The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

THE 1% RULE

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Everyone who knows, even a little bit of me knows that I not only LOVE Christmas and actually advocate celebrating/observing the GOODNESS of  it not just a little each day, but also PRACTICE MERRY CHRISTMAS the 25th of every month, especially, DECEMBER 25th and of course, JULY 25th (or all of July) for CHRISTMAS IN JULY!

Well.    .   .WHAT ABOUT NEW YEAR’S DAY?  I mean, that’s a huge part of the CHRISTMAS SEASON to me as well.  And yes, not as boisterous but just a powerfully, I celebrate each day (EVERY DAY) as a New Year’s Day of sorts; complete with my own personal goals/wishes/hopes/aspirations.      .      .

In fact, every morning I wake up (and have been given another blessing/chance of a new day I start off with my version of  very old/ritualistic version of a Jewish Prayer which is translated from the Hebrew this way:

I HEREBY GIVE THANKS TO YOU, LIVING AND ETERNAL KING, FOR RESTORING MY SOUL TO ME GRACIOUSLY , GREAT IS YOUR TRUSTWORTHINESS

My version of this is even more simple and it’s my 1% of my ever-limited 100% of every day:

THANK YOU FOR THE SLEEP I JUST HAD AND FOR WAKING UP TO A NEW DAY

WHAT WILL BE YOUR 1% today…remember; your not changing the world or yourself but just 1%
NOW
TODAY
AT THIS MOMENT.          .          .

THE FEAR OF FEAR

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Famous people never suffer like THE REST OF US, do they?

Here’s the Real of REAL:
IF YOU HAVE A PULSE, A HEARTBEAT, INHALE/EXHALE
you experience every emotion, some more fiercely than others.

E. V. E. R. Y. O. N. E.
in their own way
DEALS (self-medicates) in our own ways.        .        .

“If people saw Frank Sinatra in his dressing room prior to a performance, they would reconsider their belief that he was destined for the stage. When the stage lights were about to come up, I’ve seen lions in cages at the Beverly Hills Zoo that were more composed than Mr. S.

The room’s door was secured. Mr. S would pace back and forth while keeping his hands in his pockets. He would occasionally hold a tumbler of Jack Daniel’s, but other times he would just clench his hands till they were white. I would say to the employees, “”There, Mr. S is playing ‘Caged Lion.'”” The sole distinction was that this lion was more terrified of the cage being completely open and the absence of outside cheers.

One close friend of mine once told me quite plainly, “”Frank is not afraid of the audience booing.”” He fears silence from the crowd. Yes, booing is simple; you can sing louder or retort with a curse. But you can’t overcome that emptiness by remaining silent.

Therefore, until Mr. S took the stage, the bottle of Jack Daniel’s had little chance of surviving. However, Mr. S was standing there, looking dapper and grinning as though he had never experienced fear, when the lights turned on. The miracle was that. However, I was aware that a man was asking himself, “”Am I still Frank Sinatra today?”” behind that closed door.”” – George Jacobs

A     L     L

JUST A MOMENT: A HAPPY BIRTHDAY

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I have subscribed to a SubStack sight called OLDSTER MAGAZINE for well over a year now, mostly because, well.    .    .I AM OLD(ER) and they give all kinds of great advice on aging/becoming older/adjusting and learning to live this ever changing DIFFERENT LIFESTYLE.  They interview a host of folks, both know/unknown; famous and just ordinary folks, usually by asking these following questions, yes of which I will now too answer on this my 70th Birthday:

HOW OLD ARE YOU:
I’m just now 70 on August 6

IS THERE ANOTHER AGE YOU ASSOCIATE WITH YOURSELF IN MIND?  IF SO, WHAT IS IT? AND WHY DO YOU THINK?
31.  I just had remarried that year a couple of months before turning 31.  I was in the best shape of my life, still running up to 10 miles a day and completing marathons; the excitement of the new beginning of one of the most life changing relationship in my life, combining with merging our kids/family together with all of our hopes/dreams/wishes literally at our wildest imaginations, in the actual making was at its height and it was an intoxicating feeling I’ve never recovered nor sought to change.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT BEING YOUR AGE?
FREEDOM; not so much from responsibilities but from some of the things I have imprisoned myself to like expectations, or how I am seen, liked; I feel more alive than I did when I was training and running marathons; I’m much more creative now and feel almost weightless doing more (love being a chaplain at hospice now for 31 yrs, serving a small congregation, preaching, teaching, visiting, and conducting nearly 25 funerals every month and about a dozen weddings every year.  My relationships are deeper with my family and my friends, and just when I don’t think I could ever love Erin more than I do, she does something that makes me not only fall in love her all over again, but dearly love her more deeply than my mind or heart dared imagined.  I LIVE AN ENCHANTED LIFE

