Thursday, May 22, 2008

29 Gifts.com


Visit 29-Day Giving Challenge


I came across this site, 29 Gifts.Com and I was challenged to to try it out. In this times of financial crunching ourselves, it has been a challenge to think of others who are more needy.

My cousin, R and I, had breakfast in Manila before I left. We discussed thinking and serving others as a way to widen our perspectives and think outside our own lives, which always seem smaller than what others have to endure.

So on May 20, a man standing outside of Walmart handed me a small spiritual newsletter:

"Please, won't you help me, ma'am? Everyone has been ignoring me all morning. I just need a one dollar donation."

"Sure," I said, handing me the dollar.