The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

ALL-WAYS A SEASON

By Leave a Comment

In this era, where a lot of people are becoming more and more indifferent towards one another, kindness is coming at an expensive price. It is not often that you see people showing kindness towards others. BUT. . .I found this video recently where there was a prepared set of different videos to prove that wrong. Throughout the video, you can watch Santa providing warm clothes to homeless people or older woman praising stranger for doing cool tricks with skateboard and many others. As always I hope this afflicts the Caring Catalyst in you that by merely watching the video, you will realize that kindness in humanity hasn’t been lost completely and there are still people out there ready to show acts of kindness not only to their close ones, but also to any random strangers and make them emotional or even cry by their acts of kindness. THAT it’ll inspire you to bring a special warmth to Another’s CHILL.          .          .Enjoy watching the video.            .            .

AND REMEMBER:

JUST A MOMENT: NO STRINGS ATTACHED

By Leave a Comment

Wouldn’t it be great instead of living in a world where there are tons of corners of  “I don’t care’s,”  we actually saw, I mean, really saw what we were looking at and by seeing what we actually are looking at, we realize that at our best and even becoming our better, “there are no strings attached.     .      .      .” 

Now, wouldn’t that be a great world to live in, or better still, one that we can continually be creating, not just so that we look at things differently or see them, but that we may experience them more deeply as well as making sure that others do too?  Guess what?  In just a moment we can make that happen.           .          .

Now that’s a song
we all can strum
with no strings attached.          .          .

SEEING OTHERS

By 2 Comments

 

anonymous person with binoculars looking through stacked books

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I recently read an article by Jim Palmer
about how we just don’t look at others but how we actually
SEE THEM
which got me thinking some thoughts
that just may have you thinking some more
t h o u g h t s

Most days I interact with at least one person who is at the end of their rope. They feel alone and that nobody cares. It’s hard to believe that in a world of 8 billion people, so many feel forsaken, isolated, invisible and forgotten.

John Steinbeck wrote, “I wonder how many people I’ve looked at all my life and never seen.”

Perhaps one of the greatest human needs is to be seen.     .    .for someone to notice, someone to listen, someone to understand, someone to care, someone who will step outside the billows of indifference… and just be… with you, for you, as you.

Consider it a profound spiritual practice to truly see people. Notice those you unwittingly pass by along the everyday paths of life. Don’t just see them with your eyes, consider them mindfully with your heart. Look deeper into people beyond the surface, find and connect with the common humanity you share with each person.

Stop looking at people, start seeing them.

Especially when they put up a mask that makes it even more difficult to just look again but to SEE

A REAL ME

See
what I don’t show
Hear
what I don’t say
Touch
what I don’t offer
Feel
what I won’t allow you a hint of experiencing
it will take work sometimes
          Hard Work
with pain
frustration
          achy heart
and no guarantee of benefit 
excepting a real me
the One you will now know
and maybe not fully understand
but a ever so slight sliver
seize

JUST A MOMENT: MORE THAN WHAT YOU LOOK AT

By Leave a Comment

The flaw exists in each of us, sometimes more brutal than at other times, but it does exist:  WE DON’T ALWAYS RECOGNIZE WHAT WE NOTICE.            .              . Even if it’s something beautiful; even if it elicits, “Ohhhhhhh’s and Ahhhhhhhhhhhh’s,” from us.  There are times we don’t still see the full picture.  It’s as if, even though we’re looking at the puzzle, the box in which it came, doesn’t fully let us comprehend how the final piece will complete the picture that’s on the box (because it’s the wrong box picture)

anonymous person with binoculars looking through stacked books

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Maybe that’s when we really see what we recognize and notice with the distinct possibility of sharing, so that others can have the same experience.              .               .in just a moment

LOOK AGAIN
.            .            .what you
REALLY SEE
just might surprise you and more,
CHANGE YOU
in just a moment

JUST A MOMENT: GETTING MAPPED

By Leave a Comment

Have you ever felt off the map or that you just couldn’t find your place or that there is no map that you literally somehow, someway have gone beyond it?  A lot of times we feel like that especially in our current state of, well, unrest and so much division anywhere and everywhere, you look and sometimes it doesn’t even feel like there has been a map or that there is one that gets us to where a place of security, a place of safety a place of Hope; a place where we don’t feel so isolated or alone, yeah, sometimes it feels like there is no map that leads to any kind of any direction. No up.  No down.  No all around.  And so we find ourselves, well, not alone, because maybe the best way to find direction is defined with each other,
looking in different ways for the same thing. . . ?

Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
FINDING YOUR WAY
DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN
STAYING IN THE LINES
OR EVEN
USING A MAP
AT ALL.                 .                 .

JUST A MOMENT: LOOKING AT WHAT YOU ARE SEEING

By Leave a Comment

At first glance, it would seem that I’m a 69-year-old Swifty because of all the bracelets that I wear but in just a moment you see that’s the problem with the first glance, because what we look at isn’t always what we see until we hear the rest of the story and most of that story can be told in just a moment and it needs not just to be told but actually heard.

Maybe what needs to be heard the most is we are all unfinished stories waiting for just the next person, the next situation, the next moment to come and add onto us, to complete us a little bit more than what we were before just the moment before THE MOMENT; so take a look.  What are you actually seeing; what you’re looking at or do you need to know the story behind what you are looking at; what you are seeing.  .  .  ?

So hum along as your story continues to be written, read aloud and heard.         .         .

Blind Sight

By Leave a Comment

UK’s John Lewis
is a Master
every year when it comes to
CHRISTMAS
commercials
and what makes this even better
is that it’s a mere
a l t e r n a t i v e
and aren’t we humbled beneficiaries
because of it. . .
Of course it doesn’t hurt
to have a most awesome
THIS IS OUR HOME
song by
Ben and Andy. . .
which prompts us to
THE QUESTION
ARE WE EVER SO BLIND WHEN WE CAN ACTUALLY SEE
(but not exactly sure what we’re looking at)
There’s a reason
we have entered into the
SEASON OF LIGHT
especially since the darkness is getting longer
especially since the ever-so-long-pandemic
is ever so-long-from-ending
especially since the more
we see the less we notice
. . .It’s a question
asked every year when we come to this
S E A S O N:
WILL IT BE DIFFERENT THIS YEAR?
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
The Answer always sways on just one integer
Y O U

It really never matters
How
When
Where
but THAT
You bring Your LIGHT
to any darkened situation. . .

.    .    .and bring
your-blind-but-now-can-see-better-Self
h    o    m    e

FOUND/TONIGHT

By Leave a Comment

MARCH 19, 2018 was when this was first posted on YouTube and with well over 20,210,965 views I question just what boulder I’ve been living under, especially when it popped up on my YouTube feed, maybe not so randomly this past week.   Hmmm.

I really like when certain things come across my YouTube feed without me trying to search for them. When I get something like this, it’s almost as if it’s a divine intervention or message that I need to hear at that time I need to hear itwhich means that as you’re reading this blog post this morning it may be the time that you need to hear or see you too; especially if you weren’t even aware of its existent much like this under the boulder dweller.

Two my favorite singers and talented, songwriters, Ben Platt, and Lin- Manuel Miranda combine to mash songs from Hamilton and Evan Hansen together…why?  Not merely because it sounds good, because they want to bring a message of Hope.  From what?  For what?  A better world?  So I did a quick Google Search to get the “WHAT FOR” of this song and:

A portion of the proceeds from this record will be going to the March For Our Lives Initiative. Donate now at https://marchforourlives.com/.

So before this sounds like a rant against gun violence or assault weapons, I go back to what Mother Theresa said nearly 50 years ago when asked, “Are you against the war in Vietnam?” Mother Theresa answered meekly, “I’m for peace.”  Did you catch that or did it elude you like it did me?  She was showing that real power is in WHAT YOU ARE FOR and not WHAT YOU ARE AGAINST.  When we rile up and rant what we are against, it always adds up in more bad ways, but when we work together for what we believe in and for what we are for, it takes on a much more positive take.
Yeah, let’s work together for that because that’s a song we could all sing and certainly the world needs to hear.         .         .
UNDERSTAND.          .          .
WE ARE ALL IN THE SAME ORCHESTRA
PLAYING THE SAME SYMPHONY

