The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

Mister Rogers’D

By 2 Comments

It was a staple in most households when we were growing up and there were literally only three (4) channels on your tv set:
NBC
ABC
CBS
PBS
and most often I was a human remote control
changing the stations
upon request. . .

We’d tune in just about every early evening while my mom was finishing preparing dinner and it would be my job to watch my younger brothers; we’d watch MR ROGERS and though I acted like it was for little kids, this not-so-little-kid got a lot out of it, but maybe not as much as I got this past Friday when I went to see Tom Hanks in
A BEAUTIFUL IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Thanksgiving is just a few days away
and maybe we’ve already snuck a piece of pumpkin pie
or some fruitcake
or a slice or two of turkey. . .

I have a request for you this Thanksgiving:
If you haven’t already
sometime over this holiday weekend, maybe even
T H A N K S G I V I N G
itself,
I want you
I’m literally begging you
TO BE SELFISH
P L E A S E
be selfish enough to go see this movie. . .

I’m so glad that this small Trailer showed my favorite thing in the movie:
THE ONE MINUTE OF SILENCE SCENE
with the powerful
the most awesomely powerful message:
“LET’S JUST TAKE A MOMENT AND THINK ABOUT ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO LOVED US INTO BEING. . .JUST ONE MINUTE!

Mr Rogers was one special person because it was his life’s mission to make everyone he met feel
SPECIAL;
he was
COMPASSION IN ACTION
KINDNESS ENACTED
and more:
He’s inspired us to be the same. . .
Join me in doing
JUST THAT. . .

Please, won’t you be my neighbor?

Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
It won’t guarantee you a
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
It’ll give you a most
Enchanted Life. . .

THE FUNKS

By Leave a Comment

It’s Clouds
not always dark
but completing covering
dark draping the sun
but not completely it’s rays

Seemingly to last for
An Ever

But they’re Clouds
not always dark
shading over the Sun

Like THE FUNKS
They pass and never last
For An Ever
A Season
or long
and when you’re tempted to feel
the opposite
s q u i n t
and see your flag
boldly wave them a good
b y e

The Unreliable Critic

By Leave a Comment

No pun
i n t e n d e d. . .
but this is a pretty
R E F L E C T I V E
piece, huh?

Is it true. . . ?
Are we our worst Critics?
Are we Reliable Critics?
What do you see bad in yourself
that others can’t see nothing but good in you?

Maybe out of all the questions that might be bouncing around
from your head to heart to the deepest part of your soul
this is the one that matters the most:
WHEN YOU STAND IN FRONT OF A MIRROR
DO YOU SEE MORE OF WHAT REALLY ISN’T THERE
OR MORE OF WHAT IS?

Are you a reliable critic. . . ?

Do you ever really
k n o w
what another truly
s e e s

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
Look Again

The movie in your mind
may never make it to the
BIG SCREEN

LOOK
A G A I N
The ticket you’ve paid full admission
is never really a shadow
of the
MAIN
ATTRACTION
you are. . . .

WHAT ABOUT US

By Leave a Comment

There’s a lot of
B R O K E N
Happily Ever After’s
O U T
T H E R E. . .

W E

D O N ‘ T

H A V E

T O

B E

T H E

A N S W E R

SO MUCH AS
WE
Just have to make sure
We’re not the
P R O B L E M

Hey,
WHAT ABOUT US. . . ?

H E Y
why not?

Out of this World

By Leave a Comment

Many celebrations will take place this week commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. We’re focusing on Georgia connections to this amazing historical feat, along with the future of space exploration. 

Tiffany Davis is an aerospace engineer. You may have seen her on your timeline with the hashtag, #YesIAmARocketScientist. That hashtag went viral in 2016 after Davis posted it on her Instagram page, announcing her graduation from the Georgia Institute of Technology

Among her more earthbound accomplishments: her plea to make college more affordable caught the attention of then-President Barack Obama. Since then, Davis has  interned and been hired at Boeing’s mission operations and engineering group in Washington, D.C. 

On Second Thought host Virginia Prescott spoke with Davis and asked her what a rocket scientist looks like.

