The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

The WAITING Room

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DEATH
has a Waiting Room
that invites Everyone
but no one wants
to sit
The TV is broken
The magazines are out of date
The chairs are uncomfortable
The coffee is bad
The rattling water cooler
never refreshes
The Clientele
too familiar and annoying
with their hacking
incessantly loud obnoxious yawnings
and an occasional party noise
You’re not sure that comes from
a person or the faux vinyl seat
you never intended to quite fit
It’s a room with poor ventilation
The carpet is worn
but not faded
stubbornly holding onto its colors
and a scent that can’t quite be
identified or replicated
There’s the dim light
that can never be squinted Brighter
All this
and just like that
You’re no longer there
–noticed–
Even before your name is mispronounced
to come forth
DEATH
is a finish line
We all run from
to only find out
at the End
we’ve all madly sprinted
Our Way Towards
(c o n t i n u o s l y)

THE WAY

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Q U E S T I O N:
ARE YOU ON YOUR WAY. . . ?
A N S W E R:
ARE YOU EVER NOT. . . ?

The movie came out in 2010 but it keeps replaying the inspiration it might not have fully imagined having. . .
Erin and I watched it early in January before COVID19 made movie watching a part of the new, NEW
Martin Sheen plays Tom, an American doctor who comes to St. Jean Pied de Port, France to collect the remains of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees in a storm while walking The Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James. Driven by his profound sadness and desire to understand his son better, Tom decides to embark on the historical pilgrimage, leaving his “California bubble life” behind. Armed with his son’s backpack and guidebook, Tom navigates the 800 km pilgrimage from the French Pyrenees, to Santiago de Compostela in the north west of Spain, but soon discovers that he will not be alone on this journey. While walking The Camino, Tom meets other pilgrims from around the world, all broken and looking for greater meaning in their lives: a Dutchman (Yorick van Wageningen) a Canadian (Deborah Kara Unger) and an Irish writer (James Nesbitt) who is suffering from a bout of “writer’s block.” From the hardship experienced along “The Way” this unlikely quartet of misfits create an everlasting bond and Tom begins to learn what it means to be a citizen of the world again, and discovers the difference between “The life we live and the life we choose”. THE WAY was filmed entirely in Spain and France along the actual Camino de Santiago. . .

All of the
detours
roadblocks
deadends
Along The Way
there is A WAY for all of us
where the strands of our tapestry
intermingle and forever become interwoven
in the Tapestry’s of others
making sure that we’ll only
grow and expand
and never fully unravel
with the ever unfolding
TRUTH:
YOU DON’T CHOOSE A LIFE—-
YOU LIVE ONE
and that’s
THE WAY
which finds us all on the same
P A T H
at different places
but the
Same Path a long The Way
just assuredly just the same
which makes any
SEE YOU LATER
more of a certainty
than any random bet. . .

DATA BASED EVIDENCE

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The truest of all truths
and of all data based evidence
is what we know
is what we know that we know
is what we bet our lives that we know
but spend every heart beat trying to
D I S P R O V E:
ONE
OUT OF
ONE
OF US
DIES
. . .even those we know
who seem to defy it
are teflon proof
EXEMPT
just because of
WHO THEY ARE. . ,
SCOOTER IS ONE OF THEM
(until he wasn’t)

Mark “Scooter” Bakaitis

October 29, 1950 – June 10, 2020

Born October 29, 1950 to Rita Washinski Bakaitis and Albert Bakaitis in Washington, Pa. Graduated from Washington High School in 1968 and briefly attended Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia then attended several Electrical Technical Schools and Specialized Training. He was employed by Washington Stainless Steel Corp. from 1973-2000 as a Master Electrician.

In 1975 he married the love of his life, Elizabeth “Becky” Krager and in 1979 a son, Eric David was born to them. Eric precedes him in death.

During his life in Pennsylvania, Scooter enjoyed many varied hobbies and interests. He was an avid bow hunter and fisherman, loved all outdoor activities such as boating and camping with his family and friends, coached little league baseball and basketball with his son.

