My activity in the care and kindness ministry has pushed me into staying active and even creative in actions and attitudes that fit the loving kindness theme. I'd like to share a couple of ways I am endeavoring to give a tiny spirit-lifting gift to people I meet and connect with in a typical day. When shopping in grocery stores or drugstores, or in a professional environment, like a medical center, I try very hard to read the employees' names, especially their first names, on

The most outstanding phenomenon I took home from our first vacation cruise was about people. It was not the Alaskans, nor the Tlingit Indians; it was not our family, nor our fellow travelers. It was the paid help on the "Radiance of the Sea" cruise ship! This included waiters, room service folks, janitorial staff, greeters, clerks — everybody. There were no exceptions. They were uniformly and consistently friendly, warm, and personable. If you passed any of them under any cir

JUST BE THERE!! We must think of every human being as 'the walking wounded', but we are not to think of how we must fix them . Our fixing is already underway when we greet a stranger, or show up in a hospital room. But we leave the fixing to God. It is enough to stand there in love. We do not have to do much more than that. God surrounds us with His Presence. God is healing us every moment. And that is where we must be. Present! With people! We greet them. We touch them. We

"Listening is easy. I want to know what to say." Those are the words of a frustrated student exasperated with such a big emphasis on listening in care ministry. Listening is not easy. Can you remember the last time someone really listened to you? It's a deep and memorable experience. It doesn't happen often. Most of us are so conscious of ourselves — our ideas, our answers, our experiences — that instead of listening, we are getting read to tell about them as quickly as we c