Soapbox: Patch Adam's Magic 10

For ten weeks of "Soapbox" Wednesdays we have looked at Dr. Patch Adams prescription to heal society and make a better world. 
I took one of his question's each Soapbox and today I am recapping by listing all of them together in his order, with the dates I blogged about each.  
  
Did you try any? Which?
Which looks toughest?   
Which would you like to try? 
Which are achievable? 
What things are stopping us? 


Here they are in his order:

1. If no one wants to end up in a nursing home, what kind of community can celebrate all ages together and honor elders?  [April 4]

2. Could you choose at least one child you're not related to and give them the time and care they need? [May 2]

3. If compassion and generosity were the measure of success that money and power are now, how would your life change? [April 25]

4. In order to bond your neighborhood in healthy interdependence you would need to host weekly potlucks. Would you?  [April 11]

5. If being publicly joyful, even silly, were beneficial for our society, would you participate? [March 21]

6. If you have rooms at your home, why not take in single parents as a gift? [May 16]

7. How can we move to an economics of friendship? [March 28]

8. Could you do ten or more volunteer hours each week to make a healthier world? [April 18]

9. Do you dare to be universally friendly to end violence? [May 9]

10. Can you match the cost of everything you buy with a donation to an environmental sustainability project? [May23]

Patch Adam's Ten Questions to Help Heal Society:
Take 10 and Call Me in the Morning!

website: http://www.patchadams.org/questions.htm

Soapbox: Shared Housing?

This week's question from Patch Adams takes the concept of foster care in a different direction and seems to be particularly timely given the economic challenges so many people are experiencing. But I warn you, this one is really tough. On the other hand... it can offer wonderful blessings too! I know this because I have lived a version of this. 

6. If you have rooms at your home, why not take in single parents as a gift?

I have a unique perspective on this because of an unexpected turn my household took over two years ago. Readers Digest version: There was a young couple in our church who for a variety of circumstances, not their fault, were unable to continue living in their home. It began quite simply...my recently deceased father's house was empty and furnished as we prepared to get it ready to rent out in the summer. The couple and their 8-month-old baby had no place to live, my sibs and I had this house that was empty.  We offered them the use of the house until the summer rentals began. Everyone expected them to be able to move home within a few months.  Circumstances got worse and that was not possible, yet we had renters arriving starting in May and we needed the rentals to pay the house's cost. By then we had gotten to know the couple well, and after a discussion with my kiddos, I offered them the use of our downstairs family room and the downstairs bathroom as long as they needed it.

Thus, for 10 months we shared our home with this young family. That now seems long ago.  The daughter is now over 3 and has an almost 1yr old brother. The friendship that began while sharing space has continued, grown and deepened. My foster kiddos [now 14, 17, and 20] became adept diaper changers, tantrum calmers, and much much more.  They are worshipped by those two small children.  The boys have had a male role model. All of them have now seen [and lived with] a father who loves his wife and cares for his children, as compared with the unhappy memories of their own fathers. I had support through an unexpected health crisis. They had moral support through a really tough time. Was it all perfect, no. Of course not.  Sometimes the close quarters were a bit too close.  Many people do not understand. Differences in attitudes and habits create ripples. But the overall experience was a blessing to everyone concerned.  They have now been back in their own home for long enough to almost forget the time they weren't. They are so happy to be back.  We are happy for them.  We will always have a friendship very different than most.

Living with us with all the challenges of my kiddos was a real eye-opener and education for them.  Having them live with us was a reminder and education for us as well.  And, as a 60-something single woman, I now see wider choices for my later years than a small apartment or living with one of my children.  I now look at Adams' question and wonder who he thought was getting the gift.  I think both the single parent [or in our case, married parents] get a gift, but so does the hosting family or person.  

Not everyone has room, but so many of us have more space than we really really need when you come right down to it. And so many people are in desperate need.  Could you have a new kind of "open house" for someone?  Co-housing arrangements require open minds, and flexible spirits.  But the gift you can give and the gift you can receive is like no other.

Image credits:  finkorswim.com, zazzle.com, acespickens.org

Soapbox: Universal Friendliness?

I started with questions I felt fairly comfortable with and clear about.  Now we're on what to me are the tougher ones. 

9. Do you dare to be universally friendly to end violence?

Ok, so is he talking about ending bullying by universal friendliness?  i suspect he would say that is a start, but only a start. I think maybe he is talking about forgiveness and openness as a route to ending an atmosphere prone to violence.

I try to live a faith-based life, but have always struggled with the concept of forgiveness.  Well, not actually the concept. The practice.  I do not hate.  But to say that I have forgiven everyone who has done me wrong would not be true.  I do well with the little stuff.  I suspect most of us do.