Interview highlights

On what advice she would give to any young minorities interested in STEM 

It takes … a type of ambition and determination to know that you’re going into a field where there’s not a lot of people that look like you, and some people will doubt that you belong there because there’s not that representation of you already in that field. So [there] will be times where you feel like you have to prove yourself, or you may not belong, but just understand that you have a purpose, and you have an intention, and practice makes perfect. Once you put in that work, and once you put in that effort, know that you do belong there, that you do deserve to be there, and you’re gonna crush it.

On her advice to girls who worry STEM is not a ‘feminine’ field.

Your life does not have to be binary. Women are not black and white. We can be many different things. I’m not one thing, I’m not just an engineer. I also was a track athlete. I was a basketball athlete. I was prom queen. I was all that in one. I didn’t have to pick and choose between what society wants me to be and what I feel like I am.

On how she knew she wanted to major in aerospace engineering 

Since I was a young girl I was always interested in understanding and learning how things work. I was the type of girl that would beg my parents to go to RadioShack instead of Toys ‘R’ Us. And I was also the person that would take apart my gameboy and try to figure out if I could put it back together.

On the future of space exploration

I think [the moon landing] was just the beginning for us. I actually hope to be one of the first people that walk on the surface of Mars one day. And I think that’s exactly where we’re going with capabilities being developed at Boeing such as the SLS, which is the Space Launch System, our heavy lift rocket that’s gonna take us to the moon, and Mars, and eventually beyond that. People want to mine asteroids, people want to set up amusement parks in space.

On how space exploration benefits life on Earth

Many inventions come from space, and us going up there with limited resources, and figuring out a way to make it work, and that ends up creating some type of innovation or product that we can bring back to Earth to make other people’s life easier or more healthy. Something like osteoporosis medicine, where you’re looking at the bone decay, and how the bone acts differently in space, we were able to diagnose that and treat that by looking at how astronauts’ bones decay in space under a no-gravity environment. . .

SO WHAT?

Like most miracles
Like most vast awakenings
They’re not always
recognized/noticed/seen
Especially when they’re right in front of us. . .

What’s even more amazing to me
is advanced as we are
FIFTY YEARS LATER
or TWO-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY YEARS
from now
it’s not our scientific advances
our medical technology
our Pharmacology
our psych-social interventions
that heal us. . .

IT IS OUR RELATIONSHIPS

. . .And that’s the only thing that
HAS
DOES
WILL
be for an ever
OUT OF THIS WORLD

In the End, TWO WORDS:

By Leave a Comment

I didn’t hear she had been sick

and hearing the news of her death

. . .it made me sick. . .

Her web site

unpoetically

put out the following announcement:

Mary Oliver, beloved poet and bard of the natural world, died on January 17 at home in Hobe Sound, Florida. She was 83.

Oliver published her first book, No Voyage, in London in 1963, at the age of twenty-eight. The author of more than 20 collections, she was cherished by readers, and was the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for American Primitive, and the 1992 National Book Award for New and Selected Poems, Volume One. She led workshops and held residencies at various colleges and universities, including Bennington College, where she held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching until 2001. It was her work as an educator that encouraged her to write the guide to verse, A Poetry Handbook (1994), and she went on to publish many works of prose, including the New York Times bestselling essay collection, Upstream (2016). For her final work, Oliver created a personal lifetime collection, selecting poems from throughout her more than fifty-year career. Devotions was published by Penguin Press in 2017.

Her poetry developed in close communion with the landscapes she knew best, the rivers and creeks of her native Ohio, and, after 1964, the ponds, beech forests, and coastline of her chosen hometown, Provincetown. She spent her final years in Florida, a relocation that brought with it the appearance of mangroves. “I could not be a poet without the natural world,” she wrote. “Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.” In the words of the late Lucille Clifton, “She uses the natural world to illuminate the whole world.”
In her attention to the smallest of creatures, and the most fleeting of moments, Oliver’s work reveals the human experience at its most expansive and eternal. She lived poetry as a faith and her singular, clear-eyed understanding of verse’s vitality of purpose began in childhood, and continued all her life. “For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

