The night before I left Vancouver I took my daughters and their friend Vickie, or as I affectionately call her, ‘my other daughter’, out for dinner. Every Easter while the girls were in school, Vickie would accompany the three of us on our yearly sojourn to Tofino, on the far west coast of Vancouver Island. For the Easter break week, we would play by the ocean, wandering the forest trails, hiking deep into the bog, kayaking, whale-watching, playing cards, laughing and eating, always eating.

On Monday night, we shared stories of our travels together, laughing and teasing each other over some of the crazy antics the girls got up to on those annual trips.

When dinner was over, the bill arrived and I was surprised at how little the meal cost. Checking it, Alexis and Liseanne both noticed the waitress had forgotten to bill us for one item.  Without hesitation, they called the waitress over and showed her the mistake. Grateful, she added the item and returned the bill. It was still reasonable and at least we were paying for everything we’d received. If you like Mexican food and are in Vancouver — go to Topanga Cafe in Kitsalano — Good food (large portions). Good service — and it’s not expensive.

What impressed me was how the girls did not hesitate to correct our servers mistake. While it would have been easy to pay and leave, they did not question doing, ‘the right thing’.

It made a difference.

To the server. The restaurant and our consciences. Knowing we weren’t ‘sneaking’ one by, means we don’t have to carry the knowledge that we didn’t turn up in honesty and integrity. It means we don’t have to have the prickle in our conscience eating away at our peace of mind telling us that we cheated someone out of what was rightfully theirs.

And there’s always payback.

Yesterday, driving back from Vancouver, I stopped for gas in Golden. I paid at the pump (it’s the law in BC) and went inside the station for a bottle of water and some gum. When I went to pay, the attendant rounded down my $5.20 total by deducting the $.20, even though I had placed the two dimes on top of the five. Pushing the two dimes back towards me he laughed and said, “It’s a special just for you because I want to!”

While twenty cents isn’t a big deal, it felt nice to receive the gift of his consideration. His gesture definitely put a smile on my face and lifted my spirits for the rest of the drive home!

When we turn up — and are scrupulous with our honesty, the world turns up for us in return.

Sure, it would have been easy to ignore the servers mistake, but the payback is greater when we choose to be honest. In the end, the difference becomes clear in our being able to go through each day knowing — we did the right thing.

After a day spent relaxing, taking Ellie to the ocean for a swim, a leisurely lunch overlooking the water in Deep Cove, C.C. flew east while I went off to meet both my daughters for dinner.

And today, I am driving East. Homeward bound. It’s a long drive (about 11 hours), so I’ve headed out early. Little time to blog first thing. (I’m actually writing this at night)

Making a difference is not at the forefront of my thinking today. I am focused on driving up and over the coastal range, away from the ocean and the lush green forests of the coast into the interior, through orchards and vineyards into the Rockies. Up and over the Roger’s Pass until I descend into the leeward side of the Rockies, back to Calgary. Back to the sprawl of the city spreading along the rolling foothills, edging out into the prairies.

The difference will be felt in a different clime, different vegetation, different season. While in Vancouver spring is in full bloom with cherry blossoms creating a canopy of white and pink blossoms every where you turn. In Calgary, spring is still just an idea, a notion of something to come once winter has wrapped itself up for another season. Spring is in the air, it’s just not yet into the ground, digging out the frost, moistening the soil with welcoming rains.

I shall be back again tomorrow musing about making a difference, but for today, may you live your best, give your most and feel you always make a difference worth living for — because you do!

Namaste.

I took Ellie up into the forest yesterday for a walk. To the west, the late afternoon sun glistened on the waters beneath the Lions Gate Bridge. Huge freighters sat anchored in the harbour and tiny sailboats scuttled across the water.