Throughout his lifetime Scooter enjoyed weight training and the social life that comes in a gym setting. His passionate daily project was a free “Internet Joke Service” that he started after the death of his son to try and “brighten the world”. His wife Becky and he also organized a group called “Friends Helping Friends” at this time. In 1999 he organized the “Guyz Lunch” meeting for every Tuesday of the year which continues today.

Upon moving permanently to Florida in 2004 he renewed his enjoyment of motorcycles, started raising orchids and plants, also his musical interests which included “The Blues” and playing the guitar and model railroading.

He was also very active in his community, four years as ARC chair for his community and for many years as he would say “As a Professional House Bitch” for his snow bird neighbors when they went north for the summer.

He would say, “I don’t go to church, but Me and God are tight”. His church was the canal in his backyard or the ocean/beach, where he would go to “Chat with God”.

Scooter is survived by his beloved wife Becky and their “adopted children/adults” Nicholas and Lindsay O’Brien, Justin and Rachel Sienkiel and Erik Larson and wife Santella, as well as his brothers Al (Jeanne) and Brian and nephew Nathaniel. 

I used to think
A FRIEND IS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU,
AND STILL LIKES YOU. . .
I kind of believe now
that a Friend like Scooter
is someone who can do you for
and for those you love
what you have no power
within you to do;
He did for me and my family
(and countless others)
what could have never been done
without him:
MAKING HIS HOME IN FLORIDA OUR VACATION FOR THE PRIME YEARS OF OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES
HE GAVE EXPERIENCES
HE GAVE ENDLESSLY OF HIMSELF
HE TOOK HIS PERSONAL PAIN
AND MADE IT OTHER’S
SUPREME PLEASURE
He was Hulk Hogan
more than Hulk Hogan was himself
THIS IS SCOOTER. . .
Some people are
CHURCH PEOPLE
and a select few
(very few)
ARE THE CHURCH
. . .there wasn’t a person Scooter ever met
who wasn’t a part of his Congregation
. . .his pulpit was muted
because his
ACTIONS
did all of the speaking;
Scooter never came into a situation
that he didn’t leave better
and he had a way of taking
YOUR LADDER
and adding rungs
always so you could climb higher
always higher
than you ever thought you could rise. . ,

The grains of sand in our lives gets emptied out
much faster than any of us would like
and what’s left isn’t discarded sand. . .
It’s not even just memories
SO MUCH AS
as the
E X P E R I E N C E S
that live on within us;
AND BECAUSE WE CAN SHARE
WHAT’S FIRST BEEN SHARED,
now have the potential to live on in
OTHERS. . .
and after all that’s said or done
WE
become what that data-based evidence can’t begin to show:
I M M O R T A L
. . .try taking the Sand out of
That Glass

Mamba MOURNING

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There was a terrible helicopter accident on Sunday, January 26, 2020 and not only did nine people die in a horrible crash, but nine families and in some ways, the whole world will forever be changed. . .

F O R E V E R

as in eternally

Two of those people were Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna
otherwise it would have been a terrible accident that would have made
the local/regional news and quickly forgotten except for those families now perpetually changed. . .
S O

G R I E F
is such a powerful emotion
mostly because all of other emotions
come and go
but
deeper than on a cellular level
grief
stays with us
through our last breath;
our final heartbeat. . .

Deborah Carr Ph.D.

Sheds some illumination as the big
W H Y
of it all

3 Reasons We Mourn Celebrity Deaths

The benefits of sharing emotions communally. 

Years from now we may all easily recall where we were at, what we were doing when Kobe Bryant died just like:

Most of us know exactly where we were and what we were doing when we learned that a beloved public figure had died. A half-century ago, our parents and grandparents learned about President Kennedy’s death at 2:38 p.m. on November 22, 1963, when Walter Cronkite delivered the devastating news on network television. Decades later, many of us may have been taking a quick Facebook break when we discovered the shocking deaths of legendary musicians like David Bowie, or still-in-their-prime performers like Amy Winehouse. Minutes after the news breaks, our social-media pages are filled with videos of the late musicians’ classic performances, and heartfelt posts and tweets about how deeply saddened we are by the loss.