How many people in your life have you not forgiven?  I have given this a great deal of thought and realize that in my life there are only four people that I know I have not forgiven.  One of those has died, but even before he died, I had put his offense behind me.  But in truth that is different from forgiveness.

And friendliness? That is a step well beyond forgiveness. Is that what it would take?  I think he realizes this is tough, because in the others he uses words like "would you" and "could you."  In this he says "Do you dare."  Because it is a risk to be sure.  For me to see those I have not forgiven and not just forgive. Could I see or meet them and be friendly? 

That would indeed take inner daring.

                                                 What do you think?

Image credits:  rodneymullins.wordpress.com, womenscenter.uconn.edu,toppun.com, 

Soapbox: A Child in Need

This week's question from Dr. Patch Adams is an intriguing one for me and all foster parents.  It is:

2. Could you choose at least one child you're not related to and give them the time and care they need?

At this very moment there are approximately half a million children who are without a permanent family and home. They desperately need time and care and love. They also need stability. These are not starving children crammed together in cribs in some foreign orphanage.  These are children in our own country.  They are children of neglect. They are children who have been abused and traumatized.  They are children of desperation and hopelessness. And they are the future!

They are the children who are learning not to trust. They are learning that people who love you, hurt you or abandon you or fail to care for you. They are in your community, no matter where you live.  They are in your schools, and all too often, they are on your streets. I am deeply pained to admit that some of them are in the care of people whose job is to protect them but who may not be protecting them. [I believe that is a small minority unlike what the media would like to imply!] But most of them are just guarding themselves as they shift from place to place, from person to person, as their hope in the future gets more and more dim, more and more deeply buried. 

They are not just small ones either.  Some of these "children" who so desperately need someone to help them, someone to be there, someone to care, have passed the cuddly cute baby and toddler stage.  They are grown to the point that even they realize their chances for a family home are racing out of the hourglass faster than grains of sand. They are boys and girls at an age when biology and development make them struggle and fight for independence they are not prepared to sustain.

Patch Adams doesn't say foster care or adoption specifically. Although I believe that is the most crucial need, if you can't make that leap, don't be stopped. Maybe it is a child in a good, loving family who just needs a mentor, an outside champion?  How many children do you know?  In your church? In your neighborhood?  At the grocery store?  Do you show them you care about them?   How often do you speak to them?  Do they look forward to and receive a smile from you every time you see them? Start by learning their name. Make a conscious point to smile and meet their eyes.  It is a place to start.  

Image credits: seattletimes.nwsource.com, ericsblog.org, more4kids.info, newsinjuryboard.com

Soapbox: Charlie Sheen, George Clooney and Patch Adams

I am continuing to work my way through Dr. Patch Adams'  Prescription for the World... his ten questions that could change society. It has proved an interesting, challenging ride. Today's is his #3:


If compassion and generosity were the measure of success that money and power are now, how would your life change?


Soooo, I have been thinking a lot this week about how much time has been spent by how many people, listening to stories of misbehaving celebrities. Last year it was Charlie Sheen.  Talking about Charlie Sheen.  Debating, Berating, or Accepting Charlie Sheen.  ALL of my kids know who he is and according to them, everyone at school was talking about Charlie Sheen. He still comes up a year later.  And Lindsay Lohan.  Or the millionaire polo player involved in a deadly hit and run accident and who "adopted" his girlfriend to protect his fortune!

Here is my thought.. Perhaps as parents we need to openly and consciously celebrate compassion and generosity out loud, in our conversations with our kids.  They say that child's body image is negatively affected if we always talk about trying to lose weight ourselves.  What if the same is true about compassion and generosity? 


There are celebrities who measure their compassion and generosity as part of their success.  There are people with money and power who see that as a tool for compassion and generosity. Consider how much time the news, the television, the water coolers, and maybe we have spent discussing Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen's choices and values.  

How much time have we spent discussing Bill Gate's, Bill Cosby's and George Clooney's use of their fame, wealth, and power. Famous people, powerful people, wealthy people CAN and DO measure their success also in compassion and generosity.  THEY are the celebrities we should be talking about. Do our kids even know who Patch Adams is or what his goals were? 


And why just celebrities?  Let's find the George Clooney's and Bill Gates' of our own communities. Let's celebrate and talk about their choices to our children.  Let's find people around us who DO measure their success by their compassion and generosity and surround our children [and ourselves] with those people.  

