Kindness — Page 53

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

When The GIANT EAGLE Ascends

September 18, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

It was a busy Saturday morning. . .in an extremely crowded Giant Eagle Grocery Store.

It was just a quick,

GET IN, GET OUT

kind of an excursion.

(Aren’t they all?)

I went in and got a couple of gift cards and two greeting cards and then. . .

got in a long, a very long 10 items or less line.

There she was,

THE GIANT EAGLE ANGEL

She had a basket full of things. . .many different

E L E V E N T H I N G S

and then it happened. . .

She looked at what I was holding in just one hand and said,

“Sir, why don’t you go in front of me. I’m in no hurry and you just have some gift cards.”

I, protested at first and told her it wasn’t such a big deal, but she insisted and so,

NOT TO INSULT HER

I took her up on her offer and thanked her profusely.

. . .And then,
B A M

IT HAPPENED.

I told her she had done her good deed for the day and that’s when she shared with me that this had nothing to do with her good deeds so much as her

C A T H O L I C G U I L T

I joked and asked her if she was blaming The Pope on her good deed

and she joked back and told me it was more of the Nuns than The Pope.

I thanked her again for her

good deed

generosity

kindness

fear

guilt. . . .

It made me think about me

It made me think about you

It made me think about us

What ultimately makes us do what we do?

Are the reasons

P U R E

Tainted ?

Was this about some kind of weird guarantee of getting a small spot in Heaven

Not wearing Asbestos underwear for Eternity?

SHOULD’S = GUILT

OUGHT’S = FEAR

HAVE-TO’S = GUILT/FEAR

WANT-TO’S = RAINBOW’S/POT’S OF ENDLESS GOLD

Some kinds of Choices, huh?

What do you Choose. . .

What really CHOOSES YOU?

Can and Act of Kindness

just be an

A C T OF KINDNESS ?

(It Can. . .until. . .it CAN’T

Hmmmmmmmm of the Day:

Sometimes the higher The Eagle Ascends, not only the Closer to Heaven,

BUT the Bigger the Splat of the White Stuff that always finds your Windshield. . . .

IF YOU’RE HELPING SOMEONE AND EXPECT SOMETHING IN RETURN

IS IT

B U S I N E S S

K I N D N E S S

DYER’D NEED

September 9, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

People die everyday. . .

Sometimes very famous, very influential people

Two such people died on August 31:

Oliver Sacks and Dr. Wayne Dyer.

I’ve read many of Wayne’s books and actually heard him speak once. . .

His message?

Be open

Be forgiving

Be loving

Be Compassionate

“Upon waking, let the words THANK YOU flow from your lips, for this will remind you to begin your day with gratitude and compassion. make it a practice to begin each day by thinking first of someone else and then making a decision to actively do something, anything, that will bring a smile to someone’s face. When you become conscious of wanting to do something kind for another human being, you move into a higher way of being. It takes your thoughts off of yourself and WHAT’s IN IT FOR ME? and puts them on HOW MAY I SERVE? which is precisely how the universal mind we call Tao or God is always operating. When you’re aligned with a compassionate outlook, your entire day will reflect that kind of awareness.

Some suggestions for getting you started: Email a note of appreciation, say a kind word, apologize to an individual you’ve needed to make amends with, pick a few wildflowers and hand them to someone, give away some personal items such as books or jewelry, or send a smile toward someone that might brighten their moment….

–Wayne Dyer in EXCUSES BEGONE!

It’s one thing to Teach the Lesson. . .

It’s quite another to Learn it. . .

and absolutely another to simply

LIVE IT

My personal, favorite take away:

“IF YOU HAVE CHOICE BETWEEN BEING RIGHT OR KIND. . .PICK KIND”

Maybe the best way a person who has impacted us, lives on not so much by remembering their words but by actually living them to our fullest abilities. . .

M A Y B E

OR. . . .

Palliation, Compassion, Assisted Suicide?

August 26, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

It’s been Ten Years now. . .

Does time go quicker from something good or something horrific?

It’s been 10 years since Hurricane Katrina

D E V A S T A T I N G

most likely isn’t a strong enough word. . .especially for what took place at Memorial Medical Center.

I’m going to ask this question Twice:

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

The flood waters from Katrina had knocked out the power. Doctors and Nurses were overstretched and overtired, patients were dying and the evacuation of many of the sickest seemed impossible. Injecting drugs was one answer that some members of the medical staff decided on. Were they trying to comfort those patients–or hasten their deaths? (New York Times Magazine, August 30, 2009–Sheri Fink)

I know it’s long, but not as long as Sheri Fink’s book, FIVE DAYS AT MEMORIAL, published in 2013; She’s a physician as well as a writer and she takes a gawking-don’t-blink-look at the decisions doctors made at Memorial Medical Center, a hospital in New Orleans that was overwhelmed by the Hurricane. The Doctors, who had lost electrical power and backup and were not supported by hospital owners who had no generator mechanic on staff or even an evacuation plan, were forced to make calculated decisions on which patients to actually save. Some of those who were not expected to make it were shot up with morphine and left to die. This was four days into a devastating hurricane where generators failed, the intensive care wing sweltered in darkness and chaos and gunshots rang out in the areas outside of the hospital. Sheri’s book focuses on an attempt to prosecute a doctor and two nurses for homicide after an investigation showed elevated levels of morphine and other drugs in 23 patients who died at the hospital. Of those, 20 were ruled homicides.

