The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

JUST A MOMENT: NO MACHINERY NECESSARY

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Sometimes it feels impossible to excavate what we think can’t ever be moved, but here’s the secret of all secrets:

YOU DON’T NEED MACHINERY TO MOVE THE SEEMINGLY UNMOVABLE.     .      .

YOU don’t need specialized tools. The thing that we’ve known for billions of years at its simplest level, is that if you want to move a mountain, I mean really move it, if you want to move an obstruction and obstacle that seemingly seems unmovable, the one thing that will always do it quite simply IS KINDNESS; IS COMPASSION;  especially if you’re not waiting for or expecting something in return.          .          .

Do you want to move a mountain; do you want to  remove an obstacle; do you want to release what seemingly can’t be unreleased.          .         . go ahead.          .          .

Try it out. Experiment with it. No strings attached; no judgment; unconditionally. Go kindness on somebody; go deep compassion on someone and you’ll see a mountain that once existed doesn’t amount to not hill of beans, but not even a grain of sand.          .          .

No heavy machinery, necessary.            .            .(e v e r)

MORE THAN A HAT

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HOLY BEANIE, BATMAN.      .     .
W H O A
STOP RIGHT THERE.     .      .
I don’t know if I can fully understand let alone figure out all the time what I’m thinking and now
ABRACADABRA 
PRESTO 
We have a hat you can wear that’ll do it all for you
Pretty high SCI-FI stuffs, huh.           .           .

Now instead of giving you a PIECE OF MY MIND
you can have it without me saying a word.     .    .
JUST THINKING ONE
I may know what I’m thinking
before I know what I’m thinking
.    .    .but FEELING
EXPERIENCING IT
might be a whole another
A I
m a t t e r.    .    .

MORE THAN A SONG, GREATER THAN A MEMORY

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SOME say it’s a Christmas Song

SOME say it’s more than JUST A SONG

SOME say it’s Universal

SOME wonder what you’re Wondering

Saying

Doing.          .          .

On a cold Christmas Eve in the mid-1970s, Dan Fogelberg walked into a small grocery store in Peoria—and unexpectedly came face to face with his past.

She was a high school love. The kind that doesn’t fully leave you, no matter how much life moves on.

They hadn’t planned it. Hadn’t spoken in years. But in that quiet, ordinary place, they shared something rare—presence. A moment of genuine connection, without pretense, without rushing. Just two people honoring who they had been, and who they had become.

Years later, that encounter became Same Old Lang Syne.

Not just a song—but a reflection of something deeply human.

Because being a caring catalyst isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about how we show up in fleeting, unexpected moments. It’s about listening without needing to fix. Holding space without needing to change the outcome. Letting someone feel seen—even if only for a little while.

The holidays have a way of stirring memory. Not just joy, but tenderness. The “what was,” the “what could have been,”  and the quiet acceptance of WHAT IS.         .          .

Fogelberg didn’t just tell a story—he translated a feeling. And in doing so, he reminds us:

Sometimes the most meaningful impact we have isn’t in what we do next—

but in how gently we honor what once was.

Two people.

One moment.

But the heart of it? That was real.

Two people.

One unexpected moment.

And the quiet realization that life moves forward, whether we’re ready or not.

Maybe that’s why the song still lingers.

Not because it’s about Christmas.

But because it’s about us—the people we were, the people we are, and the tender space in between.

And the kind of presence that lingers long after the conversation ends.

That’s the heart of being A Caring Catalyst.          .          .

JUST A MOMENT: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STEPS

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In just a moment, we know very clearly exactly what steps have been most important to us. What steps we’d like to take moving forward; what steps we need to take, sometimes backtracking, retracing our steps trying to figure out our what is NEXT.     .    .

Where have I come from? What did I leave behind, and what’s important right now; and moving forward sometimes that means that we’re paralyzed. We can’t go forward or backward and it’s not always because we’re trying to figure out our next move so much as we’re afraid of any direction that we go we’ll know all of these things in just a moment.          .          .

So here’s the biggest question and it’s up to you.        .       .

What’s your next step?

BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE

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So what constitutes you having THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE.          .           .

Inn your heart of hearts, you know.            .            .

In your truest truth, what do you know about your life, that you know, the one thing that you do that makes somebody love,and even somebody you don’t know, possibly having the the best day of their lives?

Here’s the best thing; here’s the message:

It is more of a lot less than you can imagine, which makes it not only all the more easier but even more awesomely powerful, whatever that small act of kindness happens to be.

DON’T COMPLICATE THE SIMPLE

There’s no secret formula or sophisticated equation.        .       .

JUST DO WHATEVER COMES TO YOUR MIND; DO IT

.       .      .and then stand back and watch the Magic that comes for your Magic that ripples more Magic which comes crashing back to your shore to recreate your landscape with more Magic equally THE BEST DAY OF YOUR LIFE.      .      .

 

ARTEMIS, NO JOKE

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A minister
A minster’s wife
A Jewish man
A Jewish man’s wife
A recovering Catholic
A Non-Church attending Protestant Couple
went to an Artemis Splash Down Party.        .        .

Sounds like the beginning of a great joke, huh.             .            .B U T

Last week, something quietly powerful happened that offered no spoofs as they came together, had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and returned to the Jewish couple’s home to watch the Splashdown.