This is “Ellie’s Woods”. When I lived here in Vancouver for the year and a half, Ellie and I would traipse up to the woods every day for a walk. It was in these woods I whispered my sorrows and fears to the trees. High up in the center of the woods, a cliff borders an old, unused quarry. There I sat one afternoon with a girlfriend as we wrote and painted on four dozen eggs all the sadness and anger we both contained within us. And then, when we were done colouring and expressing ourselves on the eggs, we hurled the eggs off the cliff above the quarry, screaming and yelling at the top of our lungs. It was divine and freeing. She too was healing from a relationship gone really wrong and the process of releasing anger on the top of that cliff lifted an enormous weight from her shoulders, as well as mine.

What a difference time and distance make.

In the midst of our angst, it often feels like it will never end. That now is forever and this is all we’ll ever feel.

But, time does heal and distance from the events does add perspective, and release.

Ellie and I climbed up to the quarry yesterday and in the silence of the forest, I danced and spun about and sang at the top of my lungs. Ellie barked and pranced around me and I laughed and knew without any uncertainty, that was then, this is now. And in the now, my difference in the world is not expressed through pain and letting go of sorrow, but rather through joy and letting go of laughter into the world around me.

If pain is clogging your pores and sorrow flows through your tears, give yourself the gift of release. Take a dozen, or two, eggs, go and sit by the water, or in the forest where you can be alone (with a friend willing to participate with you is great!). Draw and write on the eggs all the things you’d like to express to whomever or about whatever is hurting you and when you’re done drawing, hurl them at trees or rocks with all the might you can gather up. Scream and yell and let it go!

The eggs are bio-degradable. Animals will eat them and you will feed the soil. And, when you get to the last egg, stand quietly, hold it in the palm of you hand and squeeze it (but don’t break it). Tighten up your whole body, hold it hold it hold it and then, turn your palm over to face the ground, open your fist and let the egg drop.

Relax your body.

There. That’s how easy it is to release — and see what a difference that release makes?

To make pain or sorrow or anything you are holding onto that is keeping you stuck different, do something different today.

The universe will be glad you did and your body and spirit will thank you!

Sometimes, making a difference in the world requires we let go of what we’re holding onto that is limiting us from knowing — we make a difference in the world just because we are in this world!

Namaste.

When I first encountered Diana Schwenk she was working at another homeless shelter in Calgary — my counterpart in certain areas of communication. While it’s not spoken of nor is it very ‘pretty’, there is a certain competition between agencies — we are seeking funding from the same sources, media attention and public awareness all in the same time and space. Diana didn’t care about ‘competition’. She only cared about the people we served and how we could make their road less rocky. She defied politics, ignored inter-agency hostilities and constantly strove to open doors for everyone — co-workers, homeless Calgarians and other agency staff and clients.

I was one of the ones she helped. Through her generosity of spirit, her willingness to share information, to talk about issues and ideas she reminded me that there is no ‘us and them’ — only the singular purpose of making the road easier for everyone — and we make a bigger difference when we work together. She was and is the epitome of graciousness and caring. She is one brave and courageous woman making a difference however she can. And today, she shares a beautiful, heart warming story about Wild Bill.  Enjoy!

Thank you Diana for being the difference we need in our world today.  You can visit her and find out more about Diana at her blog, Talk to Diana (you’ll be glad you did!)

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When Our Difference Counts

by Diana Schwenk

Here’s the thing about making a difference; often we don’t know we have, but sometimes we are made privy to the fact and oh how that inspires us to continue to do so!

I first met William in the early 90’s while I was volunteering at a local coffee house that served the homeless. William, known as Wild Bill on the streets and for good reason, was one of the most cantankerous individuals you could ever meet. Just to give you an idea of what I mean I once saw him sitting on the steps of First Baptist Church as I was walking down 4th Street. I was still several blocks away when my stomach tightened in knots as I watched a woman riding a bike on the sidewalk approaching him. Because I had met Bill several times before, I knew she was in trouble. My walk became a trot as I silently prayed she would cross the street or turn off in another direction. But she didn’t, she stayed on course, a path that would lead her straight to Bill. I was too late. As she rode by him, Bill pushed her over on her bike sending her crashing to the sidewalk.

