e c t i v e lasted for days as we dreamed about how we’d help people and actually change their lives; make dreams that have never been dreamt, come true. It allowed for friendships and camaraderie and love as I joined other groups at church, at work, in the neighborhood in buying tickets together; we even commiserated about how it just wasn’t in the cards for us to win, and like everyone else who bellied up to that PowerBall Bar, took the chance, anyhow–all that for being Two-Buck-Chuck.

You know what my Two-Bucks really bought me?

I had an awesome conversation with my son last weekend, one of so many other fantastic talks; I found out at in a matter of less than a week we were going to be grandparents to one of our daughters, first daughter, another daughter’s second expected baby, and another daughter’s engagement to be married; I am going to be celebrating thirty fast years of marriage to a woman who said y e s when the whole world and mostly myself was screaming, N O; I’ve served four amazing churches in the past 36 years; companioned hundreds of terminally ill patients; supported their families; conducted hundreds of weddings and thousands of funerals; been befriended by people that can’t be created or imagined by Hollywood’s greatest writers. . .what’s the price tag on all of that? Two bucks? 1.6 Billion?

Hmmmmmmmmmm of the DAY:

A L L O F T H I S F O R

t w o b u c k s. . . .

Two-Buck-Chuck figures the odds of winning some 1.6 Billion dollars don’t stack up to the best two bucks I’ve spent countless times over–especially just right now–that’s gotten me to the point of where

I know. . .

I know that I know. . .

I bet my Life that I know. . .

what for the rest of my life I intend to act

LIKE I KNOW

(what’s really precious and priceless)

Y O U ?

It’s great being
W I N N E R S

Two-Buck-Chuck realizes t h a t

(as do I now hope you do, too)

TWO WORDS

November 16, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/z3IVRys63x4

I’m Amazed

I’m Inspired

I’m Motivated

I’m Impressed

I’m Awed

I’m Shocked

I’m Intrigued

I’m Mesmerized

I’m Astounded

I’m Stunned

I’m Astonished

I’m Impelled

I’m Enlivened

I’m Invigorated

I’m Moved

I’m Incited

I’m Ashamed

I’m______________

I C A N

Facing your F. E. A. R.

October 26, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

S O . . .

What’s your

F. E. A. R. ?

F alse

E xperience

A ppearing

R eal ?

We all have them. . .these F alse E xperiences A ppearing R eal’s . . .

and in many very real, even more very nasty ways they are much more damaging and realistic than our real-life-everyday-fears.

What’s your’s?

Heights?

Snakes?

Spiders?

Dentists?

Doctors?

Hospitals?

Elevators?

Dark Small Places?

Planes?

Germs?

Claustrophobia?

Public Speaking?

C H A N G E ?

F A I L U R E ?

S U C C E S S ?

We all have F. E. A.R.’s and it’s never so much what brings us to our knees or even what keeps us there for a seemingly forever. . .

it’s what keeps us

c r a w l i n g

forward no matter how slow. . .

H O W ?

Hmmmmmmmm of the Day, huh?

Maybe. . .m a y b e by just being

A W A R E

A Accept the F.E.A.R. and don’t to ignore or fight it. . .

W Watch the F.E.A.R…just watch it and when you notice it just start breathing longer on your out-breath. . .

A Act normally. . .carry on as if nothing’s different–that sends a powerful message to the brain that all’s well. . .

R Repeat those above steps in your mind countless times over if necessary. . .

E Expect the best always. One of our greatest feelings in life is that we control F.E.A.R. more than we think. . .

Our F alse E xperiences A ppearing R eal

are no joke. . .they are as real as our next breath but even just as conquerable as our next few breaths after THAT

Overcoming these F.E.A.R.’s are never easy. . .

but they’re not impossible, either.

Surmounting them will absolutely give us the

s p a r e c a p a c i t y

to focus on what you really want to do and be

. . .and it takes work

but it’s one rewarding job.

So what is it?

