A VILLAGE

March 3, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Yes. . .
A Village it does take
To Be
Joy to the weary
Music to the heart
Health to the sick
Wealth to the poor
Food to the hungry
Home to the wanderer
Jubilation to the jaded

A Piece of Peace

A Village it does take
and sometimes it does take
THAT VILLAGE
One in All to ALL
. . .If you a Village
will be
Join me
my Caring Catalyst
V I L L A G E R

MASKERS

March 1, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it might be
March 1 but
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
WITH OR WITHOUT A MASK
we still might well be masquerading around
with who we think we are
but know we aren’t. . .
Isn’t that what the Pandemic did to us
just about three years ago
and even now we’re still
TO MASK
or not
TO MASK
asking around and wondering. . .
but now there may be a whole other
m e a n i n g

People Who Think They’re Attractive

Are Less Likely to Wear Masks,

Study Says

People wearing masks in Bordeaux, France on Aug. 15, 2020.

Mehdi Fedouach/AFP—Getty Images

Jamie Ducharme, from Time Magazine recently reported, there are plenty of factors that determine whether someone chooses to wear a mask at this stage of the pandemic: their health, their risk tolerance, where they are, who’s around them—and, according to a recent study, how attractive they think they are.The study, which was published in January in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, found that people who think they’re attractive tend to be disinclined to wear masks. That seems to be because people who think they’re good-looking don’t believe masks enhance their appearance, while the opposite may be true for people who don’t think they’re as attractive, the researchers concluded. (Several cultures even have slang terms for people who wear masks to look better or conceal their full faces, the authors note. In the U.S., it’s known as “mask fishing.”)

For the study, a team of researchers in South Korea recruited U.S. adults to take several surveys. In the first, 244 people answered questions about their self-perceived attractiveness and how they thought wearing a mask affected their appearance. Then, researchers told the participants to imagine they had a job interview and asked whether they would wear a mask in the interview if they didn’t have to.

“Individuals with higher self-perceived attractiveness were less likely to endorse the belief that mask-wearing enhances their perceived attractiveness, which further dampened their mask-wearing intention in job interviews,” the authors write. In other words, people who thought they were good-looking didn’t want to detract from their appearance by covering their face.

In another experiment, the researchers posed similar questions about masks and appearance to 442 people. They asked half the group to imagine they had a job interview (a relatively high-stakes situation) while the other half imagined they were walking a dog (a more mundane activity). Both groups were then asked if they would choose to wear a mask in their given scenario.

They found that people were more likely to say they’d wear a mask if they thought it would make them look better, and that trend was more apparent in the high-stakes job interview scenario. This finding, the authors write, suggests that people’s masking decisions are at least partially based on how much they care about looking good in a given situation.

The desire to appear attractive may even be as influential as the desire to stay healthy. In their surveys, the authors also asked people how much they feared COVID-19. People who thought masks made them look better were roughly as likely to cover up as those who were fearful of the virus.

With COVID-19 mask mandates largely a thing of the past in the U.S., it’s important for researchers and public-health authorities to know why people are—or are not—continuing to wear them. Preventing disease is, of course, a major motivator. But so, it appears, is looking good.

SURPRISED. . . ?
And maybe the biggest question
and you can answer honestly
because we are not holding or posting a poll here
(unless you want to reply this blog post)
IS HOW DO YOU ANSWER THE QUESTIONS THE SURVEYS ASKED. . .

S E E
HALLOWEEN
EVERY
DAY
(maybe with more tricks than treats)

NEIGHBOR

February 27, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

Neighbor By JJ Heller, David Heller, and Andy Gullahorn

Sometimes it’s easier to jump to conclusions Than walk across the street It’s like I’d rather fill the blanks with illusions Than take the time to see

You are trying to close the back door of your car You are balancing the groceries and a baby in your arms You are more than just a sign in your front yard You are my neighbor

I can get so lost in the mission Of defending what I think I’ve been surfing on a sea of opinions But just behind the screen

You are grateful that the work day’s finally done You are stuck in miles of traffic, looking at your phone You are tryin’ to feel a little less alone You are my neighbor

When the chasm between us feels so wide That it’s hard to imagine the other side But we don’t have to see things eye to eye For me to love you like you are my neighbor My neighbor

Oh, to fear the unfamiliar Is the easy way to go But I believe we are connected more than we might ever know

There’s a light that shines on both the rich and poor Looks beyond where we came from and who we voted for ‘Till I can’t see a stranger anymore I see my neighbor May my heart be an open door to my neighbor You are my neighbor

S O M E T I M E S
Music is more than MUSIC
and Words are more than
W O R D S

From the beginning of time the question has rung out,
sometimes louder than softer:
JUST WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
No matter what you say, You
SHOW THE ANSWER,
Person by Person,
Neighbor by Neighbor…
with this certainty:
It just isn’t the person next door or across the street…
SO JUST WHO IS
YOUR NEIGHBOR. . . ?