S E E I N G

By Leave a Comment

I See You By JJ Heller, David Heller, and Andy Gullahorn

I see you The summer sun reflecting off the stream The cardinal is shaking off its wings Near the water Where I wander

I see you The leaves gently lifting in the breeze A little girl with grass stains on her knees Runs to her mother Just to hug her

Every sunset is a stained glass window Every park bench is a pew There’s a sanctuary everywhere that I go When my eyes are open I see you

Standing in a crowded subway train Somehow when I look in every face It feels like family I’m thinking maybe I see you In the people who are begging for their food And the ones who pass them by in business suits Everybody Has your heartbeat

Every sunset is a stained glass window Every park bench is a pew There’s a sanctuary everywhere that I go When my eyes are open

I see the glory of the works Your hands have made I see the beauty in the sinner and the saint

Every sunset is a stained glass window Every park bench is a pew There’s a sanctuary everywhere that I go When my eyes are open When my heart is open I see you, I see you

Uhhhhhhhhhh
Songs are always more than just notes and lyrics
and no matter how hard they try
they usually make you feel
what goes way beyond what you
see or hear.            .             .
THEY CAN’T BE DIRECTED
on really experienced.          .          .
What I find utterly
A M A Z I N G
is not so much what I see
when I look at
SOMETHING
but what Others see
when we’re looking at the
SAME THING.          .          .
LOOKING AT THE SAME THING
ISN’T THE MIRACLE.     .     .
THE MANY THINGS SEEN IN ONE THING
IS.         .         .

 

 

 

O-V-E-R is the New Beginning

By Leave a Comment

EmptyPiePan

My family hates it,

mostly because it’s an obsession of mine.

It happens every time we get back from vacation

or a family reunion or any big event

.          .          .I   CAN’T   LET   IT   GO!

When we come back from vacation I ask questions like,

“Hey, do you remember what we were doing exactly this time last week or three weeks ago or even,

THIS      TIME      LAST      YEAR?”

Drives’em  crazy.

It’s late.

All are asleep.

I just finished watching parts of the third of three football games.     .     .

Unlike years past
WE were homebound;
we did not do more traveling today

than a gaggle of Turkey’s

P R E-T H A N K S G I V I N G;

I can’t tell you how many times

I’ve walked back into the kitchen after the big dinner,

the table was cleared,

dishes done.     .     .
Thank God the refrigerator door

doesn’t have an automatic lock on it after a certain amount of accessing times.     .     .

My pants are tight (yeah, even these sweat pants)
and my heart is even fuller.      .      .

I    R E – M  E  M  B  E  R.         .         .

constantly putting back together the pieces of my life

and those that have

 t      h      a      n      k      f      u      l      l      y

 intermeshed their fabric into my Tapestry.       .       .

Is   I T    O v e r ?

I think not.       .       .

This won’t be the first time you’ll see something like this here.     .     .

I am always reaching back and bringing it all forth again;

I think the    r e a l    Thanksgiving
isn’t on the day with all of the parades,

football,

repeated eating fests—-

it’s the  DAYS  After.     .     .

EVERYONE  is Thankful on  THAT  day!

But it’s the days following where the

T   H   A   N   K   F   U   L        M   E   T   E   R

might find its truest test.      .      .

What then?

Get your Thanksgiving  ON

the days following when Time blurs on to the next Holiday;

Seriously, are we less thankful the days following?

Do we have to reach back to actually RE-MEMBER

or is it, truly, not just a day, or a season–

Dare it actually be a Lifestyle?

Well.       .       .

it’s what I ponder

as I finish that last lonely piece of pie—

it  was begging for it!

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.              .              .

I just can’t let it go.         .         .

I’m thinking

I’m thanking

I’m THINKING

I’M THANKING.       .       .

that could be a Great thing.         .         .

A Very Great, Tasty,

FULL – FILLING  THING.       .       .

Y  o  u ?

As much as you JUST

celebrated THANKSGIVING

.         .          .and even though your Stomach might still be full,

I hope your heart is EMPTY enough to

truly continue this Season of

T     H     A     N     K     S
G           E          T          T          I          N          G

.          .          .may it be way better than you have planned

or    i m a g i n e d

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man