To say that my relationship with Bill had a rocky start is a gross understatement. The first time I met him, I was leaning against the doorpost of the coffee house watching him walk up the stairs toward me. As he walked in I barely got out a “Hey, how you doing’?” when he shoulder checked me, almost knocking me on my backside. For some reason, I liked him instantly! The next three months weren’t much different. Every time I saw him, I’d say hello and my greetings were reciprocated with a blue cloud of cussing and screaming.

Finally, one day, I screamed back. “HEY BILL!” That got his attention. “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS YELLING AT ME? WHAT THE HECK HAVE I EVER DONE TO YOU??”

I can only guess that my outburst shocked him. Sheepishly, he hung his head. After a few moments (that felt like an eternity) he responded with, “I don’t know….I guess I just want to reject you before you get a chance to reject me.” Time went by and eventually Bill had disappeared from the landscape. Occasionally I would think of him and wonder what happened to him. Eventually I imagined the worst and presumed he had died.

Flash forward ten years: I was in my office talking to one of my staff when my cell phone rang. “Diana! There’s a real A-hole at the door who wants to see you now and he won’t take NO for an answer,” said the frantic doorman.

My heart went into my throat. Bill – it had to be! As I approached, Bill was still yelling at the doorman when I called out to him. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at me; tears streamed down his face as he hugged me and spoke softly into my ear. You see he came to thank me for never giving up on him. He came to tell me that he now managed a restaurant in Lethbridge. He came to tell me that every night when his shift ends he goes out in the streets with sandwiches for the homeless and tells them that if they ever decide they want to get off the streets, he would help them. By this point I was crying as well and told him that I was so very proud of him. And then as quickly as he had arrived, he climbed into his Cadillac and drove off.

Often we don’t know that we’ve made a difference but if my relationship with Wild Bill has taught me anything it’s to never stop trying.

Thank you Diana Schwenk for sharing your amazing story — and your beauty — so generously.

Happy Easter!

Ellie on the Beach

It takes curiosity to explore our inner depths. Curiosity and a mix of courage, frustration, hope and fear to motivate someone to delve into the unknown — especially if they’ve never done it before.

And so today, I want to celebrate my companions on the Come Alive trail at The Haven where I just spent a week stepping into the waters of ‘self’ to discover ‘the more’ that is possible in life when I let go of believing, ‘this’ is all there is.

My travelling companions taught me a great deal and I am grateful.

They are all heroes.

Not because they have done ‘great’ things in the world — though I’m sure they all have. Being in the world is greatness in and of itself. For me, their heroism comes through their courage in sharing, opening up, diving deep within and being willing to see the beauty and wonder that is them without fear that their beauty and wonder is not enough.

We are all enough. Just the way we are. And this past week at The Haven reaffirmed for me how incredibly beautiful we human beings are. In spite of our pasts, the pains and sorrows and hurts and wounds, in spite of all that has happened, all that we experienced and endured getting to ‘here’, right now, we are absolutely magnificent.

Being amidst such shining spirits inspired me, and filled me with joy and love.

Being part of a circle of trust and compassion has lifted me up.

I feel alive.

To all those travellers willing to explore their inner depths, to all those who have the courage to open themselves up to their pain so that they can come to the other side, even when they fear the opening will break their hearts, you are my heroes. You light the way for all of us to follow. You create a world of difference in your desire and willingness to be all that you are without fearing you are not enough.

You are all heroes.

And to the facilitators, the coaches, the interns, you rock my world. Your giving natures, your willingness to share and expand into the space so that everyone can learn from your wisdom, and grow through your caring, you make a world of difference.

You are all heroes.

And… here is a link to a short video that celebrates The Haven and the work of finding yourself where ever you’re at and falling in love with who you are.

It is our last day here — last day on the Island, last day at The Haven, last day taking part in Come Alive.

Last days are new beginnings. As we complete the circle of our learning in Come Alive, we open up to the ripple of our being connected forever in this special time and place we have shared. And in this ending, a beginning opens up with all its limitless possibilities for new opportunities to begin again. Always begin again.

