The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

The Hey, H E Y Moments

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h e y
is a lot different than
H          E          Y

unless we go around treating
L I F E
ho-humily-all-of-the-same.       .       .
‘hey, so what the lights are off.’

hey, HEY.    .    .sometimes life screams at us. HEY, stop! Look at me!  Pay attention! and no matter how much it shouts at us, no matter how much it flicks us behind the ear, thumps in the head, we don’t look, we pay it no mind and there’s the ultimate Ba-BAM across the head,  with the 2 x 4 right between the eyes: DEATH and even though we die millions of times we resurrect in even more and many ways that unfortunately, we never notice.          .          .          .

Yes, the lights were off in more than one way last Friday night early in the evening as high winds and rain swept through the Northeastern Ohio area knocking out power in a lot of places; one of them a funeral home where we were celebrating the life of a 24 year old young man who had been diagnosed with epilepsy just 10 months ago out of nowhere and now after a seizure, died.

Now, that’s a HEY kind of a moment that’ll grab you by the throat and make you breathe a little differently.

All of his friends and family were gathered together in a darkened funeral parlor, with the lights from their phones being the only light as one of several of his friends, his sister and his fiancé stood and recounted the memories that needed know background lights.

A family priest came and offered the sacred words that were meant to bring some comfort and some sense out of the dark senselessness that brought us together.  Holding his phone to bring some illumination where none seemed to be found he read,
“And for this reason we never become discouraged; even though are physical beings are gradually decaying our spiritual beings are renewed day after day; in fact, this small, temporary trouble we suffer will bring us an eternal glory much greater than any of the trouble, for we fix our attention not on the things that are seen but the things that are unseen; the things that are seen are transient; they last but for a time.  But the things that are unseen, these are the things that are eternal; they last forever.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

And then came the HEY that is different than all other HEY’S; the HEY MOMENT that we often miss; that we seldom never notice or pay much attention:

THE LIGHTS CAME ON

The priest ended with the ‘Our Father’ and led everyone through the “Hail Mary” before turning it back over to me for some final thoughts and a Benediction.

“H   E    Y !”  I shouted. . .”WHAT JUST HAPPENED HERE?”  I reminded this group that we just literally became a different group.  Sad, YES.  Hurt, YES.  Disillusioned, YES! but a different group.  Here, on one of the most brutal, DARKEST moments in their lives, they had come together to celebrate a special person who had suddenly, tragically been taken from each of them and in that inky Blackness, the lights literally came on.

I reminded this group of LOVERS what I’m reminding you and others before, one of our biggest flaws in life is that we don’t always recognize what we notice and for their family member and friend I wasn’t going to let that happen for this 24 year old young man.  Some were now laughing instead of crying stating the obvious, “He said we would never hear the last of him!”  hey.  .  .HEY!

Aren’t these the questions we ask at times like this: WHY?  HOW COME?  WHAT FOR?  And then right in the middle of all those questions we also have to ask, as the lights literally came on in this darkness, WHY?  HOW COME?  WHAT FOR?  How come why what for Do we have these THE LIGHTS COME ON kind of moments where we literally see resurrections are all around us and don’t notice them.

Psssssssssssssssssssssst:  There is no deaths that last forever.  No death that hasn’t been followed by a resurrection. Go ahead step outside. I dare you to look at the green grass. I dare you to look at the flowers that are blooming and all their colors. I dare you to listen to the birds that are filling the trees as they sprout their leaves.

Maybe the lights
ARE NEVER OFF
we just don’t have eyes
O     P      E       N       E       D
wide enough
to see
to notice
to recognize.          .            .
hey,
H          E         Y

TRYING MY BEST

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A            N            D

A            N            D

A            N            D

A            N            D
A            N            D
A            N             D
M O S T L Y

WORRIED. . .Hmmmmmmmm’s

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Worried
Mary Oliver

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

Hmmmmmmm’s

They’re mostly unnoticed
severely unrecognized 
but they do reside softly in the soul
in a place that doesn’t have secret places
And even though they may be out in the open
they’re never really seen
and even more rarely understood
But always questioned 
without the hope of ever being answered
Hmmmmmmm’s
are a holy hymn of their own
never to be sung 
or hummed 
but painfully heard in endless refrains
Hmmmmmmmmmmm’s always get me thinking and at their worst, WORRY.             .              .AND YET.              .             .
Ahaa, AND YET, indeed; the vastness of the
AND YET
has some glorious answers
or at least some well welcomed comfort
hanging out of reach of frosted over trees
but still very much in touch
with what brings comfort to our souls
when everything else seems to steal it.             .              .
WORRIED.      .       .Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.    .    .