R E A D:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30doctors.html?pagewanted=all

Was this Palliation–Comfort Care?

Was this Compassion?

Was this Assisted Suicide?

Let me ask you now, for the second time:

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

Maybe the real question is:

W H A T

W O U L D

Y O U

H A V E

W A N T E D

D O N E

I F

W E R E

Y O U

Your Maitre D

July 24, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 2 Comments

It seems like the time before Biblical Times ago, but it was only about 30 years. . .

I was the Associate Minister First Christian Church, in Washington, PA, a 1,5oo member church with an average attendance of 350 folks each Sunday. My chief job was being the Youth Minister and Pastor of Visitation.

I had three big youth groups, two of which met every Sunday and a pre-junior high group that met every Wednesday afternoon.

I was a busy man.

At the end of the School year I made sure that we celebrated the graduating Seniors of the group and took them out to dinner. . .

But. . .not just any kind of Dinner

The group was always around 15-20 kids and this is where it would get interesting.

We loaded into cars and drove to one of the fanciest restaurants in town and, mind you, we were dressed in our bests to represent that special evening. The young ladies had on their best dresses and the gentleman, suits and sport coats.

We all peeled out of cars and vans and walked into the Restaurant with everyone talking about what they were going to order.

I had one of the most popular guys go to the Maitre D and tell them that we were there and were ready to be seated.

The look on their faces is still one I’ve never forgotten as they stood there, shocked, when the Maitre D and then the Manager came over to tell them that there were no such reservations that had been made.

Ooops, My Mistake. . .

We all piled back into the car and repeated that same scene at two other very nice restaurants in town and now the natives were not only embarrassed but a little perturbed, to say the least.

As were piling into our cars after the 4th incident, one of the kids said something about this whole evening being

b o g u s

and we’d be better off just going to McDonald’s. . . .

And wouldn’t you know. . .

that is exactly where our cars went. . .right into the parking lot of our local McDonald’s

Reluctantly, these hungry kids got out of the cars and walked into the McDonald’s and saw what they had never. . .ever seen in any McDonald’s before. . . and never. . .

WILL EVER, NEVER SEE AGAIN !

There was a string quartet from the local W & J College playing classical music

There was four tuxedo’ed Maitre D’s

There was linen table clothes

There was Candlelight

There was Sparkling Grape Juice in really nice Sparkling Wine Glasses

There was a McDonald’s Buffet of everything they made in plenty

There was Memories that were being made that none of their minds would ever forget

. . .or. . .or mine.

I’ve always had a personal, fervent belief that it wasn’t ever so much to tell, hear, show, taste, smell a message so much as to actually E X P E R I E N C E O N E !

So. . .when was the last time?

When was the last time that you actually Experienced a Message?

Uhhhhh. . .when was the last time you actually gave such an Experience?

I’ve found that the absolute best thing, without a doubt, about such Experiences:

Is Giving. . .Having

The very next one

unexpectedly. . .

o f t e n.

A Caring Catalyst

July 20, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/t4WwcGq91VQ

You don’t need a tissue, after watching Dr Levy and Chloe’s story, do you?

Uhhhh. . .maybe a towel. . .perhaps even a blanket. . .

but not really for the reasons that make us cry.

Dr. Alex Levy is a

Caring Catalyst

Who Cares * What Matters

Pssssst. . .it’s not because Dr. Alex is a Doctor. . .

You are a

Caring Catalyst, too

and it has nothing to do with your vocation or occupation. . .

Impacting Another’s Life

(Which we are all more than capable of doing)

is a

C H O I C E

And when made, consistently,

You are much more than a just an

Earner of a Paycheck. . .

You become more fully a

Caring Catalyst

Who Cares * What Matters

and automatically

The World Changes

and so do the people who live in it. . .

especially the ones you intentional

T O U C H

(and in return. . .the Lives that are then intentionally stirred)

Shhhhhhhhhhh. . .Listen. . .A Wedding March is beginning. . . .

( Get in IT! )

A Friend HEALS

July 6, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

It’s not that I’m Speechless. . .

Maybe. . .maybe, it’s just that

W O R D S

pale to ACTION

The eyes always hear what a mouth can’t utter

no matter how eloquently said. . . .

Maybe Leo Tolstoy was right when he walked by a beggar on the street and stopped to say,

“My Brother, I’m so sorry that I don’t have anything to give you.”

The homeless beggar said, “You’ve already given me so much more than money by calling me, ‘Brother.'”

A Friend heals when no cure is actually sought but always needed. . . .