What’s your

F. E. A. R. ?

Be even just a little more

A. W. A. R. E.

Un-Jingled CHANGE

October 14, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

s o m e

say that you know it’s really

C H A N G E

if it doesn’t

J I N G L E

The Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded to Dr. Angus Deaton for his studies on the consumption, poverty and welfare. Dr. Deaton is a professor at Princeton University. In accepting his award he has noted that,

“There’s a real moral urgency to understanding how people behave and what we should or might be able to do about it…Life is better now than at almost anytime in history. . .more people are richer and fewer people live in dire poverty. Lives are longer and parents no longer routinely watch a quarter of their children die. . .I think inequality has gone past the point where it’s helping us all get rich, and it’s really becoming a serious threat. . . .“

Hmmmmmm of the Day:

Could it be that Dr. Angus Deaton actually is a true

C A RI N G C A T A L Y S T. . . ?

No. . .

not because he really can distinguish the difference between

Dollars and S E N S E. . .

Not because he’s a brilliant Economist. . .

Not because he has just won the Nobel Prize. . .

Not because he knows at its best 1 + 1 = much more than 2 ever could. . .

but because of Dr. Deaton’s

C a r e

. . .what he does with his

C A R I N G

is a real

C A T A L Y S T

C H A N G E

. . .the kind that never quite Jingles in your pocket

but can’t help

r e s o u d i n g

in your Heart.

That we all might be such a

caring catalyst

is such a jingle that could forever fill

our pockets

and our

h e a r t s !

Broke D O W N

October 12, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

When’s the last time you’ve been

B R O K E D O W N ?

No. . .

I’m not talking about the last time you blew a tire

I’m not talking about the last time your battery quit battery-ing

I’m not talking about the last time the Alternator stopped Alternating

I’m not talking about the last time when you blew a Radiator hose

I’m not talking about the last time your water pump stopped pumping

I’m not talking about when you pushed it and ran out of gas. . .

I’m asking,

When’s the last time you’ve been

B R O K E D O W N ?

. . .When you’ve read something

. . .When you’ve heard something

. . .When you’ve watched something

that actually Broke You Down ?

I’m pushing a very dangerous limit here.

According to a recent study from Microsoft Corp., we now have an attention span less than a Goldfish

(Talk about getting Broke Down)

The study reveals that we generally lose concentration after about eight seconds, which seemingly highlights the affects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain.

So. . .maybe somewhat foolishly. . .

I’m asking you to watch a five-minute-thirteen-second video that was suppose to be a social experiment of how long it would actually take someone to stop to help a motorist who was broken down on the side of the road.

It took over two hours and then the person that actually stopped. . .

W A I T. . .

S T R E T C H

Your Attention Span by five-minutes-and-five-seconds and get

B R O K E D O W N

to become more

whole

than you could ever possibly be on a Monday Morning in any other way.

And. . .

CONGRATULATIONS FOR CONCENTRATING LONG ENOUGH

to make it through the video and this blog posting. . .

maybe the berm

has put you well onto the Road again. . . .

And if you would like to help a not-so-broken-down-ONE to become more whole you can contribute to: https://www.gofundme.com/xbmt3w

Your Neutrino Of Compassion

October 7, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

Congratulations to Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo and Arthur B. McDonald of Queen’s University in Canada who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering

THAT THE UBIQUITOUS BUT ELUSIVE SUBATOMIC PARTICLES KNOWN AS NEUTRINOS HAVE MASS

The ghostly neutrino–it means, “SMALL NEUTRAL ONE” in Italian–carries no electric charge and is so light that it had been assumed for many years to have no mass at all. These two Scientists showed that Neutrinos, which are found in three ‘flavors,’ could oscillate from one flavor to another–changing identities like a spy on the run, as they traveled through the atmosphere or through space from the sun–demonstrating that they do in fact have mass.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the prize stated,

“The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost working of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the Universe. . . .”

S O W H A T ?

Well. . .

The universe is swamped in neutrinos that are left over from the Big Bang, and many more are created in nuclear reactions on earth and in the thermonuclear reactions that power the sun.

. . . Once thought to travel at the speed of light, they drift through the earth and

OUR OWN BODIES

like moonlight through the window. Knowing that they can change identities–and that they have mass–has helped cosmologists understand how the Universe has evolved and how the sun works, and it will perhaps help them improve their attempts to create fusion reactors on earth. . . .