As I begin again, I think about what has shifted, what has changed, what is different within me and and around me and know that in my difference I will continue to expand the me I am in the world. Making, being, celebrating my difference, your difference, our difference to create a world of love, of joy and laughter, of peace and harmony. A world where dreams come true as we the dreamers awaken to the wonder of expressing how we are in a world that sees us through loving eyes as who we truly are — different yet the same.

I have loved this experience. The digging in, encountering, exploring, acknowledging and enlivening the differences I feel when I try something… different.

Having coached for so many years in Choices and taken many different programs a friend asked me the other day — but why do you keep doing it? Why do you keep wanting to make yourself better?

It’s not about ‘better’, I replied — though better is always nice! It’s about deepening my experience of me and with me in the world. It’s about gaining understanding, knowledge, awareness of how I encounter different people and circumstances in the world and living up to my true essence, free, alive and open to being me in all kinds of weather, all different circumstances in all my many ways.

It is my last day here on Gabriola Island. For the past six days I have been sheltered, supported, and embraced by 14 fellow travellers looking to find themselves in a world made different because they are present in it.

In my presence here, I have been made different, and made a difference. I have received gifts and shared my gifts so that we could all travel together into the depths of our inner beauty, light and darkness, joy and sorrow without fearing who we are does not make a difference.

We all make a difference. We are all different. Yet the same.

We are all human beings on the journey of our live time.

May we all know that in our journey through life, the difference we make is the ripple of our passing through time and space embracing those we meet in the beauty and wonder of who we are.

May your day be filled with the light of love, the joy of acceptance and the beauty of who you are shining brightly in the world around you.

Namaste.

When I picked up my friend TZ from the 1:30 ferry, our intent was to drive to my sister’s house where she would drop her stuff, pick up Ellie and then drive me back to the Haven for my afternoon session. And then, as we drove up from the ferry terminal onto the North Rd that circumvents the island, we saw a woman hitchhiking. She was laden down with two big bags of groceries so I stopped and offered her a lift. It is common practice on the island, to give people lifts as there is no transit and as far as I can tell, no cab service either.

“Where are you going to?” I asked when she loaded herself and her groceries into the car.

“As far south as you can take me,” she replied. “I usually take the South Rd. but wanted to check out the GYRO (an island flea market). I’ve only been living on the island a month,” she added in a rush of breath that filled the car with her smoky exhalation.

And so, we drove her, all the way around the island back to where she’s rented a room in a house. The long way. The scenic tour, as I jokingly told TZ.

After dropping her off, and learning she had moved from Winnipeg to Nanaimo to the island after losing the job she’d found there, “I don’t like Nanaimo. At all,” she asserted, TZ and I continued on the long route back to my sister’s house.

Along the way, we spied another hitchhiker. A scruffy, bearded man of indiscriminate age, he reminded me of clients at the homeless shelter where I used to work.

Now, to be clear, I do not normally pick-up hitchikers. But, on Gabriola, it seems a natural thing to do. And so, when Clyve climbed into the car there was nothing uncomfortable about having him there. Though he did smell a bit…. rank.

“I live on Munch,” he told us. “I bring my boat across. Just going to the Town Centre.”

“Been there 14 years,” he told us in response to my question. “Health reasons. I couldn’t do the hard labour I was doing any more. Needed somewhere cheap and truth be told, somewhere I could be alone. Must of us on Munch are like that,” he added. “We tend to keep to ourselves.”

“How many people live on Munch?” I asked.

“Well, in the winter months it’d be ‘bout 40 maybe 50 of us. Summer of course is different. It’s crazy busy with boaters.”

And he chatted away, sharing stories of his health concerns, his decision to quit drinking and smoking dope, other than for medicinal purposes, six years ago. By the time we dropped him off at the Town Centre, he was chattering away like a magpie.

I imagined his words were held close on the Munch. No one but nature to share them with. He needed the release.

While I do not suggest picking up hitchhikers, I do believe it’s important to make room for strangers to tell their stories.

In their telling, we are all ‘made different’ by the sharing. And in the sharing of our stories, we make way for ripples that connect us to spread out into the world.

Namaste.

When I first hear the story of how he came upon Aurora Winter’s book, From Heartbreak to Happiness, I am entranced.

