Be the Cause – Page 75 – Make a Difference

Enjoying the stars…looking forward to seeing the sun again

Posted on 9/4/2007

This last Saturday evening, I joined my friends again @ Lights On…a program through St. Vincent De Paul that has become a weekly Be the Cause Compassion Cell. I have to say that I think this project clearly defines..the true meaning of a “compassion cell”=a project which spreads compassion and goodness into the world. At this last “Lights On” event, I was deeply grateful to Sonali for making this project become part of Be the Cause…and to Supun for driving that RV and serving on many Saturday nights and mornings in the last 2-3 weeks or more. I mentioned to Sonali that she and Supun are angels for making this happen…she brushed off the compliment like she does and turned around and complimented me somehow and other btcers. But I hope she knows…in this blog…how much it means to me, all of us ( especially to these people being released from jail at such an outrageously insane hour of the night/morning)….the impact that this weekly compassion cell brings to so many…and the difference that it is making…in all of our lives…even if you aren’t at a “Lights On” event…just know that you…on some level may be feeling the inspiration. Just think…without this RV and volunteers, people released from Santa Ana jail…greet the dark, and if they don’t have a cell phone in their pockets when arrested, they cannot call anyone to get a ride…thus, they may have to sleep outside and unfortunately, could be arrested again for either getting into trouble again somehow or for sleeping on the street. For some women, taxi cabs wait outside…and if they don’t have actual cash to pay the cab driver…the cab driver still expects a payment…but the payment expected is usually some sort of sexual favor(s).

What really got to me this time…was how grateful the newly released were…to see the stars again, and one girl was so looking forward to waking up and seeing the sun…which she hadn’t seen in over ninety days. These comments I heard reminded me of when I was working as a substitute teacher for a few weeks at an accountability program…at Youth Family Regional Center. This was a center for juveniles on probation. They had been incarcerated and the majority of the students wore anklets around their ankles that basically kept them hostage…they couldn’t leave their houses/apartments…past their front yards or the anklet (that was connected to a computer program) would alert probation officers and basically, the students could be arrested again. So when I substituted in front of this class…I basically had a captive audience…if they leaned back in their chair or looked the other way…the probation officers in the room with me were right there…and would say something to them right away…when the students ate lunch (in the classroom), they had to keep both hands on the table…if they had one hand under the table…it was seen as suspicious and they would get in trouble…once again for it.

So here I was…a slightly new sub…especially in this kind of classroom situation. I let the students watch movies, played trivia games with them, and taught them poetry. One day…I spoke to them about the beach…because they asked me what I did over the weekend…they specifically wanted to know if I did something fun. And my interpretation…was that they hadn’t had fun…even the most innocent fun that one can think of…in what felt like eons to them.

So one day I started to talk about the beach and how the water was such a clear blue and the waves were a perfect height, and all the sights and sounds one sees and hears when at the beach. And the moment I started to talk about this….I could see the missing..the sadness of these students…to walk in the sand, climb on rocks…be a kid again. Because in their minds and hearts…I don’t know if they felt they could ever relive…or do over what they thought they did so badly.

I noticed when I taught poetry to the group…the few girls in the class were into it, but I saw that the boys really were too. And I felt that there was some longing to remember beauty and flow and living in the moment…some of the ideals that poetry offers the reader and writer.

So the other night…at Lights On…I felt this remembrance…and felt grateful…sitting on a beach chair outside and watching the stars with some who may have felt at times that they would never see the stars again…

Smile card shenanigans at work

Go here to get your own smile cards and find out what it’s all about: http://www.helpothers.org

Back in February I asked my colleague, Andrew, if he’d like to go meet some cool people and do a one hour mediation at Nipun’s house while we were in Santa Clara for a convention. He said, “sure”. I told them about all the kooky yet cool good natured people he’ll meet there. I think the thought of the week centered on how to balance dependence on others with independence. Anyways… while we were there we snagged a bunch of Smile Cards to bring back. He said he liked the meditation, the discussion, and the dinner that we we had with the Charity Focusizers, but that sitting for an hour without moving did start to hurt after awhile. I agreed.

One of my heroes told me of how she likes to secretly leave little treats for people at work with a smile card. So, I started doing that too. I found these really great snacks made by Larabar called “cashew cookies.” that was usually my go-to. Sometimes, I’d leave a book or a DVD that I liked for my co-workers on my way out. It was kind of cool, because everybody got it! Nobody tried very hard to find out who or how. They just kept doing it again and again. I got 3 of the smile cards given back my way.

One of my best friends at work had her birthday a couple weeks ago. If you meet her, you would know that she’s an exceptional human being. She’s one of the most thoughtful people I know. On top of that, she’s very smart and always has good advice on anything for anyone. I do believe all people are beautiful in their own way like flowers. But she’s beautiful like the sun rise (I mean inside and out). She treats everyone the same and she treats each person specially. At the office, she’s everybody’s best friend.

A tangent: My birthday was the week before. The year before I had bought her one book, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. And she bought me 2 books, Life of Pi and Wicked. The arms race was on. This year I ran across some book recommendations and decided on 3 books that would be cool for her: A Thousand Splendid Suns, Seizure, and Notes from My Travels. I hadn’t read any of these before. The first one was about an afghan woman’s life. The second one I had no idea about except that I was very impressed with the author’s interview on the Charlie Rose Show where she talked about the creativity in how works talk to each other: inspiration brings inspiration. The 3rd one was about what Angelina Jolie saw on her UNHCR missions. But to my suprise when my birthday came around, she really got me good. She donated enough money to the LA Mission in my name to feed 30 people. Like I said, she’s super thoughtful. She knows I hate the idea of birthday gifts. I don’t even know why I got in the habit of the book giving. I think it was more about the fact that her gift got me to read again. And that should touch on the idea about how gifts come with some baggage of obligation. That’s why I’m a big fan of the anonymous gift smile-card-style. No expectation, no obligation.

Anyways… getting back to the smile cards… On her birthday, someone had left an envelope full of movie tickets on my desk. There was a cryptic message about how I should secretly get those to my friend(specifically the lady mentioned above) and get her to give 5 pairs of tickets to people (one for themselves and another for them to give to another person secretly). That was a pretty cool thoughtful gesture. I still don’t know who it was and that’s not important. What’s cool is that there is some notion that people are thinking and giving. And all of that may or may not have started with the introduction of the smile cards. It definitely made it more fun!

Next year’s escalation of the gift giving will involve smile cards.