I’m the kind of writer who usually has several projects going at once, and then suddenly one will jump to the front of the line and say “Now is my time, take me the rest of the way.” The great thing about this newly announced project (title under wraps for now) is that it involves gathering other people’s stories in addition to my own -- and in the meantime I can continue to work on another project that had jumped to the front of the line just a few months ago. Of course, as it turns out it’s not as simple as that, as I am being so affected by the stories coming in that the vision for this new book is growing and pulling me with it. And so, below is a revised excerpt from the book, followed by some additional story ideas and examples to get you started. And please do check out “Guidelines & Logistics” before submitting your story.
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Excerpt from the book's introduction...
Everything starts, since before the beginning of time, with One. One being, thought or feeling that is impulsed to reach out beyond itself to somehow create, or find, more of itself in the other. One, guided by the mysterious ways of love, to be of service to another. One, who becomes two, who become families, communities, nations, and ultimately, the whole world. For the multitude of us who want to see “peace on Earth,” there is no greater way to create peace than through the proliferation of heart -- and the displacement of fear, hurt, anger, shame, greed or hate with the infinite depth and breadth of love and her handmaidens, kindness and compassion. Every time one of us is moved to venture beyond our personal or collective horizons of familiar thought or attitude into the lesser known sky of our own ever-evolving heart and that of another, in that moment we also move heaven and earth. In that instant we have shaken the great Tree of Life to let it know that we are about to “leaf” our known inner and outer worlds behind to burst forth a new blossoming of love, and that heaven’s attendance is required. Because these are the moments when we dare to call up the more sacred realms of our humanity to do the improbable, the unusual, even the extraordinary. When we veer off the beaten path of our routines, beliefs and attitudes to take that proverbial "road less traveled" in response to a sudden inner prompt and the need of another. These are the moments when one opening heart breaks through the walls of fear, hurt or anger in another. When two people who haven’t spoken a word of kindness to each other in years soften and find their way back. When a son finds the space in his heart to care for a sick and dying father who had hurt and humiliated him his whole life. When a young woman's sudden compassion for a man about to attack her causes him to drop his knife and fall into her arms weeping along with her. When a child is dramatically rescued from sex traffickers and welcomed into the safety of home and heart and a school where she can learn about a world of possibility and choice. When an armed soldier rappels down a cliff and is confronted by an enemy pointing a gun at him in a cave entrance, and neither of them shoot. When two post-election estranged friends, conservative and liberal, brave a nine-hour conversation on a Super Bowl Sunday that brings them to realize that they are not citizens of two different countries, but two renditions of a same deeper desire for acknowledgment, acceptance and the opportunity to thrive. These stories and more show how much world-changing can happen via one changing heart reaching out to another in both the ordinary and extraordinary scenarios of life. These kinds of moments can change lives – and ultimately our whole world, for every single one of us is a seed in the flowering of humanity. What each of us are, say and do result in what our communities, societies, nations and world ultimately become. When we look out and wonder, as so many of us do, “how did the world get like this” – this is how: one person x many, over years and decades and centuries of single careless and callous moments that became entrained and normalized into ways of being that are, deep down, hurtful and confusing to the purity that still lives and longs for expression in our heart of hearts. And so to heal and grow a better world, it’s got to come back down to the seeds of self we are each planting through our personal presence, attitudes and actions in our dynamics with each other. It's about populating our collectives, communities and world with individual integrity, care and accountability, It's about giving our values and what matters most a place in our top rungs and bottom lines. This is how we begin to build a “road to peace” and a body politic in which every individual is a heartbeat pumping more noble lifeblood into our local, national and worldwide protocols and policies. And so, the stories in this book capture the small and great miracles of healing and transformation that can occur when one heart calls forth that of the other in a moment of presence and compassion, meeting something needed in just that instant. That kind of quantum moment when "shift happens" -- and something occurs that can heal a past and change a future. I use the word "quantum" because the effects and benefits of “inter-heart” encounters transcend time, reason, logic, fault or justification and create more love