Category Archives: Service Activities

Samaritans

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual

April 9, 2021- There is a story of a man from Samaria, a region of what is now Syria and known for its enmity with Judea. The story goes that he stopped to help an injured man, on the side of the road, after the man had been left to die, by bandits. From his kind actions, we get the term Good Samaritan. Over time, “samaritan” has come to mean someone who helps strangers who are in difficulty, often stranded in a remote area.

There are many stories of people coming to the aid of the unfortunate. There are all kinds of samaritans: Some, with low self-esteem, seek praise, adulation, recognition and even a reward of some sort. Others may keep a tally sheet, and while paying it forward, seek recompense later. There is the “no-good-deed-goes unpunished” crowd-wanting any misdeeds to be overlooked, just because “on balance” they have helped some people, sometimes. The key to authenticity is knowing just how well one accounts for transgressions, without falling back on what one might have done for others.

I can only make sense of one course for my own state of being. Yes, I know there have been times when I have done good for people, without being asked. There have also been times when people have been hurt, on my account. The one good thing about “samaritan” acts is that no one needs to know about them, other than the recipients of such help. They need not speak of it.

Walking Gently

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

March 24, 2021- This morning, I introduced a hiking buddy to Thumb Butte, one of Prescott’s majestic surrounding promontories. I chose the route that allowed a gentler ascent, thus giving her a good first experience on the butte, which also offers a steep climb on its other main route.

In any encounter with other people, it is most often the best course of action for the individual to take a gentle tone. Of course, there are times when a firm “NO!” is, in the long run, the true gentleness. The key is always to attend, carefully, to the person or to the group. Intuition is far more important to me now than it ever was in times past. Maybe the times are tougher, but I doubt it.

I simply find that, day to day, my path and that of any given person who crosses it are intertwined, in ways that never occurred to me, even a dozen years ago. I find that a lot of the cues I missed, when clouded by both preoccupation with Penny’s state of being and my own baggage, are front and center now. If those situations that were so problematic, seven, eight, ten years ago, presented themselves again, at least I would know to tread a gentler path-both with myself and those I am sure that were hurt.

Coming out of the pandemic, which I feel we are now, I sense myself staying more in tune with those around me. The gentle path feels the better, stronger way.

Sarah’s Solution

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Historical, Service Activities, Social, Striving

March 11, 2021- In 1984, whilst in Guyana, I ran out of shampoo and went to the open air market in the small town of Bath. There, I purchased some Palmolive Shampoo, that had been made in Brazil. The product was much stronger than shampoos made in the United States, by the same company. My scalp was mildly burned.

This happened to me one time. I threw the shampoo in the trash, when I got back to the U.S. Until the 1910s, African-Americans had no recourse to hair care products that met their needs. The experience I had, once, was the lot of Black men, women and children-until Sarah Breedlove began her line of hair care and beauty products, marketed under the brand name Madam C.J. Walker’s . That name was taken, in honour of Sarah’s third husband, Charles Joseph Walker. It was the custom of many married women in that time to refer to themselves by their husband’s full name. Sarah divorced Charles in 1912, but kept his name until her death, in 1919. (Charles would outlive her by seven years.)

Sarah developed her line of Afrocentric beauty products, after suffering for several years with the use of products that led to severe dandruff and eczema-and eventually to hair loss. Experimenting, from the base line of products sold by one Annie Malone, Madam C.J. Walker became America’s first self-made female millionaire and brought attention to the skin and hair care needs of African-American women- bringing a host of products that moved beyond the folk remedies that had sustained people, both during and after the days of enslavement.

From this first line of such products, and from competitors such as Annie Malone and later, Sarah Spencer Washington, came a bona fide effort to teach African-American women the essentials of proper hair and skin care. This effort expanded, in the mid-Twentieth Century, to those Caribbean and Central American nations with significant Black communities. It has now gone worldwide.

Sarah Breedlove/Madam C.J. Walker brought grace and elegance to the lives of countless women whose needs had heretofore been ignored. She deserves a place of honour in this Women’s History Month.

Women’s Inventiveness

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Striving

March 2, 2021- Mother always chortled at the notion that women were anything less than inventive. She essentially told us, “Anyone who thinks, for a minute, that a person can raise children without being the paragon of inventiveness, is nuts.