“I was walking in a park with my dog. I sat down on a bench to look out at the view across the water and there, at the end of the bench was this book with a note stuck to it,” he told me as we chatted over a tea.

On the book was a note:  This book really helped me when I was grieving the loss of someone I love. If you are called to pick it up, perhaps it will help you too. And when you’re done, please pass it along.

He was ‘called to’ pick it up. His heart was heavy from several losses in his life.

And just as the giver promised, the book helped him. And then, he passed it along. To a young woman he met one day in passing. She too carried a heavy heart and was called to pick it up.

What a beautiful way to make a difference in the world. To pass along, either anonymously or purposefully, things that have helped us heal. In this case, a book. Imagine what else we could pass along!

For years, I collected heart shaped rocks. I’d written a story for my daughters when they were young about a girl with a heart of gold and a king with a heart of stone. The story talks about how through her loving attention, his heart of stone becomes warm and caring. The moral of the story being, “even a heart of stone can be warmed in loving hands.”

As I drove across the Rockies, from Calgary to the coast, I had several heartrocks in the car with me. Occassionally I would hold one and feel its warmth as I held it. It’s been awhile though since I held a heart rock, warmed it up and then passed it along to people I meet so that they too can feel the magic and warmth of that tiny rock and its significance of sharing our warmth and love.

Time to begin again. Always begin again.

What ideas do you have for sharing healing in the world? There are so many pockets, landmines actually, of pain and suffering. What small yet significant thing could you do today to share healing, love and warmth with those you meet?

I love the idea of starting with a book on a bench. Or perhaps left behind on the table of a coffee shop. Or beneath a tree in your favourite park.

We can all make a difference in our world. And together, we make a world of difference.

Namaste.

(I am on Gabriola Island, loving and being in this healing place at The Haven.)

I am on Gabriola Island to take a course at The Haven, a beautiful retreat on the ocean. My goal is to post every morning, but Internet access has been dicey as I can’t get my computer to sync properly at the Retreat centre and am resorting to a local coffee shop — albeit a beautiful local coffee shop. Mad Rona’s is  set in the forest beside a brook. Quite lovely. It gets its name from the Madrona trees that populate the island with majestic grace.

Gabriola Island is all about community. During the winter, the population maxes out at 2,500 residents. Come summer, it will double to 5,000, changing the texture and the context of Island life, but not its sense of community.

Yesterday, at the coffee shop, I chatted with a woman who told me what community means for her, and how she contributes to its presence in her life.

We look out for each other, she said. We care.

One of the things this woman does to create value in her community, and to let people know she values them, is drop little notes beneath their front doors.

I love the idea that they’ll awaken to a ‘love note’ from me, she said. The huge smile lighting up her face showed her sincerity and joy in writing about her appreciation to her neighbours.

I like to tell them how I appreciate that they keep their grass cut, or that they always pick up after their dog, or don’t water their lawns in the summer (water is always in shortage on the Island). it’s so much better than calling the cops on people or complaining about the noise or junk in their yards.

I thought of my neighbours whom I still haven’t met (and yes, I did commit to doing that in January!) I remind myself of what I must do when I fall, or don’t do what I committed to do — Always begin again.

Can I use this young woman’s practice to connect with my neighbours in Calgary? I wonder.

What about the man across the street who always shovels his walk. Always. I see him every morning while sitting at my desk. He inspires me, and motivates me to get out and do mine too!

What about the older couple next door who are always tending their lawn and flower beds. They remind me to take pride in how the outside, not just the inside, of my home looks.

And the man down the street who walks the entire block shovelling the snow away with his snow-blower after big snowfalls.

Would he too benefit from a note slid under his front door, or into his mailbox, telling him how much I appreciate his efforts?

The answer is obvious. Of course he would!

Community makes a difference. The biggest differences community makes however are the efforts its members make to create that difference.

What kind of difference do I want to create in my community?

Am I a taker or a giver?

I’d like to be a giver — contributing value to making community work.

What about you? Are you willing to add value to your community by participating, however and whenever you can, in making a difference in your community that reflects what you’d like to see in the world?

