A New Hope

With homage to George Lucas, I’m borrowing his subtitle from Episode IV of Star Wars, because today 12-22-12 offers all of us a new hope. We’re still here. Alive, well and pretty much doing what we did the day before again, but that’s a choice not a sentence and I’m going to get right back to that point.

See it turns out after years of worry for some people, or wonder for others, the Mayans were wrong. Well, they were right in a sense, their calender did end and if they were here today, they would start a new one. But we didn’t experience a polar shift, deadly solar flares, fire raining from the sky, or a zombie apocalypse. You could make the argument that Eagles coach Andy Reid is a zombie. He’s been a dead man coaching since November and if you’ve heard him at a press conferences, then you know this guy is a zombie. And his play calling? Maybe that makes sense if you’re undead, but not if you’re among the living.

But let me get back to my point. Our lives continue and the world goes on, but are we going to live today and tomorrow like the yesterdays before it? We don’t have to, because its a choice not a sentence and that’s my point. Whether we thought the world was going to end or not, yesterday for good or for ill is gone, so how are we going to live today? Right now. Do we go to bed leaving our families, our communities, the world better than we found it? Do we see the face of our creator in all of his or her horrible disguises, as Mother Teresa used to speak of, and do we recognize the divinity of the person before us?

Today I have a new hope. I hope the first day of a new Mayan calender, which is supposed to be a time of peace and enlightenment, actually is. I hope every small act of kindness I perform or write about pushes us closer to a critical mass where kindness transforms itself from tenets we hear as children, to a natural behavior without reminders.  Kindness is within all of us. The news and politicians tell us otherwise, but we are kind and like the winter solstice, darkness, which envelopes us from time to time eventually gives way to more light each and every day.

So today as the light grows I have a new hope. Today I hope I recognize humanity not just in my friends, but in the people who are not so pleasant to deal with. I hope that I find chances to spread kindness in small ways and if the opportunity presents itself, large ways too. I hope that by doing that, I can affect a positive change in the people around me and spread kindness like a healing salve and that others will take the time and effort to do the same. Its not that hard to do either. creating cold fusion from the atom is hard. Being nice, honoring the humanity in the people we meet is on the whole pretty easy. Who knows, if the Mayans were right we might just have begun a whole new epoch where this will be the norm, and if the Mayans were wrong, or it was all just a bunch of mistranslated Pre-Columbian graffiti, then maybe we can start our own period of peace and enlightenment, one kind act at a time.

Be Kind  – Sean

Kindness Made Simple

What does it take to be kind? Do you earn it like a merit badge in scouts, or is it a title awarded when you perform some amazing act?  As humans we tend to complicate things. At least I do. I could complicate drinking a glass of  orange juice, which I did once by aspirating it and knocking myself unconscious while still on my feet, but that’s another story for another day and I digress. Recently There was a story on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams about a charity in Trenton New Jersey called One Simple Wish, which assists children in the foster care system. Now One Simple Wish is close to my heart for a couple of reasons:

1) My wife’s cousin Danielle Gletow started this charity and she’s an angel. I’d call her an angel if I only learned of her through the NBC Story, but I do know her, and she really is one. She doesn’t just talk about helping kids in foster care, she walks the walk too. She embodies Ghandi’s quote about “being the change you wish to see in the world”.

2) One Simple Wish is a charity where you help directly grant wishes submitted by children in foster care and here’s the best part, Kids in foster care don’t really ask for grandiose things. In fact most of what they ask for can be accomplished for fifty dollars or less.

The important thing about what One Simple Wish does is, they make giving easy and they don’t try to change the world with one big play like its a karmic football game, they ask you to assist with the little things, book bags, movie tickets,  possibly working appliances for families in need, and the key piece here is the cumulative effect of creating long and lasting positive changes in children’s lives. Who knows what those children will accomplish because they had a new backpack to carry their books to school with, or saw a movie, which inspired them to follow a dream and become a scientist or an artist. They may not accomplish anything more than being hard working, solid citizens who look out for their neighbors and communities, but wouldn’t that all be worth granting one simple wish?

So when you think about how you should begin to be kind, don’t worry about the “Hail Mary” pass to rescue a whole city. Keep it simple and help one child at a time, one act at a time, and let your kindness fall like rain, growing more kindness in people receptive to it, who will pass it on in greater amounts than you ever thought possible, all from One Simple Wish.

I would encourage all of you to check out the  One Simple Wish Website and get involved at http://www.onesimplewish.org or check out organizations in your community that turn small acts into long term results.

Be Kind – Sean