The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

HEAVEN-less

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You knew it was coming, didn’t you?

I mean, it’s the question we have to ask. . .answer, many different times in our lives, isn’t it?

So, do you?

Do you believe in, dare I ask, (yeah, I triple dog dare) H-E-A-V-E-N?

I don’t!

It’s not the first time this has happened, which is probably more affirming than anything.

More substantiating is that it’s happened to different types of people in different economic, religious, sexual orientation, gender, racial and generational realms.

It happened again this morning at a funeral I was conducting.

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Vereses

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The best song’s have more than just one verse, don’t they?

The best song’s not only have more than one verse, but a killer chorus that bounces around in your head like a bullet ricocheting around in a steel encased room.

But we don’t believe it!

We know it, know that the song has multiple verses, might even be able to sing through everyone of them like a long Dylan song gone amok, but we just don’t believe it–or at least act like we believe it.

The Apple commercial with Robin Williams, borrows his speech from his role in Peter Weir’s 1989 film, DEAD POET’S SOCIETY. In the film, Williams plays a teacher who inspires some pretty rigid academy students with his unorthodox teaching methods and passion for poetry. Williams ends the commercial with his oft-quoted line from the film:

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Just Who Do You Think You Are?

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Just who do you think you are?

It’s a question that was usually asked in anger, almost disbelief when I did something wrong as a kid.

Maybe I talked back to my parents (BIG MISTAKE)!

Maybe I talked back to my teachers (BIG MISTAKE–they were friends with my parents)!

Maybe I threw bubble gum out of the balcony at Church and it hit Peggy Young in the back of the head and stuck in her long hair (before they knew how to take it out with Peanut Butter) and she had to get a hair cut and Mr. Young called the house on a Sunday afternoon that quickly became BLACK SUNDAY before there ever was a Black Sunday.

Maybe it’a been asked of you?

Maybe it needs to be!

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Rocks from Above

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Classic Story for not so classic folks!

PREMISE: WHEN WE DO GOOD, GOOD HAPPENS TO US!

He worked overtime, but not for the overtime. He worked because his best friend, with terminal cancer couldn’t. His friend had tried his best, but his best was becoming more and more his worst. His friend wanted to maintain his life, just by working a few hours every day, he felt he could have some normalcy. His friend was wrong. He was becoming weaker, more sick day by day and now to keep up the pace, overtime had to be applied.

Hey, what are friends, true friends, truly for, if not to help out a sick friend?

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Cracked Pots

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The Story’s been told many times, in many different ways. It still asks the same question, though:

ARE YOU A CRACKED POT?

Okay, you caught me. It’s an entirely rhetorical question and the answer is completely true:

YES!

The story is really simple but it’s moral is even more simple and engaging–if only recongized!

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Your Move

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A Simple game, huh?

But why, why is it we take the Simple and make it so complicated?

To make it more important? For it to be taken seriously? To take it more seriously?

Would it make the Checkers Plan inconceivable?

The plan can be implemented in any area of your life, especially the most troublesome ones.

Hit the Rewind button and go back with me for a little bit. When, exactly, was the the last time you actually played a spirited game of Checkers?

Yesterday or yesteryear?

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The Candle Maker’s Pledge

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Barely 50+ hours into the New Year. How’s it going?

Wait. . .Did you expect Resolutions Made = Resolutions Accomplished? It’ll take just a little bit more time, commitment and persistence.

Would it be alright if we took a Lesson from my book, The Candle Maker? For the next 28 days in the morning, afternoon and evening would you recite, out loud the Candle Maker’s Pledge?

Give this a try. You only need 95 seconds, three times a day; 4 minutes and five seconds total.

REPEAT:

With unlimited wick and wax, burnout is burnt out. . .so I will remain perpetual. I am not tired or tiring. I am potent and energizing. YES! I am extremely happy and joyous.

My face only know the contentment of a smile. My lips only know how to curve upwards. My nose only smells the fragrance of sweet success. My eyes only search out and expect to see good things.

I cannot be defeated today. I cannot be be let down or disappointed. It is utterly impossible for me to be all used up in this day no matter what happens to me or how often it happens. I am a cup that cannot be emptied, only over and ever flowing!

I intimately know the Candle Maker. I am privileged enough to be always where he stores wax and wick.

I can forever this day, burn profusely at both ends and especially in the middle of the candle without interruption or sputter because I am never without perpetual amounts of wax and wick.

Though others around me will tire and grow weary, I will only get stronger, brighter, more steady and intense as the day lightens into dusk, then a darkness for me to illuminate.

This day, I can neither be snuffed out or burnt up. I am already eternal. I will insure my immortality this day, and all others I am gifted to receive by glowing, guiding, and giving endlessly.

I will burn. YES! Give Light. YES! Provide warmth and all through the day and long into the darkening night. I will leave nothing that the day or night can offer. I have been supplied mightily. My wax and wick have no end. Because the source is so close, so all giving, and in so many locations, I am no match to any darkness this day or ever.

YES! My wax and wick are ceaseless and darkness knows me not!

Don’t Resolve. . .C O M M I T to the Candle Maker’s pledge for the next 28 days, 4 minutes a day.

You just may get a little bit brighter, warmer, illuminated and enlightened. . .and definitely not dimmer!

WHOLE BROKENNESS

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Have you heard the story? Ok, maybe it’s more of a legend…but it’s really a timeless legend, now of OUR Time.

It was Christmas Eve 1818 and a small church in Austria had gathered together for their Candle light services. Tragedy struck. The organ was broken. It was discovered that, Church mice, literally had eaten through the bellows the organ and it was rendered useless.

No Music on Christmas Eve Candle light services?

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F L A S H I N G

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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!

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Listening NOT will Cost You

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I remember my Grandfather telling me when I was fairly young how important it was to buy good shoes and then maintain them. . .always make sure that there’s a shine on them, no matter what, he’d tell me before giving me a quarter to shine his shoes.

I blame him!

It was a late Friday afternoon and I was in a hurry, just an hour from conducting a funeral and my shoes had sprung a leak–A Big one!

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Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man