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
Who Cares - What Matters
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. . . ?
It’s one thing to take a song
and make it your song;
It’s even better
if you make it ANOTHER’S. . .
yea. . .
Please make Your Song
ANOTHER’S song. . .
The Sharing will be the Caring. . .
Make your life,
your living
SING OUT LOUD
especially for all those
who have forgotten
they have their own Song
to SHARE, too. . .
An Australian sheep farmer has paid his own unique tribute to his beloved aunt. Ben Jackson was unable to attend his Aunt Deb’s funeral due to pandemic restrictions. So, he laid barley out in a field in the shape of a love heart and let his pregnant ewes show how much he cared. . .
Q U E S T I O N :
HOW DO YOU SHOW YOUR LOVE
If you wait to celebrate
VALENTINE’S DAY
on February 14. . .
YOU’VE WAITED TOO LONG
Sometimes the greatest
F I S H
caught are the ones
you never put a line in the water
to catch. . .
In fact,
those fish swim everywhere
in, out, through your imagination
for the greatest tales ever. . .
When this not-not-so-small-minnow
jumped into my boat
I wasn’t ‘fishing’ for it but
it caught me way before I even thought of reeling it in. . .
It birthed
almost immediately these
poetic thoughts:
FIRST TIMES
I don’t remember
the first time
I sucked a lemon
but I’m sure it
prepared me for the
second time
I knowingly wouldn’t
suck up to pucker up
again. . .
Candle flame burns
Electrical outlet shocks
Black ice falls
Hit the thumb instead of the nail hammerings
Hot pans on hotter stoves
Stumbles off of shaky branches
All First Times
that make a
Second Time
not so much a lesson learned
as one to be remembered
to ever be taught
again. . .
FISHING BEFORE YOU KNOW HOW TO FISH Courtney Martin Through the pines and the one maple I hear her. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. I shouldn’t have gone fishing if I didn’t know how to fish. There she stands legs impossibly long pink and black polka dot swimsuit baggy pole in her hands and a little oval sunfish impossibly on her hook. I don’t tell her, but I do think Oh, sweet girl, life is always like that. Fishing before you know how to fish. Leaving before you know how to leave. Speaking before you know how to speak. Fighting before you know how to fight. Loving before you know how to love. Dying before you know how to die. We are all the child with the pole worrying about who we’ve hurt. And we are all the fish on the hook, hoping for mercy. Her aunt hears her muttering prayer and though she hasn’t unhooked a fish in 30 years grabs the wriggling innocent in her hands and dislodges metal from cheek. And this, too, is all of us. Saved again and again by prayer we didn’t know we were saying and a witness we forgot was listening. Thank you, Miss Courtney for taking us Fishing before we knew we even had a pole, bait and some not-always-needed-know-how. . . . |
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
Sometimes a song is much more than notes
and lyrics are much more than words. . .
Don’t cry snowman, not in front of me Who will catch your tears if you can’t catch me, darlin’? If you can’t catch me, darlin’? Don’t cry, snowman, don’t leave me this way A puddle of water can’t hold me close, baby Can’t hold me close, baby
I want you to know that I’m never leaving Cause I’m Mrs. Snow, ’till death we’ll be freezing Yeah, you are my home, my home for all seasons So come on let’s go Let’s go below zero and hide from the sun I’ll love you forever where we’ll have some fun Yes, let’s hit the North Pole and live happily Please don’t cry no tears now, it’s Christmas baby
My snowman and me My snowman and me Baby
Don’t cry, snowman, don’t you fear the sun Who’ll carry me without legs to run, honey? Without legs to run, honey? Don’t cry, snowman, don’t you shed a tear Who’ll hear my secrets if you don’t have ears, baby? If you don’t have ears, baby?
I want you to know that I’m never leaving ‘Cause I’m Mrs. Snow, ’till death we’ll be freezing Yeah, you are my home, my home for all seasons So come on let’s go Let’s go below zero and hide from the sun I’ll love you forever where we’ll have some fun Yes, let’s hit the North Pole and live happily Please don’t cry no tears now, it’s Christmas baby
My snowman and me My snowman and me Baby
Notes: I don’t own anything. All credits goes to Sia and the company Cineplex which created this animation. Please support Sia. 🙂 Don’t forget to check them: http://www.cineplex.com/ http://www.youtube.com/siavevo/
Sometimes a song is much more than notes
and lyrics are much more than words. . .
IT IS AMAZING
how we think that this applies to everyone ELSE
but not to ourselves
but one of the biggest lessons that
THE PANDEMIC has taught us
is if infected, we are dangerously viral
. . .CAN THE SAME BE SAID OF LOVE. . .
IF WE ARE INFESTED WITH LOVE
IS IT IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO SPREAD. . .
P L E A S E
N O T E
TO
S P R E A D
L O V E
You have to first have LOVE
uhhhhhhhhhh
which means
L O V I N G
O U R S E L V E S
I have often joked,
IF YOU LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF
I MAY WELL CHOOSE YOU NOT TO BE
MY NEIGHBOR
(for the way, or the lack of the way you love yourself)
Seems like I may not be the only one who thinks that:
Could Help You
Be More Tolerant
Of Others. . .
