The Story of a Passport
I checked my mail later than usual and there was my shiny new passport. I opened it and looked inside. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find, but I opened it really carefully. I imagined for a moment how cool it would be for one of my descendents to someday have a copy of it after I am long gone from this earth. Maybe several generations from now, one of my descendants will find the record of my passport and get as excited as I do when I am researching genealogy and come across a picture or legal document that tells the tale of the life of one of my ancestors. I find it fun and amusing to think about. I’m sure they’d size up my picture and try to find some connection to the look on their own face. It’s interesting how we are always searching for those links to those who came before us. I think it’s comforting in a world that spins at such an incredibly fast pace.
I wonder what the story will tell. I hope it speaks of a life fully lived, a life that radiated with honesty, love, and kindness. That is my intention.
As I held the passport in my hands tonight, I once again had a moment of awe, realizing just how blessed I am to be living in a country where I can speak my mind, write down and share my thoughts, practice my own faith, have the option to work, travel, own a home, drive to the grocery store, sing out loud…… it’s not a perfect place, but I am grateful for the freedoms which it provides.
Today I learned of a family who is homeless.
Being in the field of education, it’s not the first time I’ve heard a similar story. It’s one that will always make my stomach clump into a ball of knots, like snakes twisted together in a rattan basket. I don’t know why we don’t take better care of eachother. I don’t know how we let families with small children end up on the streets scrapping for their next meal. I’m not pointing a finger at politicians, goverment agencies and local welfare departments either. That’s just too easy. EVERYBODY DOES IT. I’m actually tired of hearing it. I’m referring to each of us as free, thriving, mostly materialistic individuals.
How do we turn our heads and go about our days thinking about what kind of new SUV we want when there are others who are out in our very same towns thinking about how nice it would be to have a warm and comfortable place to sleep?
How do we walk around every day with our eyes closed so tightly and yet get to our destinations on time and with snacks galore in our soccer bags? These are the questions I often ask myself.
If each of us got involved in just one selfless endeavor…..oh, imagine the impact it could make.
Where I live, approximately 100 other people live in my building.
What if each of these persons set out to give of themselves for 2 full hours each week?
What’s that like, about 16 minutes each day?
(enough time to smoke a cigarette maybe? pick out a movie? Put on your makeup?)
That would be 200 hours each week of making a positive impact on someone else’s life.
THIS IS JUST IN MY BUILDING!
That would end up being 10,400 hours of giving each year.
How positive could the impact be with just this short 2 hours of time, radiating out into local communities?
Better yet, HOW GOOD WOULD THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?
(imagine, a natural antidepressant, what a concept!)
We can brainstorm, and oh, I will in subsequent posts!
What would you choose to do for YOUR two hours?
This is really lovely, and makes me think, what would I do!!
Its weird. I spend a lot of little moments in a week talking to people and listening, if I added it all up, it makes a lot of hours. I tell myself to better husband my time, not be available to others, its so taken for granted… then it just happens and I am available and something new happens in someone, just because of taking a few minutes to pause, talk, listen, see something new. I never thought of it as “volunteering” before because it was always just about being available, about love, or caring, or being human; but maybe that is the root of the word volunteer? To care.
So the word changes things. Your post also made me think a lot of bloggers are asking for comments (see Chuckpaints this week) and getting little response even though people do come on the page. How hard is it to acknowledge each other? A nod, a grunt, for someone’s efforts, for putting themselves out there. In an eye to eye relationship we wouldn’t take that much from someone and not say anything, would we? So after I read your blog, with this in mind, I saw that yes, one of my comments brought someone to post a whole blog to respond. As a person interested in voice and dialogue as a power, political and personal, I realized writing and speaking to each other with respect and heart, IS in service to community, too–to initiate a call or scream and echos from each other.
Dialogue is hard work, as marriage councelors tell us. You made me think of all this. Its not the kind of community service you had in mind, but maybe it is? Dialogue is all about giving and risking and sharing and entangling a bit of the soul, one to another, proding and poking and encouraging each other…to care.
Etiquette on the internet and on cell phones and on text messaging is making us short, fast, choppy, towards each other–but I think with all this technology we need to remain vigilant that we honor each other too. Thanks for helping me see this, as well.
Found this today:
Every charitable act is a stepping stone towards heaven.
–Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American Clergyman and Writer.
Mansuetude,
Thanks for taking the time to post
Yes, I do understand what you are saying with respect to common courtesy. It does seem we are in general much more lax in our standards of etiquette within the realm of the internet.
I’m not so sure one does have to respond to a blog in order for it to touch another’s life, however, although I do understand what you’re saying about how it is polite to acknowlege the reading of another’s pourings of heart and soul.
In my own respect, I don’t find myself writing with the intent of receiving a response here, as far as expecting others to comment on my writing. I guess for me, I am aware that I can be touching others’ lives and not even realize it or ever come to know about it. With experiences working in higher ed and now elementary education, I have come to understand, that we can never really know just how much our presence can impact another’s life. Learning some years later how much a former student was impacted by one small thing I said or did was very humbling to me at a few points during my life.
And, although I understand your viewpoint on how our writing here can be seen as a form of service, this is not the kind of service which I am referring to in my post. What I am referring to has everything to do with us breaking out of our comfort zones, kind of like saying hello to those you meet while on an elevator (although most people stand facing forward and do not speak). It has everything to do with showing love by our deeds and not with just our flowery words, about getting our hands really dirty and opening our hearts to the places that turn our stomachs and make us vulnerable so that we can allow another to lean on us. It’s much easier to sit around and philosophize about the problems of the world, than to actually break out of our comfort zones and DO something to solve these problems. It’s easy for us to sit around and decide that it’s our politicians’ and our gov’t agencies’ jobs to fix everything that’s amiss around us, while we sit at our desks clicking our mice eating our Bon Bons. THIS is the type of service and giving which the world needs so desperately, much like your name. Peace.
Very inspirational I wish people would do more to help others and make a difference,
Not just talk about it but act upon it!
If your coming across these people then perhaps you yourself are being given the opportunity to make a difference to their life?
There must be a reason they are crossing your path..
Anyway thanks for posting about this.