WHAT’S DIFFICULT ABOUT BEING YOUR AGE:
The dreaded physical limitations, aches/pains (I think I pulled a muscle in my back turning over in my sleep and lets not talk about a stiff neck if the pillow’s not in the right position).  Running has long been gone and trying to find ‘that runner’s high’ well.   .  .it’s only a dream, literally, a dream I have that I actually wake up sometimes out of breath because I dream that I am running.  Aside from that, as a hospice chaplain and a funeral officiant I am painfully discovering how many folks I serve that am younger (sometimes significantly) than I am who will never get a chance or the ability to have another Birthday, holiday, anniversary and makes me wince as I ask myself very silently, ‘WHY ME?’  This sometimes is very emotionally painful; it actually aches but also inspires me to make the best of my aches/pains/limitations.

WHAT’S SURPRISING ABOUT BEING YOUR AGE, OR DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU EXPECTED, BASED ON WHAT YOU WERE TOLD?
Seriously, THAT I MADE IT?  I always thought, because I was inadvertently shown or told by my grandparents and parents that anybody over 60 and retired was OLD.  I don’t know what the ‘perfect age’ to die for me might be, but I have huge hopes knowing that there’s a physician who’s 103 from Case Western University and University Hospital who still goes to work every day.  HOPE, I tell you, HOPE!  I’d sign up for that right now; show me the dotted line, I have pen in hand and will sign right now!

WHAT HAS AGING GIVEN YOU?  TAKEN AWAY FROM YOU
Clarity.  I love who I am.  I love the life I live.  I love who I’m living my life with and the relationships I have.  I feel like I don’t have just a purpose or a meaning, a reason or some mystical destiny; I know that they are now plural, not singularly for me and I know that with such clarity I’ve never known or experienced before.  It’s my big, ‘Ahhhhh-HAH!  And as for what it’s taken away, well, it’s not the mental or the spiritual or emotional, social aspects of my life, just the physical.  Damn those down the basement steps or that not so steep hill going down that makes my knees bark like a junkyard dog in a meat market.   .   .    .

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER ONE REGRET IN LIFE?  IF YOU COULD DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN, WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING YOU’D DO DIFFERENTLY?
Wait.    .   .what?  Do I have to answer this question?  (OF COURSE, I DON’T HAVE TO, AND IT’S NOT EVEN BECAUSE OF MY FEAR OF PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN AND LETTING YOU SEE WHAT’S BEHIND IT)  The pain of REGRET is a deep, existential pain, that even with forgiveness, THEIR’S AND MINE, I’m not so sure can be taken away or maybe, full disclosure, that I want to be forgiven, even though I believe it should be freely given and more than amply applied ALL-WAYS.  For me it’s that I got married when I shouldn’t have right out of college and before seminary because I feared more of being alone for the first time in my life than making a bad decision.  CLARIFICATION: I do not blame my first wife for this, we had plenty of blame to share, but even though I didn’t fully realize what I was doing and to bring first two beautiful daughters into this world and that chaos, EVEN THOUGH ALL HAS TURNED OUT WELL, they are wonderful and my first wife has married someone who she is completely deserving and served so often for the father I was absent of being just because of geographical distance (WOW, am I forever grateful and appreciative of him and tell him so) yeah, that still haunts me.  Forgiveness has been exceedingly given and accepted and all relationships are well and beyond cordial, yet pain was caused/experienced and has made my heart always beat differently and most likely always will and would I do it differently.  .  .well, that would mean I would never have these two beautiful daughters and three of the six grandchildren I have–quite a price to pay, huh?  NO.  Frank Sinatra and I will keep singing, “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.    .    .”

IS THERE A PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WERE GIVEN THAT  YOU LIVE BY?  IF SO, WHAT WAS IT AND WHO OFFERED IT TO YOU?
I am a huge fan of Broadway musicals and without a doubt I think my favorite Les Misérables.  There are many great songs in that play that are so powerful to me like ON MY OWN and BRING HIM HOME, but I think my favorite is near the end of the play in one of the final scenes where Jean Val Jean is actually dying and the angels of Mercy, people that he’s known, who have gone before him in death and now come to greet him, to take him home.   There’s this beautiful line: “TO LOVE ANOTHER PERSON IS TO SEE THE FACE OF GOD”  I have always strived to live my life by that; To love another person, and that means ANYBODY, and yes EVERYBODY,  to love them, really love them, is actually to see the face of God; yeah even before you die.