and grace than any single heart can hold by itself. These deeper meetings conjure the magical bits of life, the moments when we can finally be the more we secretly long to be, the more we have sensed we were all along, the more that is still hanging on inside us despite how the by-products of either successes or failures may have seemed to diminish our vision and courage over time. Every single one of us is capable of experiencing this, and likely has. And one ordinary moment that becomes extraordinary cannot help but remind us that truly, we cannot be fully alive without an awake, willing and receptive heart engaged with others in knowing that, as The Little Prince author St. Exupery so famously said, “what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Invisible, that is, until we dare to love it into being between and among us. |
Guidelines & Logistics
You don’t have to be a writer to contribute — just bring your true story through your own inner portals of love and wisdom, and you'll do more than fine! I'll lend heart and hand to any editing needed, giving you final approval. In terms of length, your story should be anywhere from 700 - 2300 words, which means from two to six or so pages. With 700 words your story would be in a chapter with another story, and with 1500-2300 words you'd likely have your own chapter. There's no cost to you to participate. Those whose stories are selected will receive a free book and contribution credit under your name or pseudonym, including your website (if applicable) and a small promotional blurb about you, as desired. Your story can be about you, someone you know, a news item or hearsay — though if the latter two, please verify your facts. And if your story is about other private persons, you should change their names to protect the innocent and guilty, or get their permission! I’d also like to know how your/their story affected you and your outlook, and even the circumstances of your life, going forward. Publication. The book will be published through my in-house publishing company in the Spring of 2017, as well as through the Amazon and Ingram distribution systems. A percentage of profits from these sales will be donated to some of my favorite visionaries and world-changers! Ultimately, I will be looking to place the book with a major publisher. If you'd like to contribute a story to this book, email me at [email protected]. Some ideas to get started...
The dramatic potential for stories like these is in the moment when a different choice is made, a different road taken, a cycle relaxed or broken, a past healed, a future changed, the present moment ennobled and magicalized. That moment when a shift happens on the inside, and you suddenly disengage -- even if just for that moment -- from time and the conditioning of history, society, family, peers or the usual rules of engagement…. * Ordinary-to-extraordinary moments when an individual has been able to shift a hurtful/angry/resentful/even volatile situation into a kinder, more compassionate meeting of heart and mind -- like the stories we’ve sometimes seen in the news where a home invader or hostage taker has been “neutralized” by kindness and compassion instead of force. * When an individual goes beyond his/her comfort or time zone physically, emotionally or mentally in order to meet another in a moment or time of need – like the story of an ex-nun who was called to attend the painful, yet beautiful, bedside of a dying child, and was introduced to her new calling as a shepherd to the dying and their loved ones. * When a person has been suddenly moved to relax his/her schedule, “the rules” or regular way of doing business to accommodate or help someone – like letting a frazzled customer in the door after closing time, or the story on Facebook about the taxi driver who turned off his meter to drive an elder woman around the city she loved for the last time before she went into hospice. (continued below) |
Some ideas (continued from above-right column)...
* A same-old-same-old encounter with family or friends that suddenly changed because one person chose to react (or not react) differently, and how that different dynamic shifted the relationship on a fundamental level going forward – like my own story of “orphaning” myself from my mother, and the subsequent transformation that occurred within me that allowed me to see and finally embrace her as a person with all her own hurts and unfulfilled needs and dreams.
* A shift in attitude and actions between partners in relationship, marriage or divorce that made a big difference in transforming/deepening their relationship, or in leaving it behind in a way that enabled them to move forward without the weight of anger or resentment – like two different stories I know about couples who became closer as friends after their divorce because, among other reasons, they stopped blaming each other for their disappointed expectations, and they wound up remarrying each other!
* An angry or volatile encounter between students/co-workers/strangers/party politics during which someone suddenly apologized or expressed some kind of emotion or truth which shifted and softened the atmosphere and outcome – like some remarkable moments in an 8-week community conversation in a Western North Carolina mountain town which brought together conservatives and liberals to talk, listen and be heard by each other.