March is Women’s History Month, so I’d like to note the hugeness of this topic underscores the fact that men, by themselves, can only do a percentage of what needs doing, in moving the human race forward. Here are the stories of two women who invented objects that are today seen as ordinary, but which made a huge difference in everyone’s life.

Margaret E. Knight (1838-1914) was the inventor of the machine that produced the flat-bottomed paper bag, of lid-removing pliers, of a safety device for mechanical looms, of a numbering machine, of a window frame and sash, and of several devices related to the operation of rotary engines. Ms. Knight never married, regarding her inventions as her children. The flat-bottomed paper bag, alone, saved people from the carpal tunnel that resulted from dealing with envelope-style paper bags, day after day. The safety guard for mechanical looms, her earliest invention (at age 12), undoubtedly saved many people from being stabbed by sharp looming threaders and industrial-sized needles which could otherwise be jarred loose and become projectiles.

Bette Nesmith Graham (1924-1980) was the inventor of Liquid Paper, the first commercially successful correctional fluid. Her idea came from the remembrance that artists routinely paint over their mistakes, usually with white paint. Adapting this technique to the common business office, she managed to market correctional fluid, first for typewritten error correction, then for mistakes made using pen and ink. Liquid Paper remains useful in the latter instance, even in these days of largely computerized printing. Fun Fact: Bette Nesmith Graham was the mother of the musician Michael Nesmith, who performed as a member of The Monkees, a 1960s pop music group.

There are ever more far-reaching fruits coming from the human mind, which can never truly be compartmentalized according to physical gender, much less to the circumstances of one’s birth. I will continue, throughout March, to underscore the value of recognizing women’s contributions to our heritage.

The True Rewards

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Education, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

February 19, 2021-

So many times, on a job that pans out over several days, there are twists and turns, taking me to as many as five task-sites in the span of a day. That sort of regimen makes the work interesting and impacts several children, in a meaningful way.

Today, I completed four days in a medium-sized elementary school, mostly working with younger special needs students, one-on-one. For the most part, the work involved helping one or two students with routine academic tasks and increasing their sense of well-being. These children appreciated the efforts and were uniformly pleasant people, with whom to work.

Two others, who had been out the first three days, came back today-making for a full classroom. These two students, both mute and somewhat unsettled, somehow were comforted by my presence- and were far more amenable to following my cues and gestures than those of the regular staff.

Silent communication often allows for more bonding -especially when a troubled person senses that another inherently understands his or her essential difficulties. The two students essentially latched onto me, with little spoken communication on my part. Just seeing them focus on following rules, and want to gravitate towards my direction, was a reward equally as meaningful as the achievements of their classmates.

This may well be the last work I do with elementary level behaviorally-challenged students-as the project with which I have agreed to help, for 1 1/2 months, this spring, is primarily a literacy enhancement effort. I appreciate that my presence is valued, by educators and students, and will take their support with me, for the rest of my days. This is the true reward of being in the arena of service to children.

(In)tractible-Part II

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

February 14, 2021-

The earnest young man got ahead of himself, demanding that his financial problems be addressed, immediately, by those whom he saw as being well-off and comfortable in thier own lives. This went on, for nearly two years, as one potential benefactor, after another, turned away.

The imbalance between one group of people and another, whether it be a matter of money, food, water or, in this present environment, medical supplies to defeat COVID-19 is the single overarching matter facing humanity-and has been for several centuries now. It is viewed by many as a nuisance, a bore, something intractible.

It is my position that things become viewed as intractible largely because of the human impulse to want a matter resolved immediately, if not sooner, that one may move on to the next matter. I get this, very clearly. We are hard-wired as a species to move along and accomplish new and better. We are also, however, hard-wired to notice when others are left behind. This awareness rankles one’s conscience.

There is, simply put, nothing that nettles most people more than being asked for money. We are raised to share food, drink and even clothing with our siblings and those in our neighbourhoods. Money is an entirely different matter- perhaps because of insecurity, as to its possibly running out. So, the homeless, the destitute, the demanding are are seen as impediments, rather than as fellows.

