Kindling the fire in your heart

What are those things in your life that when you think about give you the shivers? The really good kind that make you know we are connected in this world, the kind that make love pour out of your heart?

Like when Lisa who had been running with the kids in the running club (the kids in flip flops) goes back to New York with the idea to use her connections at Nike to see about getting running shoes for a whole lot of them, maybe pursuing a commercial to help convince them.

Like when Marc, squatting on the ground taking in a ‘heated’ discussion, calmly interjects a directional comment that “each and every volunteer here is giving 100%. One hundred percent.” Of their time, thoughts, and effort.

Like when my boyfriend Ralph says he decided to raise and match money to build a school in Haiti, sitting in the dry sun at Cafe Sole one afternoon and then working side by side with him seven weeks later at the site in Leogane, under the hot humid sun, next to fields of sugarcane on one side and locals building their homes on the other.

Like when Chris at a meeting takes a routine ‘task’ of returning an empty glass coke bottle to its correct owner to the higher level of how that one bottle really influences the livelihood of the Haitian business owner, influences his family.


Like when Marc takes ‘rubbling’ to its higher level - what in one sense is simply collapsing and crushing concrete and moving a pile of rocks from one place to another, in another sense is a critical step to rebuilding the life of a family - the first stage in allowing them to move out of a 10 foot by 10 foot tent in an IDP camp back to the site of their home, to set up a transitional shelter as they rebuild their house, their home. The literal translation of Haiti, or Ayiti, is home, mother of the earth, or homeland. With the removal of the unwanted, homes can be rebuilt, Haiti can be rebuilt.

It is the same sun that lights our way - whether dry in Boulder, hot and humid in Leogane city, or great Eastern from the top of Everest. The fire in our hearts that is kindled with these thoughts and sayings and actions for others, this internal fire is a gentle nudge for our brains to connect the thoughts that we are one body, under one sun. Vraiment.

Where is the suffering in your life? Who do you know who is suffering? And how can you help them, bring the light inside of them out, and lift the spirit of all?