Soapbox: Volunteering

For the last several Wednesdays I've been tackling the ten challenges set forth by Dr. Patch Adams to change society. Last week was pretty do-able. Today is just one of the challenges I have to admit I have been avoiding. It is number 8 on Dr. Patch's list:


Could you do ten or more volunteer hours each week to make a healthier world?


Wow!  I admit I can't even imagine finding ten hours each week.  Do I think it could transform the world for the better.. absolutely.  But how?  Some days it seems all I can do to find clean clothes for everyone and be sure there is milk and toilet paper in the house. Where would I find time to volunteer much less ten hours?  


I think that for most people with jobs or families, ten hours is probably unrealistic and just makes people skip it all together.  So, I decided to stop getting stuck on the number ten and just think in terms of sneaking snippets of volunteering into my life.I started talking out loud to the kids using the word volunteering. I started labeling the work I do in the church and for the school. I want the children to grow up with a sense of responsibility to be involved in the community, to volunteer their skills and their time.   

I have the kids shovel out the nearby fire hydrants and help me stop in to check on some older folks I know. I find ways for them to pitch in at church to welcome kids, to help set up the snacks, even to help in Sunday School classes for younger kids. I usually did, but now it is more purposeful as my daughters would say. 


So, Dr. Patch... I don't think I will make it to your standard goal on this one, at least not for a while, but I am glad to be challenged by it.  


Image credits:  ccjhs.shcsc.k12.in.us, associatedcontent.com

Soapbox: Potluck, Anyone?

Today I continue looking at the Patch's Prescriptions for a Better Society. This week I challenge us to try another, perhaps easier one of Dr. Adam's questions:

In order to bond your neighborhood in healthy interdependence you would need to host weekly potlucks. Would you?

I suspect that, although this is more complicated, it is probably more comfortable than the first week's challenge to demonstrate public joy. It is not more expensive, since the intent is a pot-luck, you are not expected to feed everyone. You just host, invite, take the chance.  Oh yes, you also probably lay out the paper plates and the food as it comes in. The simpler you keep it, the more likely people are to 1-feel comfortable, 2- be willing to come again, and 3- be willing to host one themselves sometime!


If you live in an apartment...how about your floor or building mates?  If you live out in the wilds, try three friends who have not been over lately.  If Dr. Adams' challenge of weekly potlucks seems daunting, how about once a month?

Soapbox: Honor Your Elders

Today a third look at Patch's Prescriptions for a Better Society. This week I challenge us to try another, perhaps more complicated one of Dr. Adams' questions:  

If no one wants to end up in a nursing home, what kind of community can celebrate all ages together and honor elders? 

This seems a tough one to tackle if you are an individual.  But, think of small ways to integrate elders into your life and your children's lives on a routine basis.  Yes, it would be wonderful if there were developments or blocks with a tidy mix of ages and generations, but those are harder and harder to find as families spread out across miles and miles.  As a grandmother raising younger children I know both the blessings and the challenges of mixing generations. I think the blessings far outweigh the challenges. [At least most days I do!] 

Look around your neighborhood for people of other ages. If you attend a faith organization that may be the easiest place to find a range, but you can find them without that if you look.  Teach your children to make eye contact with elders in the neighborhood, smile, and say hello. Don't just stop at their house when your children have a magazine or gift wrap sale, stop by other times.  Consider inviting them to supper once in a while.  Maybe take them some leftovers now and then. [I almost always have enough leftovers to make a meal for a elder woman or man living alone.] If you are making a grocery run, check if they need something. If your kids go apple picking, share some.  It may not build a bond every time or with every one. But, for each connection you make your children will be richer and will have enriched the elders life as well. In this day when grandparents often live a distance away, your children will have other elders to cheer them on, celebrate their special days, to share stories of the past with, and more if you just start teaching your children to reach out and share their lives. 


Make and send them or deliver a Valentine's Day card!! It is a perfect excuse for starting to connect. 


Image credits: gmathur.blogspot.com, associatedcontent.com

Soapbox: Friendship Economy

Here is my second post in the series on Dr. Patch Adams' Rx for a better society. This is #7 in Adams' 10 challenges and it involves friendship. He asks us:
How can we move to an economics of friendship?
I've never met Patch Adams, and I am not completely sure what he means by "economics of friendship." My desktop dictionary defines economics as "the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services." How many goods and services of friendship do we produce, distribute, and consume?  

My father once talked to me about friendship as a bank account. He was trying to teach me as a child that you must put into a friendship as well as take out. You will certainly lose many friends if all you do is consume the goods and services of friendship. But you are also likely to lose friends if you only produce and distribute friendship.  This was a surprise to me, but has turned out to be true as I grew up.  Part of keep a friendship healthy is the balance of give and take.  Let you friends help you sometimes, just as you help them.  