LEVEL UP

February 3, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/5048ewoxZlQ

N O
I didn’t lose my mind; this is the the video I posted on this past Monday’s blog and as A Caring Catalyst but also a real, live CHANGE MAKER. . .

This hairstylist had a job he was paid to do. . .

Beyond the job, he had the same options every other cause-driven compassionate human being has for comforting someone who is struggling.

Maybe think of these options as “Levels of Sacrificial Giving.” Each level requires a bit more sacrifice on the part of the giver, thereby imbuing the act with an increasing measure of beauty.

LEVEL 1: WORDS
Saying something genuine to affirm the sufferer’s enduring worth.

LEVEL 2: UTILITY
Supplying helpful goods, services, or money for the sufferer’s use.

LEVEL 3: TOUCH
A tender gesture to inhabit the same physical space as the sufferer.

LEVEL 4: TRANSFER
A permanent exchange from giver to sufferer (e.g., organ donation).

LEVEL 5: CO-SUFFERING
Voluntarily joining the sufferer to share the experience of their pain.

This hairstylist is a Level 5 Giver.

It begs the simple question:
ARE YOU A LEVEL FIVE GIVER

I’ve come to learn that no ironclad argument exists for convincing someone that Level 5 Giving is worthwhile or even rational.

The beauty of an act of Level 5 Giving either pierces you in a life-changing way or it doesn’t.

My hope for you and me is that this act, or another like it, so pierces us that we level up our giving in a world that is groaning louder and louder for it every day. . .

JOIN ME
Lets LEVEL UP
always to a better way. . .

CHANGEMAKING

January 30, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

https://youtu.be/5048ewoxZlQ

C H A N G E M A K I N G

. . .isn’t always about launching and scaling new ventures and initiatives. Sometimes it’s about turning an everyday moment into a moment of positive change. These are opportunities that we can’t plan for, but that when they appear, give us a chance to step up, take action, and change someone’s life. Some call that microleadership. . .I merely call it CHANGEMAKING or better, LIFECHANGING and the best part about THAT is everyone of us is capable of making IT happen at any time with anyone. . .This video is a moving example of how we all can have impact, anywhere.

Watch this barber shave off his own hair in unity with a cancer patient shaving hers and see how these small acts can add up to huge impact and then go and DUPLICATE IT as often as you can, everywhere you can, with whoever you can. . .

Being a CHANGEMAKER is being A Caring Catalyst on steroids
K I C K
I T
U P

YOU-NIQUELY YOU

January 20, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

THE OLDER WE GET
THE CLOSER WE GET
well. . .
You can fill in the ________________________________
What some call
R E T I R E M E N T

others call: STARTING OVER
others call: THE NEXT CHAPTER
others call: THE GRAVY YEARS
others call: THE BEST PART
others call: RE-TIRED-MENT
others call: _______________

A couple of Sunday’s ago I switched from reading the New York Times Sunday Edition to watching “60 Minutes” One of it’s featured stories was about Hans Zimmer. It immediately got me to writing this Friday Blog post and even more about being devoted to never retiring and most of all always (ALL-WAYS) reinventing myself to continually being: MYSELF–AN (EVER EVOLVING) ORIGINAL

All of this prompted was prompted by this interview with German-born composer Hans Zimmer. You may not know his name as well as John Williams, but he has scored many blockbuster films like “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Dune,” and “Lion King.” He said from his earliest days learning the piano, “I did not want to play other people’s music.” He has certainly passed well beyond that: it’s hard to categorize his work (or even to completely discern all the instruments that make his unique compositions.) Towards the end of the interview he was asked about RETIREMENT and he in essence said that he couldn’t imagine it because he was energized and at his best and gets jazzed by creating/re-creating himself. (THAT ONE STRUMMED THE STRINGS ON MY HEART AND BLEW THE WOODWINDS OF MY SOUL) We all know it’s not terribly easy to BE ORIGINAL. There will always be pressures to conform, to not “rock the boat,” to “get back in line.” We also know that great strides personally and professionally are rarely made by settling for cutting with the grain. This week’s challenge (and I’m right there with you) — what can you initiate this week, TODAY, that will set new standards, travel down new paths, and establish once and for all that you are an original?