S O W H A T?

So. . .

if some SMALL NEUTRAL ONE

can do all that from the Sun

so very many, many years ago

from the Big Bang

and it’s in

OUR BODIES. . .

how much more

can just a single charged minuscule neutrino

reflect the Light

of our Compassion. . . ?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .

Holy Neutrinos, Batman

I don’t think we saw the light

we just might have on purpose with full intent,

c r e a t e d

i t !

May that be the Combustionable in us

exploding in atomic proportions

r e p e a t e d l y. . . .

Monkey Wrenched

October 2, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Ever felt like a

S M A S H E D P L A T E ?

S H E D I D

It was the Saturday before Halloween all the

W A Y

back in 2002

It was an all day retreat that I was contacted to do on

HOLY HELL

for a couple of Church groups that wanted to work through their

SMASHED PLATE SYNDROMES

S H E

was the one who contacted me; she was a Parish Nurse.

The day before the retreat, unbeknownst to me for these past 13 years,

S H E

had been diagnosed with MS.

I broke a plate using a monkey wrench

over and over again while asking:

“WHAT’S YOUR MONKEY WRENCH ?

I pointed out to the group that this was a harrowing sound as these smashed pieces jingled in the bag as I walked around the circle among where they were sitting.

I shared that this eery sound reminds us all of the one single day we celebrate every day of the year, sometimes with gusto: HALLOWEEN

(Because of all of the varied and many masks we wear)

I told the group not to worry because psycho-sociologists have a remedy for this bag of broken pieces that sounds like a bag of chains with each step taken. . .

“PICK UP THE PIECES AND GO ON”

Problem:

WE STILL HAVE A BAG OF BROKEN PIECES!

B U T . . .

There’s a Universal law that every major Religion and all of the

N O N E S

agree:

ALL THINGS ARE MADE NEW

( Pssssssssst: Which Spring doesn’t Prove THAT? )

I often tell every group I present before:

“I AM NOT HERE FOR THIS GROUP TODAY. . .I AM ONLY HERE FOR ONE, SINGLE PERSON. . .I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU ?

Nearly Thirteen years later I found out it was

H E R

I conducted the funeral for a 95 year old gentleman I had never met before. He was retired High-School Choral Teacher and there were many of his former students there. I actually joked about what George Burns once said about getting THAT old:

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PEER PRESSURE”

S H E

was the wife of the Choral Teacher’s grandson.

S H E

came up to me after the service and said,

“You probably don’t remember me. But I hired you to come to a Church in 2002 to give an all day Seminar for a group of grieving people. I was one of them. I had just found out the day before that I had MS and I know it doesn’t show that much but I struggle every day. My MRI is a mess and I was a terrible wreck that day with where my Life was headed with this terrible Detour I had just been told. You smashed that plate, telling us that our Life has a way of meeting up not so well with Monkey Wrenches that get thrown into the middle of our living. I felt like those broken pieces and just when I thought you were going to leave us with, ‘PICK UP THE PIECES AND GO ON’ you showed us that there was something much better than trying to pick up the pieces and futilely attempting to put them back together, or just going on. . .You held up a brand new plate that was a replica of the one you had just smashed and boldly stated:

BEHOLD. . .ALL THINGS BECOME NEW !”

With tears trickling down her face she said, “That day. . .that moment. . .you transformed my life. Can I give you a hug?”

“TODAY. . .I AM HERE FOR JUST ONE, SINGLE PERSON. . .I JUST DON’T KNOW WHICH ONE OF YOU?”

What. . .

What message are you giving. . .

What One, Single Person needs The Gift. . .

DESPERATELY NEEDS

The Gift of Y O U, today?

Sometimes, it may take as much as Thirteen years to find. . .

Sometimes, you may never find out. . .?

S H O W U P

Do not Disappoint. . .THEM

G I V E

even when you feel

like The Gift is Empty

or as if it’s

N O T H I N G. . . .

Throw a Monkey Wrench at Something bad to make something good. . .

SOMETHING NEW !

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