There is a lot of talk in the news about our economy of money.  One of the things I enjoy on the news are the people stories of those who have stepped up in these tight times to help others.  The people who are definitely producing and distributing the goods and services of friendship.  But we can all do it better I expect. Maybe we could keep track for a week of how many actual goods and services of friendship we each produce distribute and consume.  How many quick check-in phone calls, or an occasional long listen to someone,or a visit, or card, or kindess extended?  If the economics of friendship were monitored as much as the financial economics I suspect the strains of a rough stretch would be far far easier to bear.

Image credits: nazarsudhakar.blogspot.com, selfempowermentsecrets.com, boncherry.com

Soapbox: Public Joy

About a year and a half ago I ran a series during my Wednesday Soapbox slots that people really seemed to appreciate.  I have been asked to rerun those posts. If anyone misses my usual soapbox posts, let me know and I will return to them.  Otherwise we will revisit Dr. PAtch Adam's Prescription to Change Society.

 Has anybody heard of Dr. Patch Adams?  Yes, the one on whose life the Robin Williams movie was based. Although the movie oversimplified his approach [of course] he did believe that "laughter, joy, and creativity are an integral part of the healing process." He once wrote a list of Ten Questions he thought could change our society.  Called "Patch's Prescription" it is his "Take 10 and call me in the morning." So I got thinking that maybe we could try one or two each week and see if we saw any difference in our lives or those around us. [Check out the link if you want to know some of what the soapbox will be looking at in the next few Wednesdays.]

Since we've been talking joy... let's look at his question about joy:

"If being publicly joyful, even silly, were beneficial for our society, would you participate?"

You can choose to do something small but silly like wear a clown nose, or two ties, or mismatched socks. Get some friends to join you! You can try being a bit more daring anonymously with a chicken dance in public or with some friends like the Inspired Mayhem group who also tried some silly walks in public to see if others would join in. Flash mobs are one of the better known examples of large groups and public silliness.
Some flash mobs create the effect by doing nothing in the middle of a grocery store.  

In NYC and other major cities there is an annual, really radical: No Pants Subway Day  [3500 participated in NYC in January]
In the UK they did two public art projects to revive the sense of silly in adults.

Sometimes silly even catches on and becomes a fad [Think hula hoops, pet rocks, and silly bandz!]

So. I challenge each of you to participate in an act of public joy this week.  If you are more radical or more daring, organize a group activity. Let's see what happens.  Let's make joyfulness contagious!  Think what could happen. I suspect Dr. Adams would be proud.  


Image credits: bradmontgomery.com, shoponline2011.com,unexpectedidea.com, selectaspeaker.com

Soapbox: Let Them Be Children!

Yesterday I saw a family of five in the mall.  They were two parents and three daughters, and they brought me up short.  I don't know if they had come from having a picture taken or from a special family event or what, but they were clearly dressed up  in their best.  I was transported back to times when my girls and I were all dressed up.  But I was a bit stunned by the differences I saw.  When my girls were young, dressed up meant Polly Flinders smocked dressed with "Peter Pan" collars and fully fluffed bows in the back. Hair was pulled, tugged and cajoled into braids or ponytails.

Even older girls of middle school age wore "children's" styles, although the hair styles began to have more era-reflected variations. They still wore clothes distinctly different from the grown women or high school/college girls.

Now I know that styles change, but my point is that there was a difference in the style of girl's clothes and mom's clothes.  No mothers wore Polly Flinders smocking or big bows in back [although there was an occasional Peter Pan collar on a blouse or dress.].  There were distinct style differences between kids clothing and adults clothing.

It seems now that the only difference is size and proportion.

Little girls clothes now more often wear clothes that are just like their mother's clothes only miniaturized. It makes me a bit sad.  There is so little that is left to be special and distinct about childhood for children now.

It also makes me worried.  If we dress them as mini-adults from toddler years why are we surprised when they attempt/affect other adult styles and behaviors at a too-early age?

I won't rant on about this... just pose that question. But, I am going to spend a few posts over the next few weeks celebrating the fun of childhood activities and moments, of considering rediscovering some of the old pasttimes for children... before iPods and iPads and DVDs and more.  Come along... try a few.
Let's bring back childhood!

Image credits and thanks to: photomeanderings.com, kidsfashion.about.com, blogs.babble.com, flickr.com

Soapbox: Gather or Scatter??

I am just back from my trip to the west coast and considerably jet-lagged so forgive today's brevity...  I may still be sleeping as you read this    :-)

Today I ask you to consider what do you work to acquire?....

Do you collect money?