But most of us never met these people.

We know little more about them than what we see at the theater, hear at their concerts, or read in publicist-orchestrated interviews. So, why are we so saddened? And is this sadness normal?

Grief, or the sadness we feel when we lose someone or something that we’re deeply attached to, is perfectly normal. It’s so normal, in fact, that psychiatrists long believed that depression was a perfectly appropriate reaction when a loved one died. Much of what we know about grief comes from academic studies and self-help books focused on the loss of a very close loved one, such as a spouse, a child, or even a pet. The death of someone we loved and lived with brings the most profound grief, yet sadness or bouts of introspection can accompany other losses. Homesickness or nostalgia, for instance, can trigger grief-like symptoms. We may yearn for a place or time when we were young, happy, well-loved, and shielded from the harsh realities of adulthood.

It’s not surprising that so many people feel at least a short-term spell of sadness or emptiness when a favorite artist, writer, or political leaderdies. These feelings of sadness (if appropriately short-lived) can actually be good for us. Here’s why:

1. It heightens our sense of empathy and understanding for those who are suffering.

Some public figures die peacefully after long and happy lives. Yet many others, especially those who die prematurely, have publicly battled demons that would have been kept secret decades ago. Celebrities aren’t alone in their struggles with illnesses like depression, drug abuse, and alcoholism. When Robin Williams committed suicide in 2015, he was one of an estimated 40 million Americans suffering from depression. Philip Seymour Hoffman was a gifted and versatile actor at the peak of his career when he died at age 46 in 2014. He was also one of more than 8,200 people who died of a heroin overdose that year. The deaths of beloved performers like 31-year-old Corey Monteith of Glee and 65-year-old vocalist Natalie Cole put a face on drug and alcohol addiction. Although medical professionals recognize that addiction is a disease, many Americans still view it as a moral failing. One recent study found that only 22 percent of people would be willing to work with a person who had a drug addiction, and nearly three-quarters thought employers had a right to deny jobs to those who have a drug addiction. Celebrity deaths may help us to better understand addictions, and heighten our empathy for those suffering from them.article continues after advertisement

The deaths of public figures also may be the first time we hear of a particular disease, or learn new things about a disease’s course and cause. While deaths from lung cancer historically have garnered little sympathy because observers may believe that many smokers “cause” their own death, some high-visibility deaths have shown us the randomness and cruelty of cancer. Dana Reeve, the young widow of actor Christopher Reeve, died of lung cancer despite never having smoked. Beastie Boy Adam Yauch followed a vegan diet yet succumbed to cancer at age 47. Although maintaining a healthy lifestyle can dramatically reduce our risks of cancer, diabetes, and other life-threatening diseases, there’s still a large random element that we just need to accept.

2. Our feelings can provide clues as to what’s missing from our lives.

Very few of us kept company with David Bowie, Whitney Houston, or Glenn Frey. But news of their deaths may transport us back to a place and time when their music was a source of comfort or affirmation. Scientists have documented that music triggers brain activity associated with memory. When artists with decades-long careers like Bowie, Houston, or Michael Jackson die, they take a little piece of our pasts with them. Hearing “Let’s Dance” or “Thriller” may take us back to a high-school party, a first date, or a college dorm room—a time and place before the pressures of work, marriage, kids, and bills dampened our youthful optimism.

These moments of bittersweet nostalgia can be opportunities to assess what’s working in our lives. A brief musical trip back to our adolescent or young-adult years may help us to figure out what we wanted for our lives when we were young, what we’ve achieved, and which dreams we’ve given up on. These thought exercises may help us identify what’s important to us, and figure out ways to reintroduce some long-lost passions, goals, and dreams into our adult lives.

