The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

THE VILLAGE

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This video guts me. It filets me in a way that makes me more aware of what I should be aware of and maybe what I shouldn’t be aware of as much.

Most of the time when I stand up for the LGBTQ Community in any of its forms, I’m often asked, “Is there somebody in your family that’s like that?”  The generalize thought is that would be a reason why I should stand up for somebody that’s different than me, somebody who’s life and lifestyle I will never be able to understand or on my best day, comprehend.  Somehow the thought is, “Well, I could maybe understand if someone close to you lives this kind of lifestyle or why they chose it and you’re showing support”  Uh, NO, NO, when you interacted with those who live such lives and the people who love and support them suffer, you’d know it’s anything but a choosing anyone would purposely put themselves through and yet, STILL, THE ASKINGS.          .          .
I am also asked what’s your most difficult kind of funeral to conduct and my knee-jerk reaction often is a baby, especially one that may be premature; but in my heart of hearts, I think again the one the ones that get me the most are not suicides but suicide because somebody is different sexually, and a family member or members or society can’t accept that and they find no other way to cope, but to die, to commit suicide.
So yes, there’s somebody in my family that’s different,  just like there’s somebody in your family that’s different, just like everybody in the world is different and so now I have to choose, will I be different too and maybe more importantly will I treat people differently because of my differences?
QUESTIONS, CLASS?
Uhhhhh.    .   .if it takes a Village
.        .       .maybe it really takes a
BETTER ONE!

What say YOU?

EVERYDAYNESSES

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“A flat tire. An extra fee tacked on to a hotel bill. A cracked screen on your phone. A bike stolen from your garage. A large charge that they won’t refund. A deal blown up by a missed email.

Nobody likes these things. But does anyone think that a life without them is possible?

No, of course not. We understand that sometimes you get ripped off. Sometimes you make mistakes. Sometimes stuff falls apart on the one-yard line.

Ok, then why are you so upset? You know it’s a statistical certainty, a basic fact of life. Yet here you are, cursing it as if it’s unfair. As if you’ve been singled out. Instead of just accepting it, instead of just saying to yourself as Marcus Aurelius tried to say of shameless people (who he also believed were a statistical inevitability), ok this is one of those people. Don’t ask for the impossible, he said, don’t get upset that someone who was bound to exist, exists or that something that was bound to happen, has happened.

We can’t escape it. We can only accept it…and be grateful that it’s rarer than it could be.”
When I read this in a random DAILY STOIC post I started wondering why I don’t like it when bad things happen to good people for no apparent reason or any catchy rhyming, especially to this trying-so-hard-to-be-a-better-person striving to do good for good.         .           .
B  U  T .      .     .the sacred isn’t always what you think it is or where you think you can find it.     .      .Embrace your EVERYDAYNESSESS
Now about that flat tire, well right after the leaky pipe but before the locked keys in the car or the lost credit card that I swear I put in my secret SECRET place and my pen, my Montblanc Pen.        .        .

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst: 
BRING YOUR EVERYDAYNESSES
TO YOUR
EVERYTHINGNESSESS
ENCHANTMENT ABOUNDS
(and be the Caring Catalyst you are but rarely recognize)

JUST A MOMENT: FINDING THE SACRED

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Maybe the question isn’t so much where do you find the sacred, the holy as much as where does it find you? Just where is the isn’t the sacred, or at least, what you call it?  Whatever you find holy, wherever you find sacred, whatever feeds your soul and gives meaning to you, don’t let any label like the sacred or the holy or the religious or the spiritual or the essence or the energy take you away from it.         .           .
WHEN YOU FIND THE SACRED
you feel Peace
WHEN THE SACRED FINDS YOU
you become Peace

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.          .          .

A GIFT OF TITANIC PROPORTIONS

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When the Titanic sank, it carried millionaire John Jacob Astor IV. The money in his bank account was enough to build 30 Titanics. However, faced with mortal danger, he chose what he deemed morally right and gave up his spot in a lifeboat to save two frightened children.

Millionaire Isidor Straus, co-owner of the largest American chain of department stores, “Macy’s,” who was also on the Titanic, said:

“I will never enter a lifeboat before other men.”

His wife, Ida Straus, also refused to board the lifeboat, giving her spot to her newly appointed maid, Ellen Bird. She decided to spend her last moments of life with her husband.

These wealthy individuals preferred to part with their wealth, and even their lives, rather than compromise their moral principles. Their choice in favor of moral values highlighted the brilliance of human civilization and human nature.


Just when I think I’ve
G        I        V        E        N
a five dollar bill to someone standing on a corner with an unreadable sign
a paid for Starbucks order to the car behind me
a meal for an elderly couple who held hands during their dinner
a well-intentioned compliment
I don’t think I know the real definition.            .            . YOU?

Maybe when you put a
D          O          L          L          A          R
amount of what you
G            I            V            E
you haven’t shared much at all.     .     .      ?

WAIT A MOMENT: LIFE AS A VENDING MACHINE

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Life is a lot like a vending machine
It’s really simple
You put your money in
For exchange of what you want
Simple
Easy
Until it’s not
Sometimes no matter what buttons you push, you don’t get what you expect
Or worst yet
You get nothing at all
No matter how much you pound
No matter how much you shake
No matter what kind of prayer you pray that you won’t pray on Sunday
You don’t get
What you paid for?
What you deserved?
What you expected
What you are owed
Sometimes life is exactly like a vending machine
And you get exactly what you paid for
And maybe
Maybe somebody else paid for
And they didn’t get
But you did
For the money
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
The next time
L  I  F  E
feels like a Vending Machine
make sure you press the
Right Buttons
to get exactly what you Select
because you just can’t get
ONE THING
when you choose something
completely
D I F F E R E N T
(then again, maybe that’s what makes LIFE advertously tasty?)

OFFERINGS

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I came to offer a prayer
and receive an answer for One
But the gates were locked
the doors were securely shut
The Lights, off
I got Nothing
And was Blessed
Anyway
I just never recognized it
y e t.      .      .
S  O  M  E  T  I  M  E  S
the easiest way to open a door
is just to
TURN THE KNOB.     .     .

WORRIED. . .Hmmmmmmmm’s

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Worried
Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

Hmmmmmmm’s

They’re mostly unnoticed
severely unrecognized 
but they do reside softly in the soul
in a place that doesn’t have secret places
And even though they may be out in the open
they’re never really seen
and even more rarely understood
But always questioned 
without the hope of ever being answered
Hmmmmmmm’s
are a holy hymn of their own
never to be sung 
or hummed 
but painfully heard in endless refrains
Hmmmmmmmmmmm’s always get me thinking and at their worst, WORRY.             .              .AND YET.              .             .
Ahaa, AND YET, indeed; the vastness of the
AND YET
has some glorious answers
or at least some well welcomed comfort
hanging out of reach of frosted over trees
but still very much in touch
with what brings comfort to our souls
when everything else seems to steal it.             .              .
WORRIED.      .       .Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.    .    .

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

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man