  

Do you collect jewels?  

Do you collect silver and gold?






Here is one of my favorite quotes to think about today....

"It's not what you gather but what you scatter that determines the value of your life."


So today at least, be thought-less about what you gather and instead focus on what you scatter.

Scatter happiness.

Scatter joy.

Scatter love.

Soapbox: Happiness is Contagious!

Did you know that if a friend of your's who lives two miles away from you is happy, you too are 22% more likely to be happy.  If your friend lives less than half a mile away, you are 42% more likely to be happy! Happiness is contagious and now there is indication of proof! Two scientists [one from Harvard and one from UCSD] collected data from almost 5,000 people over a 20-year study of the spread of happiness.

Remember the Six Degrees of Separation game? Well, the Fowler and Christakis study found that the happiness contagion holds up for three degrees of separation! The slide at left is their diagram of a Framingham, MA social network.  The individuals are color coded in gradations from blue for sadness to yellow for happiness.

Check out this website to read a 2008 professional article by the two scientists describing the study and its results. ["Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network: A longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study" published December 4, 2008 in the British Medical Journal/BMJ]

Check out this website to see a short blogpost describing and reacting to the research study.

Remember when your parents told you to stay away from negative people, cause they would bring you down; to play with happy, cheerful people?  Turns out, they were wise once again.  So, now we have scientific evidence that tells us that by being happy [especially being openly happy] WILL make other people happy too! Happiness IS contagious!! Go "infect" the world!

Soapbox: World Love

So, today is the day after Valentine's Day.

What has changed?  .....Nothing?   .....Something? 

In theory, we spent yesterday letting people know they are loved.
Are we through?
Are we all set until next February?
Or will we keep the spirit going?
Will we be sure they know it and are told it every day?
Will we stop with the people we know or push the feeling beyond our inner circle?

How would that world look?

Why can't it happen?
On October 31, 2011 the world population reached 7 billion people. Too many to reach? It is if you try to do it alone.  According to the Huffington Post it you tried to greet each person one at a time, one per second it would take you 222 years non-stop!
But, if one person told two people per day, who each told two the next day,  who each told two the next day and so on.... thanks to the power of exponential growth, the messsage of love could thoreticallly reach every living person on earth in less than 33 days!

Wouldn't that change the world ? !

Image credit: arquazuarma.blogspot.com

Soapbox: "I Love You" Language Challenge

I found a blog-site post that lists the phrase "I Love You" in 179 different languages! [Click the underlined phrase to check it out!]
  
It focuses on the actual words  "I Love You" and translates it nearly 200 ways, both informal and formal in for languages spoken in hundreds  different countries. 

Let's get ready for Valentine's Day.  I challenge each of us to see how many times we sincerely can say the words "I love you" to people we care for between now and Valentine's Day.  Add in writing the words "I love you" in little notes left for those same people to find as they go about their days.  Maybe you want to do it anonymously, at least for some of the times. Maybe you want to do it for those who may not often hear it.  Maybe you want to focus on a particular person and just lavish them for a week.

Just words you might be tempted to think?  I thought about soapboxing about putting actions behind words. Then I decided that words are not a bad place to start, a way to begin.  Besides, hearing those three words is still music to most people's ears, and the words are beautiful to see and hold.

So check out that blog-site. Maybe you want to leave the words in a different language each time for fun.  See how many you know.  But whatever the language.... let's not hold onto those words right now... this is a great time to set them free and share them generously! 

Image credit: nedya-sygs.blogspot.com

Soapbox: The Least of Them

Note: For some reason this post didn't load automatically as it was scheduled to, so I am hand-posting it although it is now almost 10 pm and soapbox day is almost over. I feel strongly about this, so I don't want to wait until next Wednesday.  I may end up skipping tomorrow's instead. Here it is:

The Least of Them

I seldom talk politics.  But today I share a quote from Senator and former Vice-President Hubert H. Humphrey's very last speech.  It is his political application of the Biblical assertation that we be judged by how we treat the "least of them."

In my state, as in many many other states, budget cuts are impacting funding for schools, for foster care, for special education, for medical insurance for the poor, support services for the handicapped, etc etc etc.  I see the same types of issues playing out on a national level as well.

So I offer some of Humphrey's parting words. I wish I could send this message to each and every politican, town and state budget planner, administrators, church goers, non-church goers, and to any and every decision maker.

How might our country and our world change if each on of them and each on of us could really hear it, believe it, and act on it !?!

So here is the quote from Hubert H. Humphrey's very last speech.

"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. "

How do we fare?

Will our leaders hear?


Can we make the right choices?

What future will we help create?