A Mary Oliver book
is by my bed,
in my study,
in the trunk of my car,
a back pack
an unpacked bag from my last vacation. . .

she’s always been a
go-to
for quick bits of inspiration
and now that words
will no longer flow from her pen
they will continue to float to one lucky person
to another blessed one
who treats themselves to peruse. . .
Maybe the greatest
poetic justice
of all
is not feeling the need to say
GOOD-BYE
so much as
sincerely
everlastingly
whisper
not-so-softly
THANK
YOU
u n l i m i t e d l y

TWO WORDS. . .

j u s t t w o :

T H A N K Y O U

Christmas’ed

By 4 Comments

S               T               O               P

Don’t do anything for at least the next three minutes

or however long it’ll take you to scroll through this post.           .           .

Q       U       E       S       T       I       O       N :

When  is  I T ?

When did  IT

WHEN   WILL  IT

first   come   to   you   this   year?

When    W     I     L     L  

I T   L E A V E?

First present?

Last Present?

Somewhere in between parties or when you hit the pillow after some chaotic days?

Or has it already   G   O   N   E

before it has actually   C   O   M   E

I   am   a   firm

K       N       O       W  ‘   E       R  

that  Christmas,

or any other special holiday/event

doesn’t   so   much   come   on   a   day   or   for   a   Season,

b u t   i n

M       O       M       E       N       T       S

Last year.       .       .

I’ve  already  had  a  varied  assortment  of

M       O       M       E       N       T       S

over these past few days and weeks.       .       .

I bet you have, too.         .         .

I was at Costco shortly after Labor Day

and way before Halloween

and there were already Christmas Trees and lawn decorations

adoring the place

accompanied with Christmas Carols.          .          .

T        R       U       T         H:

I  think  it  starts  with  the

CHRISTMAS     IN    JULY

please-come-out-and-save-my-business-before-Christmas-gets-here-in-5-months-sales

We  always  have  a  way  of  celebrating  many  Christmases  during  the  holidays.         .         .   

and before and afterwards.     .     .

Any  M O M E N T S,  y e t ?

A Bell-Ringer outside of a grocery story proclaiming I must be a minister not because of my suit, tie, overcoat, but because I actually looked him in the eye and wished him a ‘Merry Christmas’ when I put a donation in his red kettle:

 A            M       O       M       E       N       T

Standing in Starbucks on Cyber Monday and the guy in front of me, telling the Barista that he was going to buy our drinks for the morning:

A              M       O       M       E       N       T

Conducting the Memorial service of a man I’d never met and assuring the small gathering of people that, “You haven’t heard the last of Steve,” and before I finished saying his name a flower pot dropping loudly to the floor from the side of his casket:

A              M       O       M       E       N       T

Seeing an awesome performance of The Messiah and during the warm-up the magic of the music
began a wave that became a tsunami of emotion;
it was like I saved a year full of tears
and numerous times during the performance they had
no problem flowing:

A            M       O       M       E       N       T

Walking into the Atrium of an Inpatient Unit and having four people pointing at me; when I walked up to them they turned their cell phone around showing me a picture of myself after they had just googled me to find me for possibly conducting the memorial service of their actively dying mother:

A            M      O      M      E      N      T

Seeing my grandchildren from the littlest
(the two year olds)
to the oldest,
(our 16 year old)
continuing to grow right before our eyes
and yet remain very child-like at the same time:

A            M       O       M       E        N       T

Waking up in the middle of the night and noticing that your holding a hand that’s clutching yours:

A         M       O       M        E        N        T

A song that comes on from your Shuffled Playlist at the exact time you really need to hear it but didn’t know that you did:

A          M        O       M       E       N       T

A phone call.          .          .

a Text. . .

a letter. . .

a chance meeting. . .

A   L   L               M     O     M     E     N     T     S.          .          .

It’s   NOT   if
M         O         M         E         N         T         S
ever  occur

as really if they ever

C       E       A       S       E  ?

Maybe the specialness of this Season

is just reserved to those who are actually

L O O K I N G   for   those   M O M E N TS ?

