What Matters? Archives - Page 23 of 28

Childrens' Causes June 24, 2015

What is summer without camp?

I never went to sleep away camp as a child. I have to confess, I was really happy hanging out with my friends and being at home. However, whenever my friends who went to camp returned, they always seemed different, more grown up…as if something had shifted in them in the short time they were away. It did make me wonder, what really happens at camp?

Flash forward a few decades and finally it is my turn to go to camp. No, not just because its summer, but as many of you know, I run a non-profit summer leadership camp. A crazy wonderful twist of fate that gives me a summer full of camp and answers all those questions I pondered so long ago.

This past weekend, as I watched the counselors arrive, most alumni of our camp, their excitement to see one another, their life long friendships and deep connection to one another and our camp….I realized that if these amazing individuals were the product of what we do, then I had really missed out.

Its taken time to now know what camp is……. showing up afraid, alone and making a friend. Camp is arriving as a blank sheet with no prior history, labels or expectations and re-writing your story, any way you want. Camp is being able to find and be your best self with a group of like-minded students that are simply trying to do the same. Camp is independence away from your family and proving to yourself that you do know what your toothbrush is without being told. Most of all camp is really, really fun. The games, the dances, the talent shows and competitions.

So, this summer as I prepare for camp, I am excited, nervous, happy and hoping that your never too old for camp and that just maybe I will seem a little more grown up when it’s over.

Charity Matters.

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What Matters? June 10, 2015

The gift of a break

“A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you’ve been taking.”

Earl Wilson

This past week was an amazing celebration of graduations, family, friendships, ceremony and the never-ending passage of time. So much joy, so many parties and never have I needed a little break more, to catch my breath, regroup and sit, than now.

Honestly, there is never a good time to leave work, because work never ends. For me, running a summer program, this is not the best time. The best time, is when you need it, which makes this the best time. A day or two to slow down, process everything and begin to think about the coming weeks ahead.

Tomorrow is my 49th birthday and this is my gift to myself. The gift of a moment, the most perfect gift. Slipping away to sit on the sand, a walk on a beach and feeling grateful. If the countdown to 50 brings the wisdom to know when to slow down, then I welcome it with open arms.

Until then, I am sitting in this moment with heart full of love and life full of gratitude.

Charity Matters.

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Education June 5, 2015

The beginning of an ending

“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”

Kongzi

This weekend marks the beginning of an ending. This week our family celebrates two graduations, our youngest off to high school and our middle son off to college. It is a happy, crazy, emotional roller coaster ride of a week. This is not our first graduation and you would think that each ceremony somehow prepares you for the next, for me this is not the case.

Each one of our children has had their own journey, their trials, struggles and their triumphs. Each ceremony brings to light the steps of each ones paths. For our youngest son, he will be celebrating graduation with a class he joined only a year and a half ago. Yet, it feels as if he has been there forever by all. It will be a week of traditions and celebrations to launch him towards high school.

The graduation that I can not seem to process is my middle son. While he may look like a high school hero on the outside, his journey these past few years has not been as seamless as it appears. He has had roadblocks like anyone, but in the face of these obstacles, he has always taken the high road. He has taught us grace, made us smile, showed us incredible dedication to his friends, team and school. Everyone knows their children are special, but he has shown us through his compassion towards all, what that word really means.

My heart overflows with pride in thinking about who he has become and how proud I am to be his mom. So as I try to process all that goes on this week, I keep trying to remind myself that we have done great work as parents and how lucky the world is to be getting these remarkable young men.

Beginnings and endings they all are part of the circle we call life. As we close these chapters, we go forward with full hearts towards the next.

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What Matters? June 3, 2015

The last lunch

Every morning, five days a week, for 15 years has begun the same way…pulling out a brown paper bag. The morning ritual of coffee and lunches is as much a part of my day as breathing. It is something that on auto pilot, my brain just does…..until now.

Today, is the last time I will make two. Today, is the last lunch for my high school senior. Of all the crazy things to get sentimental about, it seems so strange and yet it really is the perfect metaphor for the journey.

That plain brown bag is just like my son. When he went off to kindergarten, his name was boldly placed on his bag with smiley faces as he began school. Everyday we filled that brown sack with love, the gift of time, patience, gallons of peanut butter and jelly and commitment. Sometimes, even something unexpected ended up in that bag.

Many a day, I found it smashed up in the bottom of the backpack crumpled and broken, just as many a day, was the young man it belonged too. Whether that brown lunch bag was crumpled, perfectly creased, empty or full it was always evolving and we were always there filling it up.

Now, this morning that brown bag is covered with huge rolling tear drops, as I fill it for the last time. My heart is breaking. Rather than being giddy about this tedious task being wiped from my routine, I find myself devastated at the loss. I would make lunches a thousand times over to have some more of those precious moments back.

Of course, we are thrilled that he is moving onto college cafeterias, where other people will feed him, but somehow knowing this is the last lunch is more than my heart can bear. So, today I will write his name big and bold with a huge heart and send him off knowing his bag is full and he is loved.

