So I was driving home with the kids today, and one of my all time favorite songs came on, it was Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”. As we come to a stop in the garage, I turned around, askinf my 8 year old son “do you know what he is saying in this song” , he replies, “yes mom, he is looking in the mirror”, I say, “well who do you see in the mirror?” , my son replies “yourself mom, you see yourself”…….
My kids have this favorite book I read to them, the title is “Have you filled a bucket today“. Can you guess the premise? Yes, its about how doing simple acts of kindness change the world around you. But the beauty of being a bucket filler is that not only do you fill your own bucket when you “fill” someone else’s, you fill your own at the same time! Such a simple concept, but you know, it really stuck with them and I wonder, if such a simple idea might not be good for adults to remember too.
Sooooooo, I guess what I am wondering, is have you “filled a bucket” for someone or had someone show you an act of kindness? Maybe, just once, we could have one thread that did not have one snide, nasty, or cutting comment.
A VERY nice salesperson at Best Buy was willing to charge my DVD car player overnight so the kids would be able to watch movies on the way to the Beach. All we had to do was leave it at the store and they used an adapter from an unsold model as we had lost ours. TOTALLY above and beyond.
Yesterday, as we were on a mobile Neighborhood Watch patrol about midnight, we encountered an Hispanic man out walking his dog. As we passed, he looked up, saw the NW signs on our marked patrol car, gave us a big smile, waved, and said thank you.
I have been flat on my back since Wednesday with what must be the Plague. Mr. Howler has had to be the man and woman of the house and he hasn’t even whined.
We as a nation and a people must stay strong and succeed, for if we falter we will no longer be able to help others. The people in the video images have at one time or another depended on us for aid whether their political or religious leaders have turned them against us or not. This is the on going legacy of this great nation, a nation that has helped fill many buckets.
My bucket overfloweth. I have met so many incredible people through neighborhood meetings and work in the neighborhoods and the Week of Hope volunteers in the City of Manassas. If they’re working on a project, and come upon someone who needs assistance, they drop what they’re doing and that person and their need becomes the priority. Hope is the key word. You keep pushing along and don’t let anyone’s negative attitudes discourage you. We all remember the simple kindnesses people have done for us at times of need.
In the last year or so, I’ve been reconnecting with long-distance family members. I was just in time to find out a cousin was in the process of being diagnosed with leukemia. It’s been wonderful reminiscing with her, exchanging photos of our kids and being able to be there to encourage her. She’s now in remission, thank God. I cannot imagine how I would have felt if I had left the relationship neglected, and then lost her. Sometimes I’m pretty sure the really good ideas don’t just come to us out of nowhere.
Elena, you are SUCH a counselor…I just love it!
The other day I helped in the delivery of food items to a family in need. This family worked so hard, but I have been so worried about them for a long time. Their home was in desperate need of repair. Water had flooded their basement many times. Mold was throughout the house, and their toilet was in disrepair. They used propane to cook and heat their home. Habitat for Humanity could not help them because the owner didn’t live in the home.
The home is used by a couple of sisters raising their kids together; a relative let them use the old property but didn’t have the money for improvements. One sister finds work where she can, while the other takes care of the children during the day. Both have ex husbands who pay no child support.
I am happy to say that when I handed over the huge box of food that Girl Scouts collected for the summer (as well as some hand-me-down clothes donated by some school staff), the working sister let me know that a neighbor had spear-headed an effort to help them repair the house. Contractor friends donated their time and some basic supplies to repair and remodel the home. The family and neighbors gather food and cook on the grill for all the workers each weekend.
I have never seen this woman more positive about life. She looks great, told me about what she is doing to better her family’s situation, etc. For the first time, moving forward seems an option to her because this burden is starting to lift.
I can’t even tell you how community generosity and respect filled my bucket! It was so refreshing to hear how, instead of complaining about the house or the family ad nauseum, this community chose to be positive, chip in, and love thy neighbor. Everyone benefits, and their buckets are filled.
@Diversity Gal
Now, THAT’S one wonderful happening. Lifting people up rather than putting them down. Giving hope for the future, what can be more fullfilling (buckets) than that?