When  is  it?

What  MOMENT  does   IT  first come or

has   it  ?

Is  IT  still there or does it lay discarded.        .        .

cast aside like some soon to be useless wrapping paper?

We know, long ago as it has been told us,

“MARY KEPT THESE THINGS IN HER HEART. . .”

In his Classic, THE  OTHER  WISE  MAN, Henry van Dyke said,

“ARE YOU WILLING TO BELIEVE THAT LOVE IS THE STRONGEST THING IN THE WORLD–STRONGER THAN HATE, STRONGER THAN DEATH–AND THAT THE BLESSED LIFE WHICH BEGAN IN BETHLEHEM…(ALL THOSE) YEARS AGO IS THE IMAGE AND BRIGHTNESS OF ETERNAL LOVE?
THEN. . .THEN YOU CAN KEEP CHRISTMAS, AND IF YOU KEEP IT FOR A DAY, WHY. . .WHY NOT ALWAYS?”

It’s all about   M O M E N T S.         .         .

a  n  d ,

and just when isn’t there  ONE?

Maybe it’s not about  MOMENTS  at all.         .         .

Maybe it’s not about Noticing  MOMENTS.         .         .

Maybe it’s about just

C R E A T I N G      T H E M !

C H R I S T M A S ‘e d.         .         . 

If   you’re   going   to   be   TENSE—

why  not   BE   the   PRESENT    ONE .   .   .   ?

Here’s  to  your

M          O          M          E          N          T

and the many more to follow.       .       .

M          O          M          E          N          T          S :

They’re to be Made.       .       .

They’re to be Shared.       .       .

They’re to be enjoyed.       .       .

They’re to be NOTICED!

THEY’RE   TO   BE   LIVED   AGAIN

AND  AGAIN

AND AGAIN

A  N  D .          .          .

Had  any

M   O   M   E   N   T   S

lately?

They are like puzzle pieces

spread across a table top

begging to be put together.        .       .

The problem?

We most likely miss many more

than we notice.          .          .

and those might just be the most special ones of all

because it’s not always what we notice

but what we don’t recognize

that matters most!

Hit the

PAUSE    BUTTON

it’s  not  a  matter  of  it  all  coming  to  you

as you just seeing

that  it’s  already  been  here

and  never  leaves.         .        .

even  if  you  never  arrive

even  if  you  have  long  left

IT

.             .          .Get  Christmas’ed

and give a little of it.       .       .

The MOMENTS

you give

just might be the most

important MOMENTS

of all

and then maybe the greatest

D       I       S       C       O       V       E       R       Y

of all will be

u          n          w          r          a          p          p          e          d

m          a          y          b          e

.          .          .m a y b e

it really is up to you

and that might be the best news of all.          .          .

A D M I S S I O N S

By 2 Comments

I have shown this dozens of times in several different settings and it always seems to begin conversations and foster even deeper thoughts and feelings.       .      .

After last week’s series of pipe bomb mails,
Grocery Store
Synagogue Shootings

and a unplanned, profound discussion with friend about

G  E  T  T  I  N  G      I T

I’ve  repeatedly  had  just

One    Question?

What Props are you holding on to that keep you being truly
freely
being
y o u.          .          .

Well.          .          .

?

Masqueraded

By 4 Comments

images-1

H  A  L  L  O  W  E  E  N        I  S         T   O   D   A   Y.          .          .

or    is    I T?

Do you remember?

When was the last time you actually went HALLOWEENING?

When was the first time you actually went Trick or Treating?

What was your favorite Halloween outfit?

Was it reflective on WHO YOU WANTED TO BE?

Superman?

Princess?

Monster?

Lawyer?

Nurse?

Doctor?

Mad Scientist?

Astronaut?

Nun?

Priest?

If there were a Halloween party tonight and you were told to dress

WHO YOU WANTED TO BE,

WOULD YOU DRESS UP IN THE FASHION OF WHO YOU ARE NOW.   .   .

Or Would you Dress as Someone Else?