3. Collective mourning connects us to a larger community.

Collective mourning, such as attending a candlelight vigil, or weighing in on a friend’s heartbroken Facebook commentary about Alan Rickman’s touching portrayals, helps connect us to others in meaningful ways. Discovering a shared fondness for a particular film or song brings us closer to others, because our cultural tastes often reflect our values and worldviews. Collective mourning reminds us that we’re part of a particular generation, whether Baby Boomers, Gen X, or Millennials, and helps us to celebrate the cultural touchstones that define us.article continues after advertisement

Very few of us take the time to ponder or discuss profound issues like, What is a life well-lived? What imprint do we want to leave on the world? What do you fear most about your own death? When so many Americans lead busy lives with precious little time for personal connection or conversations about meaningful issues, the exchanges (even if brief) triggered by celebrity deaths might help people realize that they’re a part of something bigger and more profound than themselves.

Most important, celebrity deaths teach us that everyone will die someday, and neither fame nor wealth nor talent shields us from that inevitability. Ideally, that recognition of life’s finiteness will help us to pursue healthy, mindful lives, and appreciate what we have before it’s gone.

K O B E
he was the Mamba
and brought to us
among so many other things
MAMBA MENTALITY
it’s a term that Kobe coined to
describe the level of intense focus
and relentless approach
he took both in
preparation and competition. . .
Kobe said after his last game in 2016:
“I always wanted to be remembered as a ‘talented overachiever,” I had the talent but I WORKED AS IF I HAD NONE.”
and then more universally:
“The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do.”

I’ve told thousands of people
hundreds of times over
during my presentations,
“I know, I know that I know, I’d bet my very life that I know that one day I will die, but for the life of me, I don’t act like I know it; in fact, I’d be the most shocked person in the world if it was TODAY or if this was the last blog post I would ever write because I died. . . .”
B U T
it will happen
and grieving
will result. . .
It’s days like
Sunday, January 26, 2020
where a helicopter crash took the lives of nine people
two of them
Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna
. . .on days like these we will remember
that we will all say
GOODBYE
to this place one day;
that the book of our life
will all be interrupted
and that we too will be
m e m o r i e s. . .
On days like these
we feel fragile
and yet
C O N N E C T E D
On days like these
we realize that our heroes are all mortal
and that our time is
so very short
and that our days
are numbered
and guaranteed:
THE NUMBER
is never high
e n o u g h

The Message:
L I V E
f u l l y
(and the endlessly will take care of itself)

Peter Bernik/Shutterstock

THREE WORDS

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S H O C K E R
1 out of 1
of us
d i e s
and though we know it
know we know it
bet our lives we know it
r a r e l y
do we ever act
or live
like we know it. . .
but what
if we did. . . ?

W E L L
we’d live well beyond the grave
. . .we’d carry on
in the lives of those we’ve reached
and forever
lovingly touched those
we’ve reached
way past the day we die. . .
because
in deed
I T
G O E S
O N

The OLDER, The HAPPIER

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Why You Can Look Forward to Being

                      Happier in Old Age.      .      .

If life wanted to mess with you, it couldn’t have come up with a better way than
                                                    D     E     A     T     H .     .     .
Especially the lead-up. Your strength flags; your world narrows; much of what once gave you pleasure and satisfaction is now gone. But as it turns out, happiness is still very much with you—often even more so than before.        .       .

In some ways, our youth and middle years are really a sort of training period for the unanticipated pleasure of being an older adult, psychologist Alan D. Castel of the University of California, Los Angeles, argues in his new book, Better With Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging. In one 2006 study -Castel cites, a group of 30-year-olds and 70-year-olds were asked which of the two age cohorts was likely to be happier. Both of them chose the 30-year-olds. But when those groups were asked about their own subjective happiness, the 70-year-olds came out on top.

Just as surprising as the happy oldster is the miserable middle-ager, Jonathan Rauch reports in his book The Happiness Curve, published in May. Life satisfaction appears to follow a U-shaped course, with its twin peaks in childhood, when the world is one great theme park, and in old age, when we’ve been on all the rides a thousand times and are perfectly content just to watch. It’s in the middle—our 40s and 50s, when our power, potential and productivity are the greatest and we should be feeling our happiest—that life satisfaction bottoms out.

The U is true across nations, cultures and income levels, research shows. It makes a lot of sense. For one thing, all that power and productivity require a lot of work to maintain, and it comes at the very moment when other pressures are the greatest—raising kids, paying the mortgage and those kids’ tuition bills. Your evaluative happiness (how your life would appear if measured in terms of wealth, achievements and a stable family) can be very different from your affective happiness (how you actually feel). A life that looks happy is not necessarily experienced as happy.