MH I hope you are feeling better soon!
We had a wonderful time celebrating our daughter’s birthday all weekend with a fab family who made it a special and fun event.
Also, we have had so many generous, caring people help out our family when we have had crises. A shout out to these angels–the known and the unknown–thank you! We couldn’t have made it without you.
My bucket was spilled and then refilled yesterday by certain events and thoughts and by something which I heard on the radio news. In the America of today we have long and loud arguments about almost every issue on the table. One of those contemporary issues is illegal immigration. We express our anger on both sides of that issue. Some strongly criticize the politicians who fail to take action to protect our borders and more closely regulate and control immigration and who even play the ethnic vote game. Others claim that those who are the strongest voices against illegal immigration have no sympathy for the downtrodden, who are just trying to feed their families in any way they can. Accusations of “racism”, spoken and implied, sometimes creep into the argument, as do cries of a lack of patriotism on the other side. It can get downright nasty at times on the verbal and political scale.
Yesterday I sat down and tried to remember the last time in Loudoun or PWC or Fairfax, all localities where illegal immigration is an acute issue, when an American citizen actually undertook to physically attack and harm an individual deemed rightly or wrongly to be an illegal immigrant. I could not remember any such cases in Eastern Loudoun, where the illegal immigration issue has been hot button for a long time. In my neighborhood, in my community, in my town, an Hispanic person can walk down any street and not have a fear of being accosted and attacked because he is Hispanic and suspected of being illegal. I cannot remember anything like that in PWC or Fairfax either, although perhaps I missed some things outside my own home area. I know this has happened on several occasions elsewhere in the general vicinity — two cases on Long Island and in a small Pennsylvania town, to be more specific, come immediately to mind — and I know that Los Angeles has become somewhat of a battleground between Black and Latino gangs. But on the whole there has been a great deal of restraint in the midst of a very hot argument around here and in many parts of the country. I see that as a plus for the way most of us Americans have learned to do business even in the most stressful of times. That filled my bucket.
So, why do I talk about this bucket now and what did I hear on the radio? I am a serious philatelist — stamp collector. In a shipment for approval a few weeks ago I received a pair of stamps printed in the Netherlands in 1942. The stamps depicted a German soldier in a Wehrmacht helmet superimposed over a Dutch scene. Those stamps made me think once again about how the Dutch reacted to occupation and how many of them risked their lives to hide and protect those Jews sought out by the Nazi death machine. The family of Anne Frank was only the most prominent example of this. Being of Dutch ancestry myself, I have long known the history of that country and, like the noted historian Simon Schama, have always thought of Holland as a little country with a big heart.
But yesterday, my bucket spilled. The radio brought me an account of the distinct rise of ant-semitism in Western Europe. The Jews are once again the target of hate. Then the radio reporter brought up the subject of my little Holland with a big heart. It seems that Jews in Holland are now being physically accosted and even attacked on the streets of Holland. In fact, it appears to have reached such an extent that the Dutch police are now sending out undercover cops dressed in items of traditional Jewish garb in an effort to lure the race haters and catch them in the act of attempting violence. Typical of our PC world, the radio did not identify the race of the attackers. You had to guess. But this is Holland in the space of only 65 years since the death knell was visited upon Nazi Germany.
My personal bucket got spilled and then refilled, spilled by what I heard on the radio and refilled by not being able to pinpoint a single incidence in my own community where an immigrant was attacked simply because of the color of his skin and a suspicion that he might be illegal. It has not always been that way in America, as we all know. But I like to think that most of us have learned some important lessons on our historical wanderings into the present. Then I thought again about that Hispanic man who, upon seeing Neighborhood Watch, smiled and waved to us as though the different colors of our skin mattered not a bit.
Thanks for sharing those reflections, Wolverine. You bring up an important point–several of them in fact.
We have had people killed here because they were immigrants…indirectly. The one that comes to mind happened over in the city and it was part of a robbery. Immigrants have been preyed on in both communities because they carry cash. Now, that is certainly not a hate crime but one of opportunity. Immigrant conditions have made immigrants the recipient of crime. I hope I have made sense.