I am.

Care to join me?

A friend signed me up for his blog. I read, and read some more, every day for weeks. One day, I commented. He responded and thus began a friendship that has spanned hundreds of blogs and thousands and thousands of words.

He is a writer, a philosopher, a wit and a human being of great heart.

Today, Mark Kolke, who has written every day for the past nine years at Mark is Musing, shares his philsophy and outlook on the importance of volunteering. An avid volunteer, Mark continues to inspire people every day with his insight, self-disclosures and openness on the journey of his lifetime.

Thank you Mark for giving of yourself so generously and effortlessly. Thank you for your friendship. You make a difference in my life, and the world.

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Volunteer . . . . … a little bit of time.

guest blog by Mark Kolke

I’ve been a volunteer in a variety of ways for more than 30 years. In Edmonton, at first it was sports things, school and community things – mostly ‘kid things’ as my children were growing up.  Sure, I would donate money to causes, buy raffle tickets and attend fundraising events – but actual ‘roll up your sleeves’ volunteering, I was on the sidelines. Looking back that was fine, but I needed a cause to stir me to action.

A fine old gentleman named Bill Pettigrew came by my office one day, for coffee and – so I thought – to chinwag about a recent campaign we’d worked on, about working with Bill and his tireless wife Edith who had been involved in political campaigns since the 1930s when Bill had worked for R.B. Bennett (yes, the former Prime Minister) in his Calgary campaigns.  It turned out the Bill wanted to recruit me to sit on a volunteer board for a social services organization – one that provided services to persons with developmental disabilities.  With some reluctance (a field I knew nothing about), I was convinced by Bill-the-flatterer that the board needed business skills and talents I might bring to the table.  I joined that board …. spent 6 years there, 2 as chair and I was hooked!  Not just hooked on the cause which has led to many adventures in advocacy and service work for persons with disabilities.  But hooked on Volunteering.

People I met led me to other stints, other things. Driving Meals on Wheels on Christmas Day when all the regular drivers were enjoying a well deserved day off. The range, over many years has been awesome. I’ve met incredible staff, fellow volunteers and community members from all walks of life.  I’ve made some business connections, personal connections and unforgettable characters …. all through volunteering.

I don’t intend to recite my involvements or the many wonderful organizations I’ve been involved in, because that isn’t the point of this piece and  I don’t want to leave anyone or any organization out … I’ve yet to be involved in one I didn’t like.

The point of volunteering is pretty simple – helping somebody or some organization in need of help.  It is likely to be more complex than stuffing envelopes, sweeping a floor, or painting a fence – all worthy work.

In Calgary we have a tradition of community involvement, from grunt labour to extensive philanthropy – but in between, thousands of ordinary people give a few hours a week, or a month, or a year to help someone out.  My view is, give what you can, when you can and you will never feel shortchanged and you will never find the recipients to be ungrateful.

In my role as a member of the Speaker’s Bureau at Volunteer Calgary, I visit groups to explain volunteering opportunities and educate people about the resources of Volunteer Calgary – an umbrella volunteer recruiting organization representing over 400 Calgary organizations and agencies.

Give a little or give a lot – the measurement will be in hours. The value, the dividend, will be paid back with a sense of purpose, self-worth and value that cannot be purchased in any store, qualities and fulfillment than never has an expiry date.

If you’ve volunteered a little or a lot, congratulations. If you haven’t then consider whether it is time to start.  Like any long term solid investment, sometimes it is best to start small and spread your investment around.

The biggest surprise most first time volunteers find is how easy it is to help.  Of course they will be asked to help again, help some more, help with something else . . . because that is how volunteering works.

It works very well indeed.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be speaking for an hour to a small group of seniors who are suffering from depression and anxiety. I’ll spend an hour with them, reminding them of their own past volunteer experiences and encouraging them to give some more, to give again of their richest resource … a little bit of time.

Click this link to browse current Volunteer Opportunities

Thank you Mark for inspiring all of us to give a little, give a lot but whatever we do…. volunteer!   To catch up on Mark’s blog — click HERE.