When have you shared such riches?

When. . .when will you?

D E N I E D

April 3, 2015 By ChuckBehrens 4 Comments

It was a pure act of Love

It was a pure act of Generosity

It was a pure act of Compassion

Stolen
STOLEN
S T O L E N. . . .

It was several years ago.

I was visiting a patient who was actively dying. Her family was out of town, trying desperately to get back to be with her before she died.

I was sitting beside her bed and I was reading

(PRAYING)

the Rosary for her which was in her hands.

She was completely unresponsive and just as completely comfortable and managed.

While I was Reading the Rosary on her behalf a lady came to give Communion to the patient I was seeing and her roommate.

We had met before. She had come to a workshop/presentation I had done at that nursing home,

A PRIEST, A RABBI AND A MINISTER CAME TO HOSPICE.

We greeted one another and after she had given Communion to the roommate, she came over to the foot of the bed of the patient I was providing simple presence.

“I don’t think she’ll be able to receive Communion today. I think she’s readying herself to take her final journey.”

“What about you,” she asked?

“ME?”

“Yes. You. Would you like to receive Communion?”

“I’m afraid I’m not able to because as you know I’m a Protestant Chaplain.”

“I didn’t ask you if you were able,” she said, I am asking if you would like to receive Communion on this Good Friday?”

What she was offering I had never been offered; never had to consider.

Honestly, it wasn’t her WORDS, her invitation, it was the look in her eyes as she offered.

LOVE FILLED.

I honestly believed at that moment, to REFUSE her offer would have been a wrongdoing;

A SIN

She Extended the Host to my Mouth

I humbly accepted.

Hours later, I went back to the office and shared the story and was severely chastised by a colleague, a fellow chaplain, a Eucharistic Minister who demanded to know the name of the person who had extended such an outrageous,

SACRILEGIOUS

G I F T

so she could be reprimanded and stripped of her duties of being a Eucharistic Minister.

It’s taken me a long time to learn the lesson

and I learned it painfully many times over

but I actually didn’t say anything to the remarks…

I didn’t respond or react at the attempt of

ALMOST BEING ROBBED OF SOMETHING SACRED FOR SOMETHING SORDID

BUT I THOUGHT

I THOUGHT. . .

D E N I E D

(I won’t be)

It happened several years ago but

I Remember. . .

I Remember well

(just as instructed)….

Communion isn’t what you Eat or Drink. . .

It’s what YOU DO.

A lesson LEARNED

is only half Accomplished…

When TAUGHT–

fully COMPLETED…

Completed in me
Completed in you

Communioned in ALL

DENIED

NONE!

T H I N K I N G

March 23, 2015 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

I was

T H I N K I N G. . .

You?

“IF YOU WAIT UNTIL YOU CAN DO EVERYTHING FOR EVERYBODY, INSTEAD OF SOMETHING FOR SOMEBODY, YOU’LL END UP DOING NOTHING FOR NOBODY.”

When I first saw this clip just filmed in New York City in February of this year, IT brought out the

in me…

Not my Compassion;

My Cynicism.

I immediately had flash backs of countless pieces of junk mail that I had received about how I could feed a hungry orphaned kid in a far away geographical place I can’t spell phonetically or begin to say, let alone place.

The infomercials that wouldn’t tug but pillage my heart strings with kids who had flies all over them or maggots crawling out of their noses which were meant to implore I would send generously to alleviate this plight.

When I researched the video I was a little shocked to see that well over 22,0000

C H I L D R E N

are homeless in New York City alone.

Staggering
Bothersome
Alarming

all good adjectives and correct.

I guess, I just didn’t like it was a set up…

that it took well over two hours of NO ONE helping this kid who crawled in a not-so-well-insulated garbage bag to keep warm until a homeless man came over and offered more than his sympathetic compassion. He actually gave his coat and money for the freezing kid to eat.

M O R E. . .

He gave what so few of us

(AND I’M FIRST IN LINE)

Just the mere PRESENCE of himself–

which is always the most valuable thing we own and can ever give:

O U R S E L V E S !

I didn’t like that the film makers were a block away and came and not only praised the Homeless man

(Which was a powerful gift in itself)

but actually gave him well over $500 (perhaps a piece).

Here’s what I was THINKING:

IS THAT WHAT IT TAKES TO MOVE US?
IS THAT WHAT IT TAKES TO MOTIVATE US TO GIVE?
IS THAT WHAT IT TAKES TO BRING AWARENESS TO AN OBVIOUS TRAGIC SITUATION?
IS THAT WHAT IT TAKES TO SHOCK US TO ACTION?
IS THAT WHAT IT TAKES TO SHAME US?
IS THAT WHAT IT TAKES TO_______________________________________________?

Maybe that was the real purpose of the short 6 minute clip:

Not so much to make me Question

But to make me seek an ANSWER. . .

To actually make me feel disgust and then wrestle with why I actually FELT IT. . .

To T H I N K ?

You?

WHAT
DO
YOU
T H I N K ?

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