WHAT ARE PLANS FOR YOUR BODY WHEN YOU ARE DONE USING IT?
It may shock a lot of people, but when I die, even though I conduct over 20+ funeral services a month, I do not want a funeral service. I don’t want a goodbye party or celebration of life or any long drawn out ‘remember when’s or even big bashes where we come together to eat, drink, kibitz and finish those beautiful sentences, ‘I REMEMBER THE TIME. . . ,’   ‘I’LL NEVER FORGET THE TIME. . . ,’ and, ‘WHAT ABOUT THE TIME. . . .’   It’s much more simple; Erin and I have agreed that we are going to be cremated and whoever goes first will be saved until the other one is cremated and then together with our beloved pets that have been cremated, we will have all of the ashes mixed together and scattered on a nice windy beach; to have the wind take us where it may interminglingly mixed together; always in the air to settle and to be scattered and blown about again again and again. I’m a big rom-com kind of guy that kind of  has a little Hallmark/Lifetime  feeling to it,  doesn’t it?  ROMANTIC  with a Ha-Ha.    .    .   .

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT TO HAPPEN TO YOUR SOUL OR SPIRIT AFTER YOU DIE?
I’ve always believed that when we die, we only begin living in another way; the Mystical Next.  After working in hospice all of these years, this feeling has only gotten stronger and in many ways, solidified.  I can only give you an opinion not a certainty, but it’s not so much of what I believe as what I have come to know and what so many others have affirmed for me in their dying.  There have been too many instances, too many people, sharing the same story while there are no connections between them;  they don’t know each other and it doesn’t matter if they are agnostic or atheist or Buddhist or Muslim or Christian. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish or any other form of religion or lack of; these folks have proven to me that there’s something that happens to us that’s beyond us  Call it what you will~~but don’t call it over!
Well.      .     .I hope that this helps you to realize that Birthdays are more than just another casual trip around the sun.  I hope that even your Birthday has yet to come this year or has just passed that these questions and even some of my answers will inspire you to take your own test, to answers the questions and yes, to share.    .   .ALWAYS SHARE YOUR BEST, TRUEST SELF, even the things behind the curtain…trust me, they are not that bad and ALL-WAYS, Forgivable, yeah, even by YOU!

And if you haven’t had enough reading yet, may I recommend a little guide by one of my all time authors:

L          I          V         I         N          G
W  E  L  L

AND KEEP CELEBRATING 

 

 

 

 

 

HAP HAP HAPPY BIRTHDAY

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Here’s the deal about Birthday’s,
there are candles to be lit
and wishes to be made.       .      .
B               U               T
you don’t have to wait for the celebration
of your actual birth date.          .          .
why waste another moment?
CELEBRATE NOW
and forget to stop…
The best wishes aren’t wished,
but lived
until they become more true
than any wish, wished
or dream, dreamt…
SEE.           .           .
It’s ALL worth celebrating
N O W
So, I’ll leave this with you as a simple wish of mine before the 
candles are fully extinguised
and the cake and ice-cream
passed around:

LET ME BE A STORY

Let me be a story you tell
because you have experienced it fully
with no exceptions
no if’s
no but’s
no until’s
no excepts
but with an openness you’ve never known before
but now can’t help but to share
because you have known it so well

Let me be a story you tell
sprinkled with moments of humor
loaded with once upon a time’s
and an unlimited amount of
“what about the time’s?”

Let me be a story you tell
not because you’ve heard it with your ears
but deeply have known it in your soul

Let me be a story you tell
in a timeless generation yet to be born
not because the story is so infamous
but it is so absolutely right

Let me be a story you tell
A tune you hum
A poem you read
A life you now live a little better
and more inspired and hopeful

And may you too be the story someone else tells
A story uniquely yours
One that doesn’t mirror the same
but reflects even more

A manifesto poem
One that is known before it’s told or pondered
One that is lived well
One that is shared
One that is once upon a time’d
One that is fire to your wick
                  a flicker to your flame
                  a light to your lane
One that Is~~always IS

TIME OFF (O U T)

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During the intense filming of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” in 1975, Jack Nicholson told director Miloš Forman one non-negotiable condition: he would not work on Sundays. Not for reshoots, not for tight deadlines, not even for critical scenes. It was his personal rule, a boundary he drew with complete clarity. Nicholson viewed Sundays as essential for emotional and mental recalibration. He once said, “I need one day where I don’t have to be anyone else but me.” Forman, though under pressure from a tight production timeline, honored the actor’s request without protest.