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Inspiration May 25, 2015

A Widow’s Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a day to remember and honor those who have served and sacrificed for our country. No one understands this more than a military spouse. The other day when I saw this piece on CBS News This Morning, I knew I needed to share. It is a letter from Taya Kyle, Chris Kyle’s widow, to herself. To me this puts Memorial Day in perspective and I hope it does the same for you.

Today, think about all of those service men, service women and their families who give so much to each of us.

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Inspiration May 20, 2015

Just Think

This past weekend I was up in Northern California for a board retreat. We were in the beautiful hills of Los Altos and it was a time to reflect, slow down the pace and “just think.”

As I pondered the takeaways of the weekend, I recalled a story that Bill Gates Sr. shared at a different board retreat a few years back. He was asked the question, “Was there any early indicator that your son (Bill Gates Jr.) was destined for great success?” Bill Sr. thought for a moment and shared a story about his teenage son.

He told the crowd that their family had loaded up the station wagon with children, pets and the like to head out-of-town to ski for the weekend. No one could find Bill Junior. Bill’s mother went searching through the house hollering for Bill. When she opened the door to his room, there was Bill laying on his bed staring up at the ceiling in a quiet room. His mother said to young Bill, “What are you doing? We have all been looking for you, yelling and waiting?” Bill Jr. looked up at his mom thoughtfully and said, “I was just thinking. Do you ever just think?”

As Bill Sr. shared that story with the room, he said that his son had always taken the time to simply “just think.” That story has stayed with me over the years and as I was given the gift of time to reflect, slow down and “just think” it occurred to me that, “thinking” is a gift each of us needs to give ourselves. When was the last time you were “just thinking?”

Charity Matters.

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What Matters? May 18, 2015

A funny thing

As I mentioned, we recently put our house on the market. We have no plan but just threw it out to the universe because it simply seems like the right time with our second son leaving for college. While keeping beds made (with boys), the house picked up and clearing out for showings at a moments notice is no picnic, there has been an amazing transformation in our family in the last two weeks…..gratitude.

Every time we look at a potential nest for our clan, we hear “this room isn’t as nice as the one I have” or “our kitchen is better” and on it goes. Even my husband and I find ourselves at night, saying how much we love the old beautiful wood floors in our house and how blessed we feel to live in this very special place. While we have always loved our home, it is the twisted human condition, that you don’t appreciate what you have until its gone which has hit our household.

Perhaps, at the end of the day if we don’t find the “right” next stop and stay in our home, then maybe that’s the lesson in this journey. Afterall, I now know for a fact that my boys know how to make a bed, keep their room clean at all times and that they truly realize the blessings of home. If that is the end result of this process, with or without a moving truck, then I would have to say its a move more than worth taking.

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Inspiration May 15, 2015

The benefits of failure

As this week is all about college graduations, commencements and a life lessons crammed into speeches.. A friend and Charity Matters reader recently shared this with me and it was so wonderful I needed to do the same with you. It is a Harvard commencement speech given by the famous author JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame. Her words of wisdom are not just for graduates but for all and her message of the benefits of failure, reads like a road map to success, as long as you pay attention to the signs along the way.

Here are the highlights for those that do not have the gift of 20 minutes (although a gift it is).

“I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

“If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.”

Charity Matters.

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What Matters? May 11, 2015

Back in the nest

It seems that just yesterday, I was writing to you about loss and my first-born leaving the nest. I blinked, a year flew by and my nest is full once again. On friday, the last final exam was taken, the UPS truck arrived with boxes, a precursor of what was to come…. and then my husband hustled to the airport to bring our son home from his first year at college.

A scene that is happening everywhere this time of year, but for me, the moment took me by surprise. Yes, I knew he was coming home but what I didn’t realize was the level of joy, gratitude and love I would feel in that moment. A single hug that filled my soul and made me complete. Twenty years of parenting did not prepare me for that embrace.

My mind replays a thousand images of my son running into my arms, as a toddler, a little boy with a bloody knee, a young man with a broken heart and now here we are. Each moment more precious than the next, a treasure chest full of memories that makes up a life.

It is now with the gift of perspective, that I understand how fleeting these gifts are and savor every embrace that reminds me of the wonderful gift it is to be a mother. My gratitude, heart and nest are beyond measure.

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Quotes April 27, 2015

Charity Matters Quotes: Commitment

“Commitment is an act, not a word.”

Jean-Paul Sartre

As the school year creeps closer and closer to the finish line, which is summer….I am tired. Students are tired, teachers are tired and it feels as if the countdown has begun. It is this time of year, when the sun is out, that the last thing anyone wants to do is work. This is when the word commitment kicks in.

It is easy to give up, slow down or even stop. It is a commitment to self, to cause and to purpose that propels us forward in the home stretch. As we anticipate the lazy days of summer, it is that commitment that will get us the finish line.

