ME TO WE, part 1

No sixty year old blonde-by-the-bananas last night but I did see an attractive fifty-something moovin' and groovin' to the grocery store tunes. While winding her way through the aisles, she couldn't help herself from singing along with the rock and roll oldies emitting from the ceiling speakers. Is this the death knell for musak? There is a God!
Faithful readers will remember my mentioning a book that my daughter gave me for Christmas, written by the two young brothers, Craig and Marc Kielburger, called Me to We. After being awakened by the wind howling through the trees, chimes and fence gates at 4 AM this morning, I would normally have climbed on the computer (not the treadmill!) to start reviewing emails. Halfway to the computer I use at home, and still out of sight of the treadmill, I realized that I had taken the CPU in for cleaning/wiping/erasing or whatever it's called, of the hard drive. I made a pot of coffee and settled in to finish Me to We. Some readers insist on the 30 second version of a book before deciding to read it, so this morning's post is dedicated to a very quick overview of the Me to We philosophy. It is heavily paraphrased by your faithful interpreter and therefore, mistakes and apologies are mine.
Simply said, each of us has been given a gift. Regardless of our childhood experiences, regardless of economic or health circumstances, regardless of physical or mental constraints, each of us has received gifts. When we create an "action" word with these gifts, they become "passions." Each of us is passionate about at least one thing, but more probably, more than one. One of the major life purposes that we all share is to search for our passion. Here's a hint, most passions end in "-ing" as in an action word like running, writing, dancing, photographing, reading, riding, cooking, speaking......and for some, working. We receive this gift/passion without asking for it. It is ours to use as both a gift and a responsibility from the God that is our source. Here's the catch, whether we search and find our gifts, or find and don't use them doesn't matter - there is still a price to pay for them. They are not free. If we choose to ignore or not seek our passions, we pay the price in things like depression, stress and anxiety which always lead to sickness, disease and worse. This is the result of the frustration from not being in our "right" place or sometimes referred to as, not fulfilling our destiny. If, on the other hand, we have spent the time to discover our passions, we must still pay a price. The price we pay is to share our passions with someone else. We use our gifts to help, inspire, teach, raise money, motivate, feed, create joy or whatever we know is necessary, to bring light into the world. No matter the size of our help, a smile, some volunteer time, a cheque, a piece of clothing, seeds, a pat on the back, our responsibility for the receipt of our gifts is to pay for them, one way or the other. The bigger the gift, the bigger the price, but it always starts with one small step. What step can we take today to begin paying for the abundance we share. If this makes any sense to you, start by buying a copy of Me to We and reading it, before passing it on to someone you know. I will put up a link to the Me to We website soon.