Nicholson’s decision came from more than superstition or habit. During interviews after the film’s release, he spoke about how deeply draining the role of Randle P. McMurphy had become. The character was unpredictable, layered with fury, humor, empathy, and rebellion, often within the same scene. Immersing himself in McMurphy’s psyche five or six days a week left Nicholson emotionally raw. Stepping away on Sundays was not indulgence. It was preservation.

Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratched, said in an interview with “The Hollywood Reporter,” “Jack had this switch. He’d be joking between takes, and the minute we rolled, he’d go full McMurphy. But he needed space. Sundays gave him room to breathe.”

The Oregon State Hospital, where the film was shot, had its own share of haunting energy. Actual patients appeared in the background of several scenes. Nicholson, who lived on set for the bulk of filming, immersed himself in the environment so thoroughly that the line between actor and character blurred at times. Crew members reported seeing him pacing the hospital courtyard late into the night, rehearsing lines or simply sitting alone under dim lights.

Forman’s willingness to respect Nicholson’s request became a cornerstone of their collaboration. He believed Nicholson’s process required total commitment, but not without boundaries. In an archived interview with “Variety,” Forman recalled, “He gave me everything when the cameras rolled. He made the character live in ways I never imagined. If a single day each week helped that happen, I was all in.”

Sunday breaks were not passive days for Nicholson. He used them to reset emotionally. He would go off alone, take long walks through Salem, visit bookstores, or just sit in his trailer and sketch. Michael Douglas, who served as a producer on the film, later noted, “Jack protected that day like it was sacred. No one questioned it. In hindsight, it probably saved the performance from burning out.”

There was one occasion when a major scene was delayed due to poor lighting on a Saturday evening. The crew suggested they finish it the next day to stay on track. Nicholson listened quietly and responded, “If it has to happen Sunday, it’ll have to happen without me.” They waited until Monday.

What made this boundary so effective was not just that Nicholson demanded it. It was the consistency and purpose behind it. He did not leave town. He did not attend parties. He disconnected, recharged, and returned each Monday fully immersed and sharp. The energy he brought to scenes like McMurphy’s confrontation with Nurse Ratched or the therapy group outbursts was a direct result of that unshakable rhythm.

Even decades later, when speaking about the role, Nicholson often credited his performance not only to the script or direction but to the freedom to remain grounded in himself. He believed burnout dulled creativity, and routine restored brilliance.

In a 1997 conversation with Charlie Rose, Nicholson said, “The most dangerous thing for an actor is forgetting who he is while trying to be someone else. One day a week, I didn’t act. That saved me.”

His refusal was not about ego. It was about balance. And in creating that space, Jack Nicholson protected both the character of McMurphy and the man beneath him.

One day off each week helped Jack Nicholson hold on to his identity while giving everything to one of cinema’s most unforgettable roles.   .   .

TAKE TIME
they say
TAKE TIME
where
to someplace where it’ll be safely kept
and dished out in the doses 
when needed most
or is it
while we are 
TAKING TIME
IT is actually capturing us
and bringing us to places
unknown 
never to release us 
except in small bits of 
ONCE UPON A TIME’S
we can vaguely remember
maybe again experience
but never own again. . .

: Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
WE ARE MORE THAN IDLE PAGES ON A CALENDAR
AND MUCH MORE THAN WHAT’S CONTAINED 
ON A SINGLE BLOCKED DAY

JUST A MOMENT: A SEASON WITHIN A SEASON

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I have often been accused of NOT living in the MOMENT

I give lots of examples and proof by posting on the 25th of every month, MERRY PRACTICE CHRISTMAS.        .       .

But this wishing of a MERRY PRACTICE CHRISTMAS  has nothing to do with skipping over every other holiday just to get to Christmas so much as I have countless times defended it has to do with KEEPING THE SPIRIT AND ALL THAT IS GOOD OF THAT DAY/SEASON EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR and not just for some solitary 24 hours.        .       .

S         T          I           L          L.                .               .

In just a moment, nature tells us so much about what we think we know, and what we really can experience, like a season within a season.

Have you ever felt like that in the deepest part of winter you felt a warm than only summer can deliver or the deepest part of summer you felt it chill that no winter wind could ever blow across you?

We all live within seasons that have seasons, and we usually experience them in just a moment, sometimes quite literally.       .        .
Pay attention.          .          . we are living seasons within seasons always, no matter what the weather tells us, no matter what we feel, because inside is always changing.          .          .

