As I was turning 33 last September a couple people asked me what I was doing for my birthday. I jokingly said that I was going to go out and get 12 people and we were going to tell people about any good news that was going on at the time. I think I used this joke on about four or five of my friends, seeing who would get the reference to the hippie with sandals and long hair with bread and fish and wine and stuff. But I think even before I said it the first time, and definitely during the first couple times, I thought to myself, “That wouldn’t really be such a bad idea.” I just didn’t know what form it would take. Another school year began, the idea floated away, and being 33 years old was nothing more than being one year past 32. The number had lost its magic. Winter and busyness and soccer and the rains came, and the idea was washed away. A friend shared a book with me, my mom another, and some good deeds and e-mails directed my way reminded me that Spring and Easter were around the corner. And so the idea reemerged out of the clouds and took a more concrete form.
So here is my idea. To celebrate Lent, the 40 days (excluding Sundays) beginning this Wednesday, I think it would be cool to do a good deed every day. If you are a Christian, this is a celebration of Jesus’ great sacrifice for us. If you are of a different faith, this could be a celebration of the great gift of life and companionship God has delivered to us. If you are not of any distinct faith, this could be a celebration of the humanistic goodness we see every day. We are bombarded constantly by negative images and stories in the news. We are constantly told of this athlete’s or celebrity’s failures but rarely told of the community leader who reaches out to help a fellow citizen. There is plenty of good out there; there are plenty of people willing and wanting to help others. We are told to look out for ourselves, but an expression of God’s Love and our Love for each other would be us looking out and praying for each other. I think we all agree that nothing ignites the heart more than unconditional love and the peaceful internal acknowledgement that we have helped out mankind, and if you are a religious person—that you have fulfilled God’s will.
So here is my proposal. For the 40 days of Lent, each of us will do a good deed, record that deed, and then write a 3-5 sentence reflection about the feeling this brings within. This is not to boastfully praise ourselves nor compare ourselves to others who do not partake—that is not the Spirit. This is a celebration of wonderful gift of life we have, and our love for each other.
These good deeds do not have to be heroic. A good deed could be saying a prayer for an enemy (or better yet trying to address any enemies we have in our lives as to get rid of that status), or sending a text to someone you have not spoken to in a long time just to say hello, or giving that dollar to the homeless man instead of passing him by. A good deed could be saying thank you to someone from your past who helped you, or it could be going to the beach and picking up trash for 10 minutes, or even taking some extra time to spend with a pet who adores you. A good deed could be helping someone carry his/her groceries, or going out of your way to hold the door open for someone, or tipping a couple extra dollars to the really nice and attentive waitress. It could be anything, use your imagination. I think if we focus on these good acts we can send off a positive vibration that will serve others to serve others.
Once you have recorded and reflected upon your good deed, I would like you to send it to me, and I’ll put them all on one word file. Also, each day on Facebook, I will pick one of your deeds and reflections and post it up on my wall anonymously, or I can put your name up with it. You could also post it on your wall, too—the formalities really don’t matter. What I really want is 12 people who are willing to commit. And if there is more, fantastic! My original idea a couple weeks ago was “40 for 40.” If it gets up past 15 or 20 people or so, I’ll probably ask a couple of you to help be recorders. And of course, again, you can always post this on your wall. I will try to make sure that each person gets an equal amount of posts, depending on how many people. If we have 12 plus myself, then we’d probably have about three a piece posted during the 40 days.
Since I am not coaching baseball this year, I wanted to make good use of the some of the extra time I might have. I thought originally this might be pretty cool as a book idea—we could profile each person and what they do and their deeds or break it down by day, or again, do it all anonymously—and we could donate the proceeds to some charity like the Union Mission or something else worthy. But right now the book idea is far off in the distance and that is not something I am concerned with. Rather, I just think it would be cool to see if we had a bunch of people every day, for 40 days, recording some act of kindness they performed during the day. And if one of us misses a day (even if it’s me, but I’ll try not to), so be it—it’s not a big deal. No one will be keeping tabs or anything like that. It is up to us to do what we need to do.
So if you are interested, e-mail me at derek_larkins@hotmail.com. I plan on starting this Wednesday, and I really have nothing planned, because this isn’t supposed to be some grand parade or flaunting of ourselves, but rather a celebration of our Love and God’s Love, a wonderful extension of ourselves.
God Bless,
Derek
P.S. If you have a friend that is interested, you can pass along my e-mail address.
derek_larkins@hotmail.com
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