stuff. I pray it makes a difference.

I used to fight crime as the Shadow.

I'd like to think that I make a difference in someone's life everyday. Do I do as much as I'd like to...? Probably not.

Illustrator said:

"The sun is out..."

i'll be running in the CIBC Run For The Cure on September 30th here in Toronto.
And.... if you happened to live or be visiting Toronto next Saturday September 29th, i'm having a pre-race party and you're all invited!
http://www.evite.com/page...l&trk=aei6

I try to walk thru life avoiding all Starbucks'es & thus their eviltry.
And if I have to pass one,
I do so with a wide girth.
By this one act alone,
God knows how many trees I saved.

I always make sure to put the ice cream back into the freezer instead of the fridge.
By this one act alone,
God knows how many whales I've saved.

(Ice cream is made out endangered whale blubber.
Well....good quality gourmet ice cream anyway.)

Illustrator said:

it's not! it's made of whisked egg white and seaweed

violator said:

if you tell Erin she is beautiful every day, you are doing real good

luv4u said:

I TEACH!

WHAP!

DexMSR said:

Teach me!

...

It's my life mission, my work and everyday life. Days like today, I do for myself... tomorrow too. However within even these days, I end up doing for many other causes, as they present themselves. Sometimes, sometimes... I have to say no, I'm sorry... I have nothing to give. Time-out.
[Edited 9/21/07 12:15pm]

I donate old clothes and shoes once a year. At xmas time I give canned goods to the homeless shelters. Once a year I donate to the breast cancer foundation

luv4u said:

I was at a stop light the other day, I had just bought a slice of pepperoni pizza and a drink... I was sitting there waiting for my light, when a young girl like the one in this pic. was looking so hungry and helpless. I opened my window, and handed her my pizza..the look on her face was priceless.

PaisleyPark5083 said:

One time,
when I stopped at an intersection,
some homeless person walked up to my vehicle holding a squirt bottle filled with muddy looking water & a newspaper-rag.
I shooed him away.

I know that doesn't sound like much, but considerin' I was riding my ten-speed bicycle at the time,
by this one act alone,
God only knows how many trees I saved.

Last night I stayed late at work to tutor an 8th grade patient on Algebra. I fear Algebra!

Earlier this year, I taught a beautiful 5 year old patient to read her first words and first book, before she passed away a few months later. I was committed to teach her until the very end.

FreeSpirit said:

I donate clothes quite often and volunteer as well.

I hope that I teach one of my students something new everyday and instill self discipline, conviction, enthusiasm and heart into one of my players.

In the Service of Life
~Rachel Naomi Remen

In recent years the question how can I help? has become meaningful to many people. But perhaps there is a deeper question we might consider. Perhaps the real question is not how can I help? but how can I serve?

Service is different than helping. Helping is based on inequality; it is not a relationship between equals. When you help you use your own strength to help those of lesser strength. If Im attentive to whats going on inside of me when Im helping, I find that Im always helping someone who is not as strong as I am, who is needier than I am. People feel this inequality. When we help we may inadvertently take away from people more than we could ever give them; we may diminish their self-esteem, their sense of worth, integrity and wholeness. When I help I am very aware of my own strength. But we dont serve with our strength, we serve with ourselves. We draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve, our wounds serve, even our darkness can serve. The wholeness in us serves the wholeness in others and the wholeness in life. The wholeness in you is the same as the wholeness in me. Service is a relationship between equals.

Helping incurs debt. When you help someone they owe you one. But serving, like healing, is mutual. When I help I have a feeling of satisfaction. When I serve I have a feeling of gratitude. These are very different things.

Serving is also different from fixing. When I fix a person I perceive them as broken, and their brokenness requires me to act. When I fix I do not see the wholeness in the other person or trust the integrity of the life in them. When I serve I see and trust that wholeness. It is what I am responding to and collaborating with.

There is a distance between ourselves and whatever or whomever we are fixing. Fixing is a form or judgment. All judgment creates distance, or disconnection, an experience of differences. In fixing there is an inequality of expertise that can easily become a moral distance. We cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected, that which we are willing to touch. This is Mother Teresas basic message. We serve life not because it is broken but because it is holy.

If helping is an experience of strength, fixing is an experience of mastery and expertise. Service, on the other hand, is an experience of mystery, surrender, and awe. A fixer has the illusion of being causal. A server knows that he or she is being used and has a willingness to be used in the service of something greater, something essentially unknown. Fixing and helping are very personal; they are very particular, concrete, and specific. We fix and help many different things in our lifetimes, but when we serve we are always serving the same thing. Everyone who has ever served through the history of time serves the same thing. We are servers of the wholeness and mystery in life.

The bottom line, of course, is that we can fix without serving. And we can help without serving. And we can serve without fixing or helping. I think I would go so far as to say that fixing and helping may often be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. They may look similar if youre watching from the outside, but the inner experience is different. The outcome is often different, too.

Our service serves us as well as others. That which uses us strengthens us. Over time, fixing and helping are draining, depleting. Over time we burn out. Service is renewing. When we serve, our work itself will sustain us.

Service rests on the basic premise that the nature of life is sacred, that life is a holy mystery which has an unknown purpose. When we serve, we know that we belong to life and to that purpose. Fundamentally, helping, fixing, and service are ways of seeing life. When you help you see life as weak, when you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. From the perspective of service, we are all connected: All suffering is like my suffering and all joy is like my joy. The impulse to serve emerges naturally and inevitably from this way of seeing.

Lastly, fixing and helping are the basis of curing, but not of healing. In 40 years of chronic illness I have been helped by may people and fixed by a great many others who did not recognize my wholeness. All that fixing and helping left me wounded in some important and fundamental ways. Only service heals.

karmatornado said:

I believe you do

I pretty much ignore strangers, but I do a lot of things(big & small) for family & my real friends.

At the last sacrificial-rite ceremony/ mixer I attended,
we made a wicker-man made almost entirely out of discontinued items from IKEA.
God knows how many trees we saved.