ITS NOT ENOUGH TO OWN YOUR OWN FINGERPRINT. . .
You have to make sure
that you make indelible
I M P R I N T S
And lasting impressions
YOU-NIQUELY
your own to have and share
now and
for-an-evermore. . .
BE THE SYMPHONY
you are ever composing
and never forget to
CONDUCT IT

MORE THAN RELATIVE

January 6, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

A letter from Albert Einstein to his daughter, Lieserl, who donated 1,400 letters written by him to the Hebrew University, with orders not to publish them until 20 years after his death.

This is one of them, to her.

When I proposed the theory of relativity very few understood me. What I will reveal now to mankind will also collide with the misunderstanding and prejudice in the world.

I ask you to guard the letters as long as necessary, decades, until society is advanced enough to accept what I will explain below.

There is an extremely powerful force that, so far, science has not found a formal explanation to. It is a force that includes and governs all others, and is even behind any phenomenon operating in the universe, and has not yet been identified by us. This universal force is LOVE.

When scientists looked for a unified theory of the universe they forgot the most powerful unseen force. Love is Light, that enlightens those who give and receive it. Love is gravity, because it makes some people feel attracted to others. Love is power, because it multiplies the best we have, and allows humanity not to be extinguished in their blind selfishness. Love unfolds and reveals. For love we live and die. Love is God and God is Love.

This force explains everything and gives meaning to life. This is the variable that we have ignored for too long, maybe because we are afraid of love, because it is the only energy in the universe that man has not learned to drive at will.

To give visibility to love, I made a simple substitution in my most famous equation. If instead of E = mc2, we accept that the energy to heal the world can be obtained through love, multiplied by the speed of light squared, we arrive at the conclusion that love is the most powerful force there is, because it has no limits.

After the failure of humanity in the use and control of the other forces of the universe that have turned against us, it is urgent that we nourish ourselves with another kind of energy

If we want our species to survive, if we are to find meaning in life, if we want to save the world and every sentient being that inhabits it, love is the one and only answer.

Perhaps we are not yet ready to make a bomb of love, a device powerful enough to entirely destroy the hate, selfishness and greed that devastate the planet.

However, each individual carries within them a small but powerful generator of love, whose energy is waiting to be released.

When we learn to give and receive this universal energy, dear Lieserl, we will have affirmed that love conquers all, is able to transcend everything and anything, because love is the quintessence of life.

I deeply regret not having been able to express what is in my heart, which has quietly beaten for you all my life. Maybe it’s too late to apologize, but as time is relative, I need to tell you that I love you, and thanks to you I have reached the ultimate answer! “.

Your father,

Albert Einstein

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .
kind of makes you think
that everything’s not so relative. . .
IT IS MORE
. . .SO MUCH MORE

which means

which means
we can meet in the land of MUCH MORE
living as Caring Catalysts
who all understand and teach

Life is short, 🔴 ⚫ 🔴
and we have too little time
to gladden the hearts of those
who travel the journey with us.
So be swift to love,
and make haste to be kind.
🔴 Henri-Frédéric Amiel
Swiss Writer 1821-1881

LOOKING BACK TO SEE AHEAD

January 2, 2023 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

SOMETIMES THE BEST WAY TO LOOK AHEAD
IS SEEING BEHIND. . .
There’s a reason why the
REAR VIEW MIRROR
is smaller than the
WINDSHIELD. . .
it’s not so much understanding
t h a t
or knowing
I T
as
ACTING
LIKE
IT
Don’t live your life in a
B O X
with a number in it
or worse. . .
A CALENDAR OF A DIFFERENT YEAR
. . .look back to see ahead
and keep your spark
bursting brightly
around you
for the
oohing and aahing
of
a l l

SILENT NIGHT

December 26, 2022 By ChuckBehrens Leave a Comment

MERRY THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS. . .
Here’s hoping your lights are still twinkling
you leftovers are still warm and tasty
you joy is still contagious

Years ago, Paul Simon was asked to name a song he wished he had written. The song he chose was “Silent Night.”

“Silent Night?” Really? But that wasn’t even a hit, ever. Was it?

Actually, yes. In 1935.