In the later decades, this changes in a lot of ways. For one thing, that business of realizing that you may never achieve a long-desired goal can actually be a positive experience. After banging your head against the wall for 40 years to make partner or become department chair, the day you accept you’re free to quit trying comes as a relief.

There is, similarly, what Rauch describes as an older person’s ability to normalize crises. Life can be a series of experiential typhoons, both good and bad—falling in love, falling out of love, marriage, divorce, new job, lost job—and every one of them feels overwhelming at first. But there are only so many Category 5s that can be thrown at you before you realize that the clouds will eventually part and you’ll probably be left wet but standing.

Then, too, there is the business of wisdom. Evolutionarily, any species that hopes to stay alive has to manage its resources carefully. That means that first call on food and other goodies goes to the breeders and warriors and hunters and planters and builders and, certainly, the children, with not much left over for the seniors, who may be seen as consuming more than they’re contributing. But even before modern medicine extended life expectancies, ordinary families were including grandparents and even great-grandparents. That’s because what old folk consume materially, they give back behaviorally—providing a leveling, reasoning center to the tumult that often swirls around them.

In another study cited in Better With Age, a group of successful CEOs of Fortune 500 companies—all 50 to 70 years old—scored lower on lab-based tests of reasoning and processing speed than younger people, yet all the CEOs nonetheless were running huge, stable and exceedingly profitable companies. Clearly, something more than the ability to crunch a lot of data was contributing to their success.

Earlier in life, wisdom can seem out of reach. But for those who have attained it, Castel writes, “often wisdom allows people to see the obvious, or to use common sense without second-guessing themselves or the outcomes.”

Yes, death is nonnegotiable—something that can only be delayed, never avoided. It’s a mercy, then, that when we do reach the end, so many of us arrive there smarter, calmer and even smiling.     .     .

And.          .          .

Maybe that’s not only the greatest revenge of all.          .          .

M            A            Y            B            E
That’s    just
L                I                V                I                N                G
at     its
B            E            S            T

Dealing in DEATH

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Kind of makes you wonder, huh.          .          .

D                    E                    A                    T                     H

Billy Collins has long been one of my favorite contemporary poets and he ponders

D             E            A              T             H

this way in his poem entitled,

M  Y        N  U  M  B  E  R

Is Death miles away from this house,
reaching for a window in Cinncinati
or breathing down the neck of a lost hiker
in British Columbia?

Is he too busy making arrangements,
tampering with air brakes,
scattering cancer cells like seeds,
loosening the wooden beams of roller coasters

to bother with my hidden cottage
that visitors find so hard to find?

Or is he stepping from a black car
parked at the dark end of the lane,
shaking open the familiar cloak,
its hood raised like the head of a crow,
and removing the scythe from the trunk?

Did you have any trouble with the directions?
I will ask, as I start talking my way out of this.

– Billy Collins

I remember at a very young age welcoming  d e a t h;  walking with it; talking to it; trying to understand what it all meant. I don’t know if I’ve ever come to heads or tails of that but I know doing some 26 funerals a month for the past 10 years has brought me closer to it than I’ve ever had in my entire life. The Buddhist tell us that attachment is the form of all suffering and detachment helps us not suffer as much.  I, like Many, am a poor Buddhist.           .          .

I remember as a five or six year old kid, sitting in the backseat one Friday night as we were making our way to my grandparents, which was more of a weekly event than not.          .          .I told my parents matter of factly that I hope I would die before them because I would be too sad if they died first; there was a palpable silence I can remember and that nervous look between parents that wasn’t all that secret before they both, in machine gun like fashion began sputtering off all kinds of reasons why that’s “not the way it’s suppose to be.”

There was the death of my grandfather when I was six and then the death of my other grandfather right before my 14th birthday that I believed I was directly responsible and then aunts, uncles, great grandmother and grandmothers and friends in high-school.       .       .