On paper, they represent difference. In that moment, they didn’t.

There was no “us” and “them.” Just shared attention. Shared awe. With lots of great commentary and easygoing laughter.

What brought them together wasn’t agreement—it was perspective.

As the mission returned from space, it pulled everyone’s focus beyond themselves. Differences didn’t disappear; they just stopped being the most important thing in the room.

That matters.

Because most attempts at unity ask people to compromise their beliefs. This didn’t. No one changed their views. Unity simply emerged through a shared encounter with something bigger.

NASA didn’t set out to create that moment with the Artemis program, but it happened anyway.

Awe has a way of doing that. It quiets division—not by resolving it, but by putting it in context.

Maybe that’s what we’re missing.

Unity doesn’t always come from agreement. Sometimes it comes from standing side by side, looking at the same thing, and remembering we’re part of the same story.

That group didn’t solve anything.

But for a moment, they didn’t have to.

And maybe that’s a place to start.          .          .
A minister
A minster’s wife
A Jewish man
A Jewish man’s wife
A recovering Catholic
A Non-Church attending Protestant Couple
went to an Artemis Splash Down Party.        .        .
And the feeling that was shared, yeah, literally out of this
World . . . No Joke

JUST A MESSAGE: YOUR SHARED MESSAGE

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Shakespeare once said that the whole world is a stage and we are but actors or something really close to that. .  . and much more closer to the truth than at times, we’d like to know.

Here’s the thing about that, it’s both, true but it’s never ending. You see, the script is continually being written and the stage lights; they never dim, they never go out and  everybody.          .         .everybody is showing up for the performance.  Sometimes they care and sometimes they don’t, but make no mistake the world is not only made up of actors on a stage, but critics.  Still, let’s just say right now, in just a moment, here’s your message. Here is your soliloquy, your most inner thoughts, and everybody is leaning in to hear exactly what you have to say and maybe for the first time in your life, and maybe even their’s, they just don’t want to LISTEN but actually HEAR what you have to share as if their life might depend on it.          .          . because in just a moment, maybe, maybe what you have to share makes it so. . . .

TESTING.         .         .TESTING.           .         .SPEAK UP!

THEN AND NOW

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Christmas Day, 1998 gave us much more than carols, gifts and family get-togethers; it also was the opening of the moving, PATCH ADAMS with Robin Williams and here’s one of the most powerful scenes in the movie where he not only defends his soon-to-be-gone physician’s life but also ferociously defending and supporting the nurses he works with.       .     .powerful THEN and even more powerful NOW as we view this next commentary by Noah Wylie, star of the current TV Medical show, THE PITT

Not just because I have two daughters who work as nurses, but because of the countless nurses I have humbly worked with in the hospitals as well as with hospice, well there are no words that can express my gratitude and awe and I’m not sure that I want to search for those words or that they possibly even exist as long as they know powerfully that I am not just better but all that is good in me because of each of them.

A PREEMPTIVE GOODBYE

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After nearly 32 years it is way past an occupational hazard to think about death/dying and grief as hospice chaplain; as an empath, a human with a Caring Catalyst heart.         .        .

After witnessing many last moments and heartfelt spoken words of goodbye at the bedside, it’s made me think of a few words I would like to think I would be sharing with my family, with Erin, spoken or that silent-never-spoken-ouit-loud-words-but-heard-more-intimately-than-any-words-could-express.      .     .maybe I am over romanticizing it, it could never happen with the suddenness of a heart attack, car accident or countless other possible medical emergencies but, if there were such moments, I would like to think many of those words and thoughts might be warmly with a laser bean focus wouldn’t miss their mark with the words like Andrea Gibson shared in her poem, LOVE LETTER FROM FROM THE AFTER LIFE.     .     .  She died this past July but proves that words, yes, mere words, more than keep her alive and living.     .     .

So, what about you, would these words you’re about to read be some of the kind of words you’d like to share or.       .        .hear?

Love Letter from the Afterlife, by Andrea Gibson

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before. Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too – I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

After watching her documentary on AppleTV, COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT  https://share.google/BtN3yB4Zkpek5ws0a  I’ve been thinking; I’ve been wondering; I’ve been feeling: I’ve been
s h a r i n g

JUST A MOMENT: A PENNY NEVER SHORTCHANGES YOUR THOUGHTS

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A penny for your thoughts isn’t a phrase. We rarely use it much anymore. Is it because, let’s face it, our thoughts are worth a heck of a lot more than just a penny and even if we can formulate them just right.          .          . well, what’s a penny you even worth these days?

It used to be that A PENNY would buy a lot of candy that you’d happily carry around in a small brown sack.      .     .Remember Penny candy?

It doesn’t even exist anymore and if you save up and put together a lot of pennies, well, they don’t add up too much, do they?  Now, they spend even less; which means that ‘a penny for your thoughts,’ is worth a lot more than anything that can come from any bank account or any jingle from your pocket, especially if you can really verbalize those thoughts and even more, if they’re communicated in a way that they are actually heard and not just listen to in just a moment.            .           .

Now about those thoughts for a Penny
(From Heaven>YOU>All of Us.     .    .)

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man