It’s not a Holy day,

It’s not an Anniversary,

It’s not a Birthday,

It’s not a Holiday,

It is Halloween–the only day–we actually celebrate

EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR, isn’t it?

What day of the year,

or even what part of the day

WOULD      NOT      BE      HALLOWEEN?

It’s actually an ancient Celtic holiday

on which people believed they needed masks

to protect themselves from bad spirits that roamed the earth

on Hallows Eve

.          .          .but we’re still wearing masks–lots of them,

aren’t we.           .           .

Psychologists tell us that one of the reasons

we wear MASKS

is because of the

I M P O S T E R     S Y N D R O M E:

THE  FEAR  THAT  WORLD  IS  GOING  TO  FIND  US  OUT.          .          .

One of our greatest fears is

that if we SHOW

our true selves,

the world will SHOUT:

“OH,    IT’S   JUST   YOU!”

Oscar Wilde once said,

“BE    YOURSELF;  EVERYONE    ELSE    IS    TAKEN”

Well, Susan Sparks, in Psychology Today tells us there’s at least

T H R E E    R E A S O N S

for us to take of our MASKS:

  1.  So we can live LIFE our full potential.     .     .We are not 1 in a million, YOU are just one singular, magnificent, most awesome an INDIVIDUAL  
  2. Just for RELIEF.          .          .It’s exhausting taking on/off/on/off/on/off/on/off all of these Masks, plus you forget WHO YOU really are.
  3. Just for HEALING.          .          .Wearing Masks carves out your truest SELF; we weren’t Born with Masks; WE put them on, so WE can take them off; 

E. E. Cummings wrote:

“The  greatest  battle  we  face  as  human  being  is  the  battle  to  protect  our trues  selves  from  the  self  the  world  wants  us  to  become.”

  Are   you   authentic?

The      REAL      YOU?

DO YOU SHOW UP AS YOU 24/7, 364 days a year or are you truly more of a

HALLOWEEN PERSON?

H     E     Y.          .          .

It’s   November   1

Halloween was yesterday.          .          .

Think about taking your Masks off.       .       .

Most wouldn’t be shocked if when

we took off all of our masks.           .          .

there would still be more?

Seriously have you ever seen/viewed/spied your bare, truest self?

Have  Y O U  ever seen  Y O U ?

When  T H E Y

show up on YOUR front porch,

knocking on YOUR door,

yelling into YOUR ears:

TRICK      or       TREAT–

Give them NEITHER.           .           .

Give them what they’ll never expect,

what they never saw coming,

what NO ONE,

not even you,

has ever truly seen:

G I V E           T H E M           Y O U!

Maybe,

maybe the best Halloween of all.           .            .

is actually no Halloween at all!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm   of   the   DAY:

Maybe the Best Mask of all

on  Halloween

is  the  one  that’s  been  taken  off

and   l  o  s  t.                .                .

Riddle   me   that,

B      a      t      m      a     n.            .            . 

OFF THE TRACKS

By Leave a Comment

We always seem to be looking for the way.          .          .

or at least a new way,

A R E N ‘ T     W E ?

A path.          .          .

 In search of some wild and promiseful destinations.          .        .

And what do we find?

Just exactly  W H E R E   do our searches take us.          .          ?

What discoveries have we made when we set off for such a destination?

Could it be true

Is it even vastly possible

That maybe the greatest destinations

The greatest journeys

Are not those that we’ve set out for;

not those that we have tried to be in search of;

B                    U                    T

P E R H A P S

J U S T     M A Y B E

P O S S I B L Y

The ones that took us to a place

we absolutely had no idea

we had no way of knowing

we had no intention of going

And  yet  F O U N D

r       e       c       e       i       v       e       d

what we could’ve never gotten

 any other way

from any other place

or any other person.          .          .

Now that’s the

A          D          V          E          N          T          U          R          E

of life

and living

if it teaches us nothing else

it most surely must educate us to the possibility

that some of our best lessons

are those we never signed up

 and learned anyway just by going

O     F     F          T     R     A     C     K

C H O O  — C  H  O  O

AAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL     AAAAAAAA  —  B      O      A      R      D

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man