ELIZABETH SVOBODA is a writer in San Jose, CA, and a regular contributor to Greater Good. She is the author of What Makes a Hero?: The Surprising Science of Selflessness. Her newest book, for kids, is The Life Heroic. She is helping us to take a look at the benefits of being a little bit more of self-compassionate.
Launched into public awareness by the psychologist Kristin Neff, the practice of self-compassion has emerged as a proven way to boost well-being and resilience amid life’s challenges. “With self-compassion,” Neff writes, “we give ourselves the same kindness and care we’d give to a good friend.”
A new Rutgers University study suggests that self-compassion has another, counterintuitive benefit: It helps you to become more accepting of other people who are not like you. Being kind to yourself, the study reports, can broaden your tolerance of others—so long as your self-compassion is rooted in “common humanity,” a belief that life’s joys and struggles are part of the shared human condition.
“People who are viewing themselves and their failures and their suffering as normal parts of human experience are more likely to have compassion for others,” says H. Annie Vu, a psychology graduate student at Rutgers and lead author of the study. “That is linked with less prejudice.” She aims to develop training programs that foster people’s sense of common humanity, which she hopes will deepen their compassion for themselves and others—and, as a result, promote social acceptance.
Self-compassion, the quality Vu explored in her study, is distinct from self-esteem. Self-esteem involves how you answer the question “How much do I like myself?,” and it often crumbles when others criticize you. But self-compassion is a form of self-regard that persists no matter what others are saying. It means accepting yourself even when you fumble or fail.
As Neff defines it, self-compassion has three major components: mindfulness, awareness of your own feelings and thoughts; self-kindness, a commitment to caring for yourself in tough times; and common humanity, a sense that everyone experiences highs and lows in life just like you.
Vu’s study looked at how different components of self-compassion related to people’s attitudes toward others. The study’s 163 student participants took Neff’s 26-item survey to assess their self-compassion, including statements like, “When I’m down, I remind myself that there are lots of other people in the world feeling like I am.” The students also took a self-esteem survey and a test that evaluated their feelings about “outgroups” often marginalized by society, such as unhoused people or members of minority groups.
The analysis by Vu’s team found that people’s self-esteem did not meaningfully predict how they felt about outgroup members. Self-compassion, on the other hand, did—but it was people with greater feelings of common humanity, not self-kindness or mindfulness, who were more accepting of others not like them.
While self-kindness and mindfulness involve more of a focus on yourself and your emotions, common humanity “involves perception of others, and that connectedness between self and others,” Vu says. “That explains why it’s the only self-compassion component that is associated with low prejudice.”
Common humanity, in other words, helps you assess your own experiences against the failures and triumphs shared by everyone else on the planet. When you do that kind of comparison, it may be harder to look down on those different from you, because you’re focused on what unites you rather than what sets you apart. A sense of common humanity may also make your self-compassion more durable, because when you understand how your struggles reflect the shared human experience, it’s less tempting to blame yourself for them.
A 2018 study by Italian researchers had also found that self-compassionate people were more accepting of others, but Vu’s study goes further, showing that this connection holds up independent of people’s self-esteem. (Previous research has shown that people with high “me first” self-esteem are sometimes less accepting of people different from them.)
Vu’s finding also builds on reports from political scientist Kristen Renwick Monroe, who found that what set Holocaust rescuers apart from peers was their strong sense of common humanity. Even if (as was often the case) rescuers came from a different background or culture than the people they were helping, they recognized just how similar they were to those being persecuted, which motivated them to act.
Vu’s study is among the first to combine what have long been two distinct branches of research: studies on how people feel about themselves, and studies on how they perceive members of other groups. Through further study of how inner states affect outer attitudes, Vu and her Rutgers colleagues hope to create training programs that build up people’s sense of common humanity—and thereby broaden their acceptance of others.
Such programs could reinforce existing efforts to protect marginalized people’s rights and dignity, notes Rutgers psychologist Luis Rivera, Vu’s graduate advisor and a coauthor of the study.
“We’ve already seen historically how changing structures, laws, policies, et cetera, can lead to changes in prejudices. But what Annie’s work also suggests is that you can turn back to the individual,” Rivera says. “That could be another opportunity, complementing structural-level interventions with individual-level interventions.”
Developing and testing these educational programs could take years, Vu says. Yet people can start now to shift their focus toward what links them to all humanity—and observe the real-world benefits for themselves.
“The more you realize you are connected to other humans—and that other humans are humans—the more you’re able to regard them with dignity and respect,” says social worker and empathy educator Kristen Donnelly, founder of the Abbey Research firm. “The work of understanding your humanity is deeply connected to the work of understanding our connectedness. Difference is not a threat, but an opportunity.”
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. . .
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 energyIf 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 EinsteinHmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .
kind of makes you think
that everything’s not so relative. . .
IT IS MORE
. . .SO MUCH MOREwhich means
which means
we can meet in the land of MUCH MORE
living as Caring Catalysts
who all understand and teach
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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