In a strange way I have learned to not just open the door to death but actually unhinge it. And by just  unhinging it,  it’s let it come and go in places in my life like a undamable flood waters that seep in spots you didn’t even know exists and before it drys all of the way it leaves an unmistakable odor that never quiet evaporates or gets tamed.          .          .

I’ve long ago filled out my own DNRCC and written letters to be read ‘at that appropriate time.       .       .I’ve taped parts of my own Celebration of Life so I can have the “LAST WORD” and intend to attend it if I get a glimpse or a longer than usual ‘heads-up’ that it’s looming before me in my most immediate future;

I’ve even gone further as to actually imagine trying to envision what it would be like to not only lose my parents today, this year, but also losing my sister and brothers to the SHADOW  that knows no Light.        .        .

And yes, I’ve dared hugging the Porcupine-full-barbed-quails-exposed and plunging deep, what it would be like to have Erin, my wife die or any one of my four daughters, my son, my five granddaughters or my
grandson.        .        .

O                                   U                                   C                                   H

That seems to go little bit further than what we would call
mindfulness.        .       .

It’s way less than mindlessness, too.            .            .

Try it go ahead and finish these two sentences:

BEFORE  I  DIE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO_________________________________

THIS IS WHAT IT WOULD FEEL LIKE IF ONE OF MY LOVED ONE DIED______________

Write out your own Obituary.          .          .

G   O       T   H   E   R   E

TASTE IT

SNIFF IT

HEAR IT

SEE IT

TOUCH IT

Recall the Laughters.          .          .all of them

It certainly doesn’t matter if a Tree gets hit by lightning and no longer can bear fruit or sprout leaves compared to if my wife or my children, grandchildren or even my dog Molly died; and it’s even much different then if somebody that is the same age as my wife or my child or my parents die.          .          .this mindfulness, this acceptance of death; this detachment, is it somehow making me live better; making me love deeper; making me feel and experience more freshly and more deeply?

 I’m not sure, but I do know that it’s not any L E S S. And by taking this door and unhinging it, it allows these thoughts, these feelings to sort of come and go without stopping them or judging them or disallowing them. And it is in that very act that it disarms them; Renders them less potent; Makes them,  DARE I SAY, more
n  e  i  g  h  b  o  r  l  y.     .     .     ?

It seems, these things are the very seeds once planted we don’t fully ever get to see the plants but know that they grow just the same,  and that we are not just tenders of those plants, but also harvesters. It’s growing season always and in ALL PLACES because it never is not THAT season among the Seasons.          .          .

So exactly what is the Takeaway?

Simply that it is not the same for each person or any person in your way of dealing with anything good and bad; Life or Death is not exactly a RIGHT or WRONG WAY so much as YOUR WAY and most likely it’ll be different than Another’s WAY or Experience.          .          .

SO  EACTLY  WHAT  IS  THE  TAKEAWAY?

Teach me your way; let me learn of it and don’t judge me too harshly if I don’t follow it to every detail but take from it lessons that I need to learn at the very moment that I need to learn even again, and let that be enough for the both of us.          .          .

After all what makes us Caring Catalysts.           .          .

What makes us Anything

What makes us Everything

is not the fear we are nothing.          .          .

It’s the Fear that we

WE CEASE TO BE

CARING CATALYSTS
ANYTHING
EVERYTHING
ANYONE’S
EVERYONE’S.          .          .

Excuse me now.          .          .
it’s time to do a little dying
 and place my head on the pillow;
close my eyes and be asleep
before the next song on my playlist comes up.           .          .
And even as I die in this way,

A           G           A           I           N
(as we each do every night with even a not-so-good-sleep)

I am confident that I will RESURRECT

either to a new day

or to the One that is never ending.           .          .

For there indeed is a TIME

tick-ticking away.       .       .

a time for both

and yes.          .          .

indeed a time for all

BEATING A MOUNTAIN

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Sometimes reaching out

and just holding hands

is a connection that your

H E A R T

will require that you do often.          .          .

In fact,

YOUR     HEART

won’t   be   the   same

E                 V                 E                 R

unless   it’s   connected

hand   to   hand

I saw her in the hallway when I walked into the facility

and she was talking on the phone

but it looked like she was talking to herself.           .           .

