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today 		"The things we want are really the times we share."

"The most important things we bring with us are within us."

"If I had only one thing I would take a smile over an iPod."

~ Rob Hueniken

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Social Change

Honoring Others with Alternative Gifts

by Rob Hueniken on Friday, December 10, 2010

honor-others-with-a-special-gift-for-them

There is a growing and excellent trend moving through our society: honoring our friends and family with special gifts for their birthday and on holidays. While there are still times when people need a new iPod, TV, or other gizmo, a lot of people already have a lot of things, and enjoy going out themselves and buying the particular model they want.

And while there are no shortages of sweet things and entertaining things we can buy for people we love, there is also no shortage of people in our world who really need our help, be it clothes, food, shelter, medicine or a micro-loan to start up a business.

give-a-goatOne of the first organizations to realize how great we feel when we help others is World Vision. Their catalog includes the things that poor and starving third-world people really need, including goats, ducks, medicine and mosquito nets. And while we and our friends are unlikely to want a goat for ourselves (they're a bit noisy and tend to eat clothing while riding the elevator) I guarantee two things:

1) There are definitely people in the world who would love to own a goat, so that they can have milk for their family.

2) When you give your friend a print-out about a family that is thrilled to have that goat (and maybe suggest that goat might be named after them) they are going to laugh and appreciate what a cool and generous thing the two of you have done for our world – turning our good fortune and celebration into something important that we can share.

And since giving a goat to someone is a good idea, organizations like World Vision have already figured out who needs the goats. You don't have to wander around, asking people if they'd like a goat or a chicken — you just pay for the animal or medicine or shelter, and let them figure out how to get it to the right person.

help-bring-clean-water-to-others

You can find all sorts of alternative gift ideas
by searching the web for:

alternative gifts

Here are just a few of the many ways to give
alternative gifts:

Alternative Gifts International

Doctors Without Borders

Provide clean water

Plant a tree and encourage others

Mercy Corps: Gifts that change lives

Make a micro-loan to help someone start a business

World Vision: give a goat

Mission Services: A local Community-focused relief organization

The Salvation Army – helping the homeless

Adopt some wildlife

When it's time to honor a friend or family member this year, honor them with a gift you'll both remember and be proud of.

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Tagged as: alternative gift, birthday, christmas gifts, gifts, Life, presents, Social Change

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Celebrating endless love

by Rob Hueniken on Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Today we celebrated the truly endless love of family and friendships — the love that each of us can be part of.

I had the honor of helping to celebrate the life of my daughter-in-law’s grandfather. Bruce lived to be 91, and he and Ida had been married for 70 years. That is a long life of love.

My daughter-in-law’s sister, Laura, is a wonderful photo archivist, and put together four big photo boards, showing Bruce’s life in hundreds of moments.  It was fascinating to see the history and younger days of the wonderful family my son has married me into. His marriage has added to our family’s love.

Looking at the many photos one could easily see how the love of family was so important to Bruce, and how that joy had been, and continues to be, shared and multiplied through his friendships, children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. This growing and expanding of love is truly endless love — not the pop song “endless love” between two people, but the ever-widening sharing of time and caring that everyone can be part of.

By gathering to honor him, we were reminded of what a great treasure it is to have a loving family and friends, both in good times and hard times.

A wise man once told me that to grow love we need to act lovingly to others. Love is more than a feeling — it is an action. Together we create love.

I urge you to try harder with your family, friends and co-workers, to be the one showing kindness.  Help to build community and friendships one smile at a time. Be a nucleus for love.

Let’s be the farmers growing love, tending our relationships, both small and deep, so that each day there can be more love. And remember each day, in small ways and larger, to be celebrating love — the most important thing we get to share.

Celebrating-endless-love-2
Bruce and Ida, ten years ago, celebrating their 60th anniversary. They went on to 70 years, and to show how each of us can widen our circles of love. Let’s be part of a growing network of friends and family.

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Tagged as: Anniversary, Culture, Helping, Kindness, Life, lifestyle, Love, Making more of today, People, Personal, Rob Hueniken, Social Change

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The wind beneath wasp wings

by Rob Hueniken on Saturday, August 29, 2009

While having lunch outdoors yesterday my friend and I were visited by two wasps.  The wasps in our area rarely sting you if you let them be, but “letting them be” usually involves them hovering around or crawling on both your food and yourself.

We kept hoping the wasps would go away but they persisted. It was too nice a day to eat inside and swatting the wasps with our forks was not going to be effective.

While we coexisted with the wasps we noticed that they liked my friend’s Caesar salad more than my Greek salad, so my friend got to spend more time with the wasps.

wasp-cloud

But at one point a wasp flew slowly over my plate, very low – about an inch above the plate – and I saw the pepper and dry spices on my plate move around. The wind from the wasp wings was actually strong enough to create a tiny dust storm!

I had never thought before about how strongly wasps need to beat their wings in order to fly. But I realized at that meal that it is equivalent to a person blowing very gently – just enough to shift some pepper from an inch away.

It is a subtle reminder that everything we do can have a secondary effect, both on our world and on others around us.  People are much bigger and noisier than wasps, and how we drive, walk, and behave have effects beyond just moving us around or getting our things done.

What we do affects our world, far more than the wind beneath wasp wings.


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Tagged as: Animals, Awareness, Culture, Insects, Kindness, Life, lifestyle, Making more of today, People, Personal, Rob Hueniken, Social Change

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A Later Perspective with More Compassion

August 27, 2009

It’s amazing how unchanging our perspectives can be over time. I had a chance yesterday to see how revisiting some details from my past could give me a new perspective and understanding of a situation. Yesterday I got to reminisce at a party with a classmate from my childhood days, who I hadn’t seen in 30 years. This person was not a close friend of mine at that time, but a neighbor who lived just up the street from me. It was great to see her, and as we talked, the evening slipped away and back to grades 3 to [...]

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Becoming Batman

August 26, 2009

Our continued interest in comic book heroes reflects our admiration for those who help others despite the challenges. When I was a boy I got my comic book fix in 12 cent monthly increments They were delivered via the local variety store called [in all its early innocence and lung-stomping dastardliness] the Smoke Shop. There, amidst my options of Donald Duck, Richie Rich and Archie comic books I would seek out the stories of how a rich guy, helped by the small but vital team of his butler and young protege, would use his wealth and techno-talents for good. Unlike [...]

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