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Inspiration April 20, 2015

The Moral Bucket List

Yesterday, I was asked to speak to the high school volunteers and their parents at our annual Staff Recognition Day. I sadly had procrastinated on what to say and I found myself on Facebook…where I believe most of us procrastinators eventually end up. Before I knew it I found myself reading an article from the New York Times called The Moral Bucket List.

Upon reading it, I knew exactly what to share with our group of extraordinary volunteers and I thought it was worth sharing with you. The article talked about “resume virtues versus eulogy virtues.” It was written by David Brooks, who was more or less in search of enlightenment after finding career success, he began to ask what really mattered? He wondered why do some rare people emanate that light, joy, radiance and others do not.

Brooks goes onto say, “ Our culture and our educational systems spend more time teaching the skills and strategies you need for career success rather than the qualities you need to radiate that sort of inner light. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than on how to build inner character”.

The more I read the article, the clearer it became to me that everything he was searching for was in fact exactly the skills that our non-profit teaches to its 5th, 6th and 7th grade students. More than that it was what we ask our high school staff to pass onto their younger mentors.

The author posed three questions:

“What values bring happiness and character?”
“Have you developed deep connections that hold you up in times of challenge and push you toward the good?”
Lastly the author asks, “People on the road to inner light do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs?

I know these seem to be deep questions to ask to teenagers. Yet, as I spoke to them about finding their gifts and sharing them with the world, I looked at an audience of nodding heads. They already understood what “radiating light and joy” was that author was so desperately in search of ……because each of them was already aglow.

Charity Matters.

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What Matters? April 17, 2015

Time to go

As you know change has been a common thread in my life lately. Our oldest is unsure of his next step, our middle son deciding where he will attend college and our youngest getting ready to go to high school. As if that change isn’t enough, we have decided to move.

This decision has not come lightly or quickly but one that our family has pondered for sometime. Knowing that with an emptier nest we don’t need as much space as we once did, that our home is where our family is and some innate sense that it is simply time. Do we have a new nest? No. Do we know where we are headed? Not really. Is that scary? Yes.

The reality is that all change is scary because it is all about the unknown. What we know is safe and secure and what we don’t is terrifying. There is also something exhilarating about change that makes you feel alive, excited and looking ahead. What I do know for sure is that it feels like the right time, that while we have only moved twice, both times it was simply a feeling that inspired the move, and in hindsight those gut instincts were right for us.

So, as I ponder the unknown and where we might land, I through it out to the universe, God and all that is bigger than myself….knowing that change is growth and home is wherever my family is.

Charity Matters.

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What Matters? April 13, 2015

Alone

I am alone. I suppose we all are at sometimes in our life…the problem is that I cannot remember the last time, I was. Sure there have been moments in the car or shower but is that really being alone? For the next 24 hours my family is scattered for Spring break and I am holding down the fort solo.

A million thoughts run through my head…do I jump on the bed? Blast girlie music? After all, I do live in an all boy house….should I eat candy for dinner? Journal? Garden? Shop online? Read a book? Watch a sappy chick -flick? The options are endless….my mind is racing with possibilities….unsure of where to start with this magical gift of time.

Since my New Year’s resolution (remember those?) was to do things that bring me joy. I refer to my list (how pathetic is that?) and so I begin. Taking a yoga class, gardening, walking the dog in the park, reading and when the evening comes I realize I simply want to be. Quiet (shocker), alone with my thoughts and time to think about all the change happening around me as my nest continues to empty out.

I realize that this time is a gift, fleeting and to be savored because in hours, they will all barge in with tales of their journeys, dirty laundry, hunger and the noise will once again fill my home and alone I will no longer be.

Charity Matters.

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Charity Matters Inspiration April 6, 2015

Blind Sided

A few years ago when the movie The Blind Side came out, I was told by a number of friends that I reminded them of Sandra Bullock’s character in the movie. At the time I thought it was perhaps because I had overly highlighted my hair, was raising a football player and had once done interior design. While I love Sandra Bullock, that was not who I was being compared to, but rather to Leigh Anne Tuohy, the character she played. I wasn’t sure exactly how to take this comment.

Months later, while speaking with my step sister, who was then promoting The Blind Side, she told me she had just met the Tuohy family from the film. Unaware of the previous comparisons, she said the same thing, however, this time about the actual person, Leigh Anne. She explained that Leigh Anne Tuohy wanted to bring orphans to the Academy Awards to highlight the need for adoption of abandoned children. Needless to say, that didn’t happen….but I secretly loved the idea.

A few years passed and I forgot all about the comparison. Then, last weekend, my oldest son came home for Easter, and brought me a present. He said, he had heard Mr. Tuohy speak at his school, promoting their new book, In a Heartbeat, Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving. My oldest said, as he heard Sean Tuohy describe his wife, it reminded him of me, so he waited in line and brought me this.

I was flattered beyond words and for once was completely blind sided.

Charity Matters.

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