The story starts long before that, though. It starts with a poem written by Father Joseph Mohr in 1816, an assistant priest in Mariapfarr, Austria. Written in German, it was called “Stille Nacht.”

Two years later he was the priest of the St. Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, a village near Salzburg. On the day of Christmas Eve, 1818, he asked organist Franz Gruber to compose a melody for his poem. Because the recent flooding of the Salzach river damaged the church organ, it was unsure if it would be usable in time for Mass, so Mohr requested that Gruber write a guitar accompaniment for it that he could it.

The melody that Gruber composed is a beautiful, poignant one, with the simplicity of a folk song. That simplicity — using only the fundamental changes (I, IV, V and VI) — seems to have been shaped by Gruber’s use of guitar. Had he composed it for organ, he might have created a far more complex melody, and one remembered and cherished by none. But the purity of this melody, with the beautifully holy words written by Father Mohr, resounds like a hymn.

That church was ultimately subsumed completely by the river and replaced with a church named after the famous song which was born there.

In 1935, Bing Crosby recorded it, and sold over ten million copies of it. “Silent Night” was a hit.

In 1966, Simon and Garfunkel recorded a version of the song for their album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, called “Silent Night/ 7 O’Clock News.” In perfect two-part harmony, they sing the song to a piano accompaniment. Into that song bleeds the sound of a news announcer bringing news of the day, thus creating a sound collage of peace set against modern times. That news was actually scripted and read by Charlie O’Donnell, who was a radio DJ then and became the announcer on many TV game shows, including The Wheel of Fortune.

Topics covered in the lyrics which painted the summer of 1966 include the death of Lenny Bruce in Hollywood, a march in Cicero, Illinois by Martin Luther King, Jr., the indictment of Richard Speck for murder, and more. The full text is included below.

Simon and Garfunkel’s rendition of the song is simple and beautiful. Back in the day, we loved this version, merging in radical 60s style the hymn with the modern world. But we yearned to hear it without Charlie talking over it. Of course, back then that was impossible. Not anymore. Here’s the full text:

This is the early evening edition of the news.

The recent fight in the House of Representatives was over the open housing section of the Civil Rights Bill. Brought traditional enemies together but it left the defenders of the measure without the votes of their strongest supporters. President Johnson originally proposed an outright ban covering discrimination by everyone for every type of housing but it had no chance from the start and everyone in Congress knew it.

A compromise was painfully worked out in the House Judiciary Committee. In Los Angeles today comedian Lenny Bruce died of what was believed to be an overdoes of narcotics. Bruce was 42 years old.

Dr. Martin Luther King says he does not intend to cancel plans for an open housing march Sunday into the Chicago suburb of Cicero. Cook County Sheriff Richard Ogleby asked King to call off the march and the police in Cicero said they would ask the National Guard to be called out if it is held. King, now in Atlanta, Georgia, plans to return to Chicago Tuesday.

In Chicago Richard Speck, accused murderer of nine student nurses, was brought before a grand jury today for indictment. The nurses were found stabbed an strangled in their Chicago apartment.

In Washington the atmosphere was tense today as a special subcommittee of the House Committee on Un-American activities continued its probe into anti- Viet nam war protests. Demonstrators were forcibly evicted from the hearings when they began chanting anti-war slogans.

Former Vice-President Richard Nixon says that unless there is a substantial increase in the present war effort in Viet nam, the U.S. should look forward to five more years of war. In a speech before the Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in New York, Nixon also said opposition to the war in this country is the greatest single weapon working against the U.S.

That’s the 7 o’clock edition of the news, Goodnight.

Silent night Holy night
All is calm All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
sleep in heavenly peace.

B U T

Let’s not miss what can’t always been seen but certainly needs to be
N O T I C E D:
That first Christmas had chaos
the one in 1966 certainly did
which makes us think,
“Well, maybe the ‘good old days’ weren’t so good”
but even more to wonder
HAS ANYTHING CHANGED?
Aside from a brutal COLD BOMB that blasted most of the Country
has our World found any Peace that resembles
something close to
h e a v e n l y

So what of this first day after Christmas
or all of the days that’ll follow it from now
and Christmas’ to come. . .
WHAT OF IT, INDEED

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:

WE ARE THE LYRICS OF THE SONG
THAT NEEDS SINGING
HEARD
ADAPTED
for a Heavenly Peace we not only yearn to sleep within
but refuse to live
w i t h o u t

MERRY CHRISTMAS
(again)
(and many agains too numerous to count)