The second seemingly intractible issue, from which many wish to turn away, is the continual persecution and conflict in certain parts of the world, particularly in west Asia. Religion is often blamed for this, but religion is simply a codification of man’s belief in a Higher Power. It has given us a single thread of rules for proper conduct, with the changes in social practice evolving as Mankind itself has evolved. That certain groups have continued to fight and contend with one another, in some cases for millennia on end, is not the fault of the Higher Power, but of the leadership and members of those groups. They are not, inherently, any more or less capable of getting along than are any other groups of people.

These two seemingly intractible issues reflect two phenomena: A lack of systematic process for equitable distribution of goods (food, clothing, water, medicine-and money) and a paralysis of the will to do the hard work, over time, that is needed to resolve deep-seated conflict. Fortunately, there is a shift in the consciousness of many on the planet-and an increase in the number of people in the process of finding and implementing solutions.

Nothing put before us needs to be seen as intractible.

Dereliction

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, distraction issues, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

February 6, 2021-

There are many people still in my life, and several causes that seek attention. I gather that this is true of just about everyone. The question then arises: Is there a point at which being oneself and prioritizing one cause, or group of people, over another constitutes dereliction of duty?

Being an empath, I feel other people’s energy very strongly. That doesn’t explain the underlying reasons for that energy. Only the person feeling it can divulge those. I feel it even more so, when the energy is collective. So, to all those who have expressed the view that a person ought commit to one organization, activity or community, I say godspeed. I will help each organization as alignment allows. My own energy focus allows for a modicum of time spent in virtual meetings- knowing that, as with any human endeavour, there are those who would be on Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, 24/7-and again, godspeed to them. My greater energy, though, is spent away from the computer.

For the time being, that is, for the next two weeks, my priority is helping a couple of schools in dealing with COVID-related staff shortages. Some time will be spent on Red Cross classes, and with a small, but spirited, group of college students who are earnestly planning sustainability activities. There is also the 50% chance that jury duty will transpire, towards the end of this month.

Dereliction of duty is clearly defined, when it comes to parenting, supervision of children in a school setting or service in the public realm. It is less clear, when it comes to the matters of those generally self-sustaining adults who are suffering emotionally or spiritually. This gray area is also on my mind and in my heart, and occupies some of my time, on a case by case basis. Thankfully, most such people are appreciative of any time and energy that others give, as it at least validates that their situation is important to someone.

Keeping the Fire

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 29, 2021- One of the things about the pandemic is that those of us who are officially retired from work are still needed in our professions. This is the sort of thing which happens, especially to nurses and physicians, but also to teachers, EMTs and a variety of people in supporting roles. So, I have gone in, to cover for those sidelined by COVID-19, those who have pandemic-related medical appointments and a few other situations.

One of the features of working with children, in the present environment particularly, is what I see as the need to encourage young people to stand their ground, to speak their truth clearly and not be cowed by any attempts, by ANYONE, to intimidate them into letting go of what they know is deserved. This does not mean that a child should be taught to act in an unbridled and irresponsible manner.

When a person, of any age, does speak the truth to a situation, it is the mark of authenticity, for anyone who hears that truth, to have the speaker’s back. In this school, particularly, those who have stood up and insisted, properly, that matters be handled a certain way have been my greatest allies and have made all the difference between the good days I have had and days that might have gone off the rails.

Even in the rough-edged years, of the 2000s, I still recall those forthright children whose outspoken and compassionate manners bridged the gap between my shakiness and being able to pull things together , not wasting the class’s time. With all to which this generation of students is being asked to endure, that forthrightness, that fortitude that flame, needs to be enkindled more than ever before.

I remain on call, for this, and other acts of community service.

The Big Snow

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Striving

January 25, 2021- The heaviest snow we have seen, since 12/24/2018, arrived late last night, and has continued for most of today. It is expected to go on, until about Noon, tomorrow. As I write this, the white stuff is indeed coming down, in robust fashion.

I grew up, in eastern Massachusetts, with snow being a staple of our winter experience, from mid-December to early March. As with many people, I recall snowdrifts being as tall as, or taller than, my ten-and eleven-year-old self.