I’m reminded of those famous Mary Oliver lines that read like both poem and proverb:

Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it.

So.            .              .
WHEN THE OBVIOUS IS IN FRONT OF YOU.             .            .
IN JUST A MOMENT.           .           .
PAY ATTENTION!

THIS VIDEO WILL COME TO YOU AT THE RIGHT TIME

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WELL.            .           .
Is THIS what you needed this morning.          .           .
Is THIS what someone you know might need.          .         .
IS IT TRUE?

Sometimes it nots what we can do….that’s simple
                     it’s what we are will to do.          .          .

S U M M E R I N G

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I am not the only one who
THINKS
or most certainly
F          E          E          L          S
I    T.          .          .

But I keep looking for the rest of Summer
as soon as the last sparkler loses its sparkle
on the 4th of July
which got me to thinking about things
a little beyond Summer
and this one Summer of 2025
being the last one any of us will
ever live.        .       .
h      e      n      c      e:

100 Summers                                               

100 Summers from now
I’ll be gone
and so will everyone
I know and love
(and you too, dear reader)
My name won’t be
remembered or spoken
The Okay-ness
of this is that after
100 Summers gone
is there’ll be as many
Falls, Winters and Springs
taking their places as
100 Seasons before
without much explanation
(recently written for a 15 poems in 10 day challenge for local gems)

Uhhhhhhhhh
days gone by
are never really days
g  o  n  e.        .        .        .

JUST A MOMENT: MERRY CHRISTMAS IN JULY

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Some things need no explanation at all. The fact is, it’s kind of absurd almost kind of offensive that every year for many years now we celebrate Christmas in July; come on it’s ludicrous. It’s almost offensive and obscene, but it does make sales go a little bit easier. it’s a great transition from the Fourth of July to the back of the school sales and yeah, come on, who’s not looking for a bargain, right?

Some things need no explanation whatsoever and yet I think some of the best explanations are the ones that don’t need them but are still completely understood without them.

Christmas in July.          .          .come on who doesn’t need a little bit of Christmas right now, especially if you little candle Of Hope?  Seems like the wick is long gone and never can be reignited. Maybe it’s now, maybe it’s always and not just for a season that we need a little Christmas right this very moment. So how about with no explanations necessary we are the explanation of everything that season holds and promises and shares with without the music or the parties or the goodies or all the carols but still contains all of the feels~~yeah be that in just a moment it’s more than just Christmas in July or even in December.

THE YEAR OF NO GRUDGES

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I never met Andrea Gibson, but when I first heard of her, literally in this poem a little over a year ago, I YouTube’d her and read everything she’s written and yes, sadly followed her tragic battle with cancer.  A week ago on Monday, July 14, there was something that died and escaped from me, but not her words.          .            .

The following is a post from August 26, 2024 as a way of remembering, honoring and celebrating Andrea:

I love this slap you in the face, gut punch, knee to the crotch, raw poem. I couldn’t find the written words to this poem so that you could read it, but it makes you listen a little bit more intently as the words of this poem appear as they are read and more importantly defined in you; seen through your lenses.

So what’s your favorite line? Which one resembles you the most?  Do you need to listen to it again, feel it in another way, with the lights on or off, or with or without sound canceling headphones?  How do you finish this poem that is now begun in you?  These are not questions I’m asking you so that you can gain some kind of special insight. I am asking these questions because you’ve asked yourself so many times before and the answers are there and here’s the best part about those answers: They change with time; they take on different meanings under different circumstances with different people.   So how do you answer them now or 20 years ago or next year or 20 years in the future, or now in this moment.  How do you answer them?

“THE YEAR OF NO GRUDGES” was written as a love letter to a friend Andrea was furious at. Several months ago, in the thick of anger, she reluctantly began writing down what she most appreciated about her friend. By the time she stopped typing she was so overwhelmed by gratitude she had no room in my heart for a single grudge against him. So this past week, again, quite by accident when I wasn’t even searching this came in my INBOX from another poet/writer, Phyllis Cole-Dai who was moved enough to move it my way, i.e. ONE BEGGAR SHOWING ANOTHER BEGGAR WHERE THEY GOT THE FOOD.  So Miss Andrea is sharing this poem now as a writing/feeling prompt for all of us, and for herself, in hopes that we move through our days vigilantly awake to the fact that none of us are ever promised a tomorrow. Whatever needs healing, today is the perfect day. (Music by Chris Pureka)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man