JUST A MOMENT–THREE WORDS

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H   E    Y.            .            .
Wait a Moment
DID YOU.           .           .          ?
Actually about 6 minutes of moments
with a severely powerful, undeniable
TRUTH:
1 out of 1 of us will die;
though we know this brutal truth,
few ACT
as if this is a bonafide truth
and we live, well,
like we’ll live forever.           .          .
THE SECRET:
Life gets Lived best
when every moment is lived
as if it might be the last
or better
as if it’ll never be lived again.          .          .
WAIT A MOMENT:
ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES
.             .          .and.            .              .
LIFE
GOES
ON
R            E            A            L            L            Y
(uhhhhhhhh.   .   .that’s a STATEMENT not a QUESTION)

COMING HOME

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Holidays always have a way of spelling
H-O -M- E
in all of the ways we not only know but experience it best.         .         .

Pssssssssssssssssssst:
The best Holidays are the ones that
A     R     E     N  ‘  T
but we MAKE
(often on the spot)
without any specific date on a calendar
H            O            M            E
KEEP BRINGING IT
KEEP BEING IT
KEEP GIFTING IT

KNOWING (LIVING) YOUR WHY

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ATHENS, March 8 (Reuters) – In her tiny Athens apartment, 93-year-old Ioanna Matsouka has knit thousands of brightly coloured scarves for children in need from Greece to Ukraine – and she has no plans to quit just yet.

“Until I die, I will be knitting,” Matsouka said. Her knitting needles clicked through her expert fingers, her nails painted red. “It brings me joy to share them.”  Since she took up knitting in the 1990s, Matsouka has easily made over 3,000 scarves, her daughters estimate.

In the hallway by the door, shopping bags filled with her latest creations await their new home. A knitted patchwork blanket is thrown over the sofa where she spends her days.In the beginning, the scarves were gifted to friends. As stock grew, they were donated to children’s shelters across Greece. Then, through acquaintances, they reached children in Bosnia and Ukraine. The latest batch of 70 went to a refugee camp near Athens this winter, via the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

“The fact that we give them away gives her strength,” said her daughter Angeliki.

She recounted drawings and mail her mother received over the years: “Thank you, be well, keep going. You gave joy to children, you gave joy to people… That’s her only reward: a letter, a few words.”

Matsouka knits one scarf a day, now with small imperfections. Her vision is impaired and she suffers from bouts of severe facial pain, a condition known as trigeminal neuralgia.

Angeliki says her mother is an example of resilience and optimism.
Matsouka wakes up every morning, drinks a glass of milk, puts on her pearl earrings and gets to work. She takes a break for lunch and a nap, then painstakingly knits into the night.She may have even found the secret to a long life in it, she says.

“It’s the happiness I get from giving,” she said, sitting beside a big blue bag brimming with yarn.

HOW’S THAT FOR SOME KNITTED UP LOVE.         .         .

KNOWING YOUR

 W                  H                  Y

AT ANY AGE
IS THE GREATEST SECRET
TO NOT JUST GROWING OLD
BUT GROWING FOREVER
…just sayin’

Brrrrrrrrr(ing) The CHANGE

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I start my mornings with a cold plunge. For three minutes I immerse myself in approximately 44 degree water for three minutes.  

The health benefits are manifold and it’s worth looking up.

However, health is just the way I rationalize it. You see, at 5:45 AM, 25° outside, the last thing I want to do is step naked into my cold garage and subject myself to freezing water. Therefore, making the choice to do the difficult, dreaded, extremely uncomfortable thing, and DOING IT, is a metaphor. I’m proving myself to myself. I am creating a habit of doing the hard stuff so it becomes muscle memory. I want my natural inclination to be that I just automatically do the difficult stuff first.