* A moment in war or conflict when soldiers or adversaries recognized their mutual humanity and chose NOT to kill, capture or “conquer” each other, and how that affected lives going forward – like the story of a friend’s soldier-father who, while rappeling down a cliff during WWII came face to face at the mouth of a cave with a Japanese soldier pointing a gun at him, and neither of them took the shot.
* Stories of shared humanity among police and community, where potentially volatile situations were diffused with patience and compassion – like the police-led program in Richmond California initiated in 2007 that provides work, money and mentorship to potential offenders, and how the department self-policed to get rid of “bad apples” and offensive protocols, resulting in dramatic positive outcomes in police-community relations, not to mention a 66% drop in crime and only one officer-involved shooting a year.
* Stories of the greater powers of love and light over the darker impulses and acts that rise up among us from individuals and hate groups against people of “different” faiths, races, cultures, economic and societal circumstances, etc. – like how thousands of Americans contributed to the rebuilding of a Muslim mosque in Texas that had been vandalized and burned in early 2017, or how the “Mission to Combat Hatred” was formed in 2017 as a response to the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting in 2012, or countless other examples of people of different faiths who have come together to rebuild vandalized churchs, temples, mosques, schools, etc. as gatherings of love and compassion against physical and symbolic acts of hate.
* Stories of love and kindness that well up between and among people during times of tragedy, whether the cause is human or from natural catastrophe.
* Or anything else on the theme…. :-)
* A same-old-same-old encounter with family or friends that suddenly changed because one person chose to react (or not react) differently, and how that different dynamic shifted the relationship on a fundamental level going forward – like my own story of “orphaning” myself from my mother, and the subsequent transformation that occurred within me that allowed me to see and finally embrace her as a person with all her own hurts and unfulfilled needs and dreams.
* A shift in attitude and actions between partners in relationship, marriage or divorce that made a big difference in transforming/deepening their relationship, or in leaving it behind in a way that enabled them to move forward without the weight of anger or resentment – like two different stories I know about couples who became closer as friends after their divorce because, among other reasons, they stopped blaming each other for their disappointed expectations, and they wound up remarrying each other!
* An angry or volatile encounter between students/co-workers/strangers/party politics during which someone suddenly apologized or expressed some kind of emotion or truth which shifted and softened the atmosphere and outcome – like some remarkable moments in an 8-week community conversation in a Western North Carolina mountain town which brought together conservatives and liberals to talk, listen and be heard by each other.
* A moment in war or conflict when soldiers or adversaries recognized their mutual humanity and chose NOT to kill, capture or “conquer” each other, and how that affected lives going forward – like the story of a friend’s soldier-father who, while rappeling down a cliff during WWII came face to face at the mouth of a cave with a Japanese soldier pointing a gun at him, and neither of them took the shot.
* Stories of shared humanity among police and community, where potentially volatile situations were diffused with patience and compassion – like the police-led program in Richmond California initiated in 2007 that provides work, money and mentorship to potential offenders, and how the department self-policed to get rid of “bad apples” and offensive protocols, resulting in dramatic positive outcomes in police-community relations, not to mention a 66% drop in crime and only one officer-involved shooting a year.
* Stories of the greater powers of love and light over the darker impulses and acts that rise up among us from individuals and hate groups against people of “different” faiths, races, cultures, economic and societal circumstances, etc. – like how thousands of Americans contributed to the rebuilding of a Muslim mosque in Texas that had been vandalized and burned in early 2017, or how the “Mission to Combat Hatred” was formed in 2017 as a response to the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting in 2012, or countless other examples of people of different faiths who have come together to rebuild vandalized churchs, temples, mosques, schools, etc. as gatherings of love and compassion against physical and symbolic acts of hate.
* Stories of love and kindness that well up between and among people during times of tragedy, whether the cause is human or from natural catastrophe.
* Or anything else on the theme…. :-)
