Paying It Forward

I don't know the woman who emailed this to a friend, who emailed it to my daughter, who emailed it to me, but degrees of separation being what they are these days, and random acts of kindness traveling with the speed and agility of a pinball, she even left me in her wake of blessing. Here is her story, and don't even try to do the math and count the blessings, because I don't think it ends here, or even with me.

Had to share my neat experience this morning....
Visited Arby's and the lady said, "Oh it's you. I
hoped I'd see you again". You can imagine how I was
wondering what was going on.

Apparently the last time I had bought lunch for the
person behind me, he was so excited that he bought
lunch for the one behind him. In turn, that fellow
bought for the car behind him! That man wanted to
treat someone behind him, but no one else was in line,
so he donated the cost of his meal to Arby's Literacy
Fund! The lady had tears in her eyes as she
was telling me all of this.

Guess you never know how one little act of kindness
will spread!!

How cool is that? Sorta makes you wanna go try it, doesn't it? Well, let's get after it. Let's make some waves.

I Think I Can Fly

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Sunday last one of our pastors at the Cincinnati Vineyard, Joe Boyd, wrapped up a series we had been going through, called "The Ragtag Rebellion", with a speech which he said was his sum-up of who we are, that left us all feeling like Braveheart or Henry 5's band of brothers. I thought I would post it here, since my little fam was talking about it over the kitchen table later that day, and wishing we all had a copy. And since I like to make my fam's wishes come true, not to mention, saavy enough to go to Joe Boyd's blog, rebelpilgrim.blogspot.com, and find said speech, here is his post with the text, with the video that played to the beat of his words at the end: Imagine a community of people who are different. They live as strangers and foreigners in a world that is not their home, They are on a journey, always moving toward a better place. They are not agreeable with mere survival or content with so-called "contentment." They hold no secrets. No closeted skeletons. No unspoken agenda. They readily admit what they once were. "Once we were nobodies," they say with a knowing smile. "Once we had nothing." They grin. "Once we were the worst of the worst, the poorest of the poor. Once we were vile, and ugly and conceited and desperate and dirty and foolish." They stubbornly smile as they admit, "Once we were on the brink of death, but now… You see, that's their power. They can say "but now." The fuel of their rebellion is not in their past so much as in the present reality of their future. "But now," they say, "we live." "But now," they say, "we love." But now we laugh. But now we give and sacrifice and serve and stand united. Once were not a people, but now we are God's people. Once we were nobodies, but now we are a heavenly nation. Once we were stalled in the muck of the mess of our lives, but now we are a movement. We are a growing grassroots heart-burning movement of sold-out, unwavering, completely reborn and re-envisioned followers of a living God who prefers that we call him our Father. Under his love and power, we advance our revolutionary, world-wide conspiracy of kindness. And our agenda is as simple to understand it is seemingly ridiculous to see fulfilled. Our agenda is love. Love reigning everywhere like benevolent dictator. Love in the back rooms and love in the boardrooms, love in the alleyways, by-ways and highways. Love in the city. Love in the country. Love in the suburbs. Love in the ghetto. Love in the barrio. Love where the black folks live, where the white folks live and where the brown folks live. Love that breaks through language and color and race and prejudice and ignorance. Love for the doctor and the drug dealer. Love for the prostitute and the police officer. Love for the jailor and the junkie, the pusher and the plumber, the under-appreciated, the over-worked and the under-paid. Love for all and all for love. We are ragtag rebels. Rebelling against hate, war, prejudice. Rebelling against loneliness, boredom and meaninglessness. Jesus didn't die so we could just come to church once a week sing a few songs and pretend to learn something. Jesus died to launch a revolution. He suffered and bled and died to see evil destroyed once and for all…and three days later he quit being dead to seal the deal and give us our marching orders. Go, he said. Love as I have loved you. Love them all – every creature, every nation, every soul. We all can do our part, because we all can love. And when we love…we live.