I recall reading about the Great Blizzard of 1967, when President Johnson sent military food and fodder drops to the Navajo, Ute and Hopi Nations-and the Southwest was blanketed with snow for days. In 1978, I lived in Bangor, Maine and experienced the three-day blizzard, when it was possible, for those so inclined, to cross-country ski in downtown. I also found myself stuck in Skowhegan, Maine, one snowy February night, and blew off the early morning alarm, only to wake to clear blue skies and scrambling to call in “sick” to my workplace, some thirty miles away. In the mid-1980s, setting out in light snow, from the Navajo community of Tuba City, the storm followed three of us, clear to Tucson, with snow even on the streets of downtown Phoenix. In December, 2000, Aram and I were pursued by a snowstorm, from Roanoke, VA to El Paso, as we took a route across the Deep South, with a view towards avoiding winter weather.

Snow can be fickle, but it also can be intense-and so it is, this evening-with accumulation in even lower-elevation areas of Yavapai County. I was to have gone in to two different COVID-relief school assignments, but Mother Nature simply said “Enough!” Instead, I went out, twice, and did some shoveling, as will likely be on the agenda tomorrow. That, too, is something that was a staple of my childhood-and Mom didn’t even need to ask- we just put on our boots and winter garments, and did it.

It is nice, for now, to have a throwback. Prayers, though, go to those who may have lost power, however temporarily, or who had to find shelter, rather quickly.

Walk Forward; Love All Life

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Posted by on in animal and plant life, children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 20, 2021- In the end, there were no Cabal Trials-and most likely, there is no Cabal, at least not the widespread, nefarious and nearly impregnable network. In the end, the 45th President of the United States took his ball, his fig leaf and whatever memorabilia he chose to bring with him, made two fairly benign speeches and left what his successor described as a “generous” letter, before taking what is likely his final ride on Air Force One, going to his rest haven in Florida.

The transition was well-guarded and peaceful. There was a gentle Inaugural Address from the 46th President, not rambling and with only a few stumbles in pronunciation. I doubt I’ve have done any better. It was essentially what the nation and the world needed to hear. There were heartfelt, well-delivered prayers. A widely popular Country & Western singer offered “Amazing Grace”. An equally popular Pop singer served up “This Land Is Your Land” and “America the Beautiful”. A gifted singer, who once opted for the outrageous in her performances, gave a stellar rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner”. The youngest prominent American poet in decades, gave a heartfelt recitation, as our first National Poet Laureate.

What does not change is the need to examine major issues facing the country from all legitimate angles. The environment is not immune from human influence. Some aspects of climate change are cyclical and would be catastrophic, regardless of the levels of pollution and wanton degradation. There is, however, much that we can, and should, do to safeguard our planet-and by extension, our solar system. Personal attention to conservation begins, as the late John McCain once said, at home. Recycling, in an era of concern for its cost, is tricky, but still must be consistently endeavoured. Water is an essential part of any community development, and requires careful usage, particularly in areas beset by drought. Air quality is likewise a key concern.

Our dietary health is essential. Despite claims from large corporations involved in genetic modification of foods, and their pop culture shills on television and social media outlets, human beings are not meant to subsist on a diet of monocultural crops, nor are such commodities helpful in soil conservation. A wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices, consumed with or without a modest amount of meat, and preferably grown organically, represent the best regimen for disease-free living.

No human being capable of thought and reason deserves to be deprived of the right to make decisions which affect life and well-being. Women inherently have the right to decide what happens with their bodies. The issue can, and does, get messy when it comes to matters of sexuality and procreation. Education is the only path to informed choice, when it comes to abortion and the practice of circumcision (genital mutillation).

Each of the above issues has become fuzzy, due to the influence of deep-pocketed economic interests. Large corporations, such as Monsanto, and financially-driven nonprofits, such as Planned Parenthood, have exercised their influence, in promoting practices that are not necessarily carried out with the interests of individual human beings, including pre-born children, in mind. So, it falls to a widely-based coalition of citizens to build and carry out education programs that can counteract the propaganda of monetized interests.

The current administration has already shown concern for the environment. Its positions on the other two issues are less clear, thus pointing to the need for truly extending its path forward towards consideration for holistic health and the promotion of strong, healthy parents, children and families.