Who Cares - What Matters
The Story’s been told many times, in many different ways. It still asks the same question, though:
ARE YOU A CRACKED POT?
Okay, you caught me. It’s an entirely rhetorical question and the answer is completely true:
YES!
The story is really simple but it’s moral is even more simple and engaging–if only recongized!
There’s such a very huge distance between Looking and Seeing.
When’s the last time you, you just didn’t look but actually saw what’s behind the eyes, the face of everyone you meet?
Granted, we’re all very busy and it would be just so much easier if we could wear a special set of glasses that would identify the pain of each person, known and unknown to us in a very specific way–taking out all of the guess work.
It must have made a big impression. I heard the story a very long time ago. A tale about Death.
It involves five brothers, Princes exiled from their kingdom, wandering through the forest and finding themselves thirsty. The youngest goes for water and discovers an inviting lake with a white crane standing at the edge. He sprints for the lake and the Crane speaks right before he dives in for a big gulp.
“STOP!” it cries. “This is my lake. If you touch this water without answering my questions, you will die.”
Desperate, the young man ignores the warning. He bends to drink his fill and falls dead by the water’s edge.
In a few moments the next brother comes in search of the first. He’s really thirsty too and he bends down at the lake’s edge to drink. Just as he is about to quench his thirst, the Crane shouts out to him, “STOP! If you touch this water without answering my questions, you will die.” But even though the young prince sees his brother lying dead nearby, he is so thirsty he can’t help himself. He goes to cup the water in his hands for a full gulp and falls dead at the side of his brother.
I often show this short clip when teaching on Compassion or Compassionate Presence. I firmly believe that it allows us, in less than two minutes, experience the power of this Compassionate Presence which has more power than some high-powered medications.
If Compassion could be dispensed like a medication, would it be an illegal substance?
Would it come with a prescription?
Could you be inoculated with it?
Could it be used for an intended, overdose?
Well, do you or don’t you?
I don’t!
I’m not a list maker to begin with. . .my sticky notes never stay stuck, and if they do, it’s usually something I didn’t intend them to get stuck to and they end up getting lost, forgotten, well–you get the picture.
I adamantly Resolve N O T to Resolve!
Hard to believe isn’t it?
GREATNESS meets us face to face and we Recognized it N O T more times than we actually ever do!
In fact, by now you actually know The Story:
A man sat a metro station in Washington, DC and started playing the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousands of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. No one actually stopped. A few slowed their paces; some children paused and had to be pulled away by their parents but no one really stopped, lingered, L I S T E N E D.
Seriously. . .Whatever it is that causes you to break out, to Flash Mob in Song, may it happen unexpectedly and repeatedly and more, May you BE the Cause of IT to happen Unexpectedly and Repeatedly (For) to Others.
Discover your very best is so much more than a Season or an event, or an occurrence–a Happening!
So many, many things can happen in just one simple, significant second.
I almost learned immediately in 1994 when I became a Chaplain for Hospice that folks who were in my care would often use me as a mirror.
I really feel that when we undeniably know that we are NOT going to live forever, that in fact, we’ve all been born with a lethal sexually transmitted disease called, LIFE, that we have very basic, essential fears that set in like a disease itself. A fear like, “What about my appearance? What am I going to end up looking like as DISease DISsembles my body?”
It amazes me how people use US as their mirrors. They don’t have to look in a mirror to see what they look like, they just have to watch our expressions when we walk in the room and see them. Amazing still how it just might not be ‘the sick’ who use the mirror trick.
We all look for recognition and acceptance in the eyes of those who look upon us!
So…be the eye, the camera, the mirror that Accepts, Acknowledges, Affirms, Authorizes another.
What does it take to do so?
How much Money is involved and needs exchanged?
How long does it take?
A Second. . .a simple, sincere second.
Psssssst: Don’t give it a Second Look!
(Give it Always/ALL Ways Unlimited Looks)
First time for me in 33 years of Ministry. A double-wedding ceremony.
It took place at the David Simpson Hospice House in Cleveland around 10:15 a.m. on 12/11/13.
Their mother is very sick and is declining rather quickly. “THEY” wanted to do something about as special as a son and a daughter can do for an ailing mother. Take her to a wedding: THEIR’S!
With a small amount of family and friends gathered into The Mediation Room that overlooked an angry Lake Erie on a dishwater gray Winter morning, they wheeled the bed of their mother into that small gathering.
I told them as we began the service, that no matter what Cathedral or highly adorned Sanctuary they’d ever find themselves, it would never be any more sacred than the walls of family and friends that surrounded them right then.
It was purely a chance meeting–If there truly is such a thing.
Michelle Brown is a Team-Leader at Hospice of the Western Reserve. We ran into each other and after asking how we were doing and the recent Thanksgiving Holiday, she paused and then with a tear in her eye that was half-twinkle she told me about feeder goldfish. Hmmmmm…where can this possible go, right?
How about a Direct Hit to the Heart!
She told me that she and her husband didn’t go out and buy expensive, exotic fish, but ‘RESCUED’ feeder goldfish, who in this case weren’t in the greatest shape. They had somehow caught some kind of disease, that not only seemed to be killing them, one by one, but actually with fish parts falling off, were seemingly dying painfully.
In fact, just when she thought she was exceedingly adding to their suffering and was about to euthanize them she noticed something. . .something quite remarkable. The goldfish that were in the worst shape were actually being nurtured, by those who were in less bad shape. She stated that she saw how they would take turns, literally siding up besides the sickest and showing an overwhelming amount of compassion as they provided, dare I state it: PRESENCE!
Absurd?
I once saw two squirrels chasing one another and one inadvertently had run onto the street and got hit by a car even though it swerved to miss it. The car didn’t stop. I did. I actually saw the squirrel that was chasing the one now hit and killed, ran into the street and pull it off the road. I was paralyzed.
I’m sure there’s some YouTube/Google-ifric posts that would verify even much greater ANIMAL acts of Compassion.
Michelle wondered out loud about the WHY of it all…was she doing more harm than good, even though her intention was quite the opposite?
We then both wondered, maybe IT was to Teach. . .Teach her The Lesson, to Teach me the Lesson, to Teach You The Lesson, for you to Teach others The Lesson. . .I mean, isn’t that Life at it’s best and how it’s been handed down, benefited and handed down again?
It’s all about this Compassionate Presence isn’t it?
Maybe what SHOUTED OUT to me the Loudest is, if a Feeder Goldfish can show that kind of compassionate presence to one of it’s own, suffering and dying, then. . .then what about Me–You–Others?
Hmmmmmm for $10,000.00, Alex