I am showing myself that I WILL make the tough choices, have the difficult conversation, stand up in the face of hate and adversity, embrace discomfort, and push my own limits.

It’s my daily reminder that the best things in life rarely come from my comfort zone.

I’m wondering if I’m the odd-man-out in choosing to doing something difficult every day as a personal challenge and metaphor, or if you do that in some way… set your pace, affirm your standard of excellence, prove yourself to yourself?
So.            .             .
Up for taking the
P L U N G E
to change
to be different
to brrrrrr(EAK)
out of your
COMFORT ZONE.            .            .
I don’t know my Mike Rayburn personally, but only know him through the National Speakers Association globally. When I read his post, it made me start thinking how much I do in my comfort zone and rarely what I do out of my comfort zone and taking a plunge in cold water at 5:15 in the morning would definitely be out of my comfort zone, but not comparably to the things that every day I have a chance to do out of my comfort zone that would take much more courage than a cold morning plunge; How about you?
Where’s your comfort zone and how much time do you spend in it and what kind of caring catalyst things do you think you could do and would even be possible if just for three minutes a day you took the plunge and did something out of your comfort zone?
I guess there’s only one way to find out and it ain’t to dip your toe into the cold water
like without hesitation,
jumping in head first.          .          .
R  E  A  D  Y
S  E  T
GO

JUST A MOMENT. . .DO YOU EVER WONDER?

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Ahhhhhhhh the wonder of WONDERING.          .          .






Now that you have been thoroughly
WONDER BOMBED
just what are you
 W          O          N          D          E          R          I          N        G
Pssssssssssssssssssssst:
How about some
EXTRA CREDIT
for WONDERING
ABOUT
H A P P I N E S S

Ahhhhhhhhhh.            .            .JUST A MOMENT.            .            .
THE WONDER OF WONDER

ANGRY SILENCE

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I have blogged this video at least a couple of times before and I love how it pops up for me willy-nilly out of nowhere to remind me about SILENCE.  When Paul Simon wrote this in 1965 it was a song that had a different but very much the same meaning as it does now YES, some nearly 60 years later: NOBODY LISTENS and even fewer actually HEAR which THEN and NOW make for an ANGRY SILENCE


ANGRY SILENCE

Have you heard
what I didn’t say

It’s a silence
that uses no words
needs no catch phrases
or lengthy paragraphs
and often gets misunderstood as
Angry Silence

Harsh as it seems
it delivers a soft message
with a strong meaning
of not to be well known
but to be worth knowing
always not in a way
to be served
but to serve
without angrily being denied
Wordlessly

THESE WORDS

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Guilty I have piles and piles of books that I have not read even even at the moment that I’m ordering other ones that will make a part of yet other piles.

I lie to myself and say oh I’ll get to that or wow this really looks good and I’ll read it immediately and of course it ends up in another pile. Sometimes the nearer the pile the closer I will get to reading it but this past week, my friend Beth told me that I needed to take this book out of a pile and put it on top of the next one to read and I’m glad she did.             .               .

Rarely do, I read the authors note before I write in a story or a book but this time I did and once again, I’m really glad that I did, because on the second page was an excerpt from the Hippocratic oath.

One of the reasons why I like, holding a physical book in my hand is because I can dog ear all the pages; I can write in the margins, I can underline, and I can write what I want to write at that time when I read a passage.            .         .

This excerpt from the Hippocratic oath literally has grabbed me around the throat where I can’t get past too many other pages before I come back to that and oh yes, it is dog eared and oh yes, it has been underlined and exaggerated on the side because even though I’m not a physician, I like to think that I’m a caregiver who tries to offer some kind of comfort to every person that I meet whether I know them or not; whether they are in hospice or in a hospital setting or not. This passage, kind of brings mirror to face and lets me see, allows me to understand and removes some protective buffers I insulate myself with so that I can fully, unabashedly experience my WHY.     .    .it has nothing to do with a vocation or a paycheck so much as a lifestyle.


H            E            R            E

As a mere human just BEING
sit with this again
and this time don’t let it wash over you
so much as
SINK
throughly
INTO YOUR
Y      O      U      E      S      T
OF  YOU

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man