Moments later I saw her at the vending machine

OFF  OF  THE  PHONE.          .          .

she was buying a bag of salted nuts

and was wheeling around her own oxygen tank

and it was a simple question I asked:

“How   are   you?”

with a most significant answer:

“YOU    CAN’T    BEAT    A    MOUNTAIN!”

Talk about your

B                            A                            M

of   the   Day

When people have asked me

since 1994

“HOW  CAN  YOU  DO  THIS  WORK  OF  HOSPICE with all of the Death and Dying?”

My stock answer is anything but

I N    S T O C K:

“Everyday I don’t so much serve the dying as much as I companion the Living,”

.       .       .the MOUNTAIN-CONQUERING-STORM-WALKING-FIRE-EATING-SUNSHINE-SHINING-BRIGHTER-RAYS-EVER-PRODUCING-LIVING

The  Truth:

I’m still one of the most selfish people I’ve ever known

and I’m not ashamed to admit that by being a

Caring Catalyst

and showing up everyday

if to do nothing more than just

J O I N I N G     H A N D S

I become more completed

than any box of jumbled puzzle pieces

could ever become

and I’m always in search of the next hand.        .        .

the not-so-much-missing-piece

but the not-yet-found-one.          .           .

Because you just can’t

BEAT      A       MOUNTAIN

In fact.        .        .

Compassion adds to its Peak

HAND    AND    HAND

D i s c o v e r

and   ever

R           E           D           I           S           C           O           V           E           R

Let’s    go    Climbing

and let’s have our seemingly

L   A   S   T         S   T   E   P

be  really   just   another   one   of   our

F   I   R   S   T   S

in the many

of    more   to   come

MINI-MANIFESTOES

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Mini-manifestoes

.            .            .we have millions of them;

most unpublished

and nearly all

never shared

especially when it comes to

our own deaths

.          .          .the little, unnoticed, never-talked-about-or-even-recognized-deaths

that culminate and lead to

THE  BIG  ONE

.          .          .many times they lead to
too-sacred-to-speak-of-sabbaths

Sometimes.          .          .

we get them from others

unaware
unintentional
but more real
than the ever-changing Seasons.          .          .

Eugene Peterson gave me one this past week.            .          .

He died

He was the author of many books but his masterpiece was his rewriting of the Bible entitled, THE MESSAGE.            .          .

I remember reading this when it came out in 2011;

it was his Mini-Manifesto.         .         .

When I heard of his death on October 22, I re-read it again

and underlined new passages.     .     .

did I not read them before.      .     .

did they not spark a little ember in me that they now have.     .     .

the take-aways

this time

settled into a deeper place

where roots will soon follow:

TWO   QUOTES:

“I think that the dying pray at the last not “Please” but “thank-you.”
                                                          –Annie Dillard

“Only where graves are is there resurrection.”
–Karl Barth

and this story:

“while visiting a Benedictine monastery, Christ in the Desert, in New Mexico, one of the Brothers was leading us on a path from prayers in the chapel in the refectory where we would have lunch.  The path led through the cemetery.  We passed an open grave.  Jen, my wife asked, “Oh, did one of the Brothers just die?” and the reply was powerfully, impactfully short, “No, this is for the next one.”

My Mini-Manifesto has me celebrating 24 years of doing hospice work as of October 31–Halloween.          .          .

part of THAT manifesto

is not being taught how to die

BUT    HOW    TO    LIVE
.          .          .again and again and again and again and again and again and again

the greatest beams of light
find their ways past the griminess of our not-so-hallowed-panes.       .      .
m i n i- m a n i f e s t o

ALL
of Life is sacred.          .          .

the roots that grow the deepest
are never fully seen
or known
but they most assuredly exist
and   they
n     o     u     r     i     s     h
m i n i – m a n i f e s t o

we grow in the most unsuspecting and unusual places
m i n i – m a n i f e s t o

we are puddles of mud slushed together with the most hallowed of water
m i n i – m a n i f e s t o

the only holy

the only sacred

you need to not only step

wade

splash around in

a b i d e

is your own

m i n i – m a n i f e s t o

it doesn’t need

published

shared

just lived

exclusively

d      a      i     l     y

making the mini-manifesto 

more than the mere dust we are.        .       .

The Memories That Never WERE

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Thomas Lynch wrote this award worthy book

back in 2009

and has written several since then,

including some fascinating fiction

surrounding

dying
death
the afterlife 

and not only revealed

 uncovered some of the mystique

but made

D            E            A            T            H

fascinating

After all of these years my favorite

underlined, 
yellow-high-lighted
well-worn-dog-ear’d page

from his book:

T H E       D E A D       D O N ‘ T       C A R E ,
B U T       T H E Y       M A T T E R

They  say

d     e     a     t     h

is so many different things

but make no mistake about this

I   T

I       T    ‘    S

not so much

an

!
(exclamation point)

I  T

absolutely is not a

.
(a period)

where all the words of been said

all the books have been written

and here’s the end.          .          .

it’s not even so much of a

?
(a question mark)

That sums up all of the wise

how comes

they why’s

the what for’s

as   IT   is   a

,
(a Comma)

maybe even a

(semicolon)
;

at best because there’s more

there is so very

v            e            r            y

much more

.          .          .and here’s the deal

you don’t have to bet your life on

I  T

I  T  

just happens and what is

I   T  

The

I    T

is really nothing more than just an ever lasting.      .     .

An ever endless after
and   it’s   better   than   good

wrote a friend for a friend who reminds us

that even though there’s

For Better, For Worse
For Richer, For Poorer
In Sickness, In Health
To Love, To Cherish

there never really is

TILL     DEATH     DO     US     PART

and it’s not only

ok

It’s   FANTASTICALLY

L     I     F     E            G     I     V     I     N     G

Here’s the thing about

M E M O R I E S

They’re overrated

They mean absolutely nothing

They have no meaning

no power

u n t i l

Love is attached to them

It’s not so much that the dead have a voice
or language of their own
so much is the love that is made the memories
everything that they were
everything that they are
and everything that they’ll continue to be.     .     .

TO  THE  LIVING I  AM  GONE
TO  THE  SORROWFUL  I’LL  NEVER  RETURN
TO  THE  ANGRY  I  WAS  CHEATED
TO  THE  HAPPY  I’M  AT  PEACE
TO  THE  FAITHFUL  I’VE  NEVER  LEFT

SO  AS  YOU  LOOK  UPON  A  SEA
OR  SEE  A  FLOWER  
REMEMBER ME

REMEMBER  ME
IN  YOUR  THOUGHTS
IN  YOUR  HEART

OF THE TIMES WE FOUGHT
THE  TIMES  WE  CRIED
THE  TIMES  WE  LAUGHED
THE  TIMES  WE  LOVED

IF  YOU  ALWAYS  THINK  OF  ME
I    WILL  HAVE  NEVER  GONE

THE  MEMORIES  THAT  NEVER  WERE

are some of the most powerful

m e m o r i e s

that there ever can be

mostly because we add strength

to their muscle

with the force of

WHAT  IF

Roger Rosenblatt wrote in his book KAYAK MORNING,

“GRIEF  COMES  TO  YOU  ALL  AT  ONCE, SO  YOU  THINK  IT  WILL  BE  OVER ALL  AT  ONCE,  SO  YOU  THINK  IT  WILL   BE  OVER  ALL  ONCE.  BUT  IT  IS  YOUR  GUEST  FOR  A  LIFETIME. . .AND  HOW  SHOULD  I  TREAT  THIS  GUEST?  THIS  UNWELCOME,  UNINVITED  GUEST?  THINK  OF  THE  ONE  WHO  SENT  IT  TO  YOU!”

It’s great to remember

It’s awesome to dream

It’s better to live

to create

to make 

memories

that continue to live on

way past

death

into

a  forever

m  o  r  e.          .          .

GRAVES  WERE  NEVER  MEANT  FOR  OUR  MEMORIES  OR  OUR  LOVE
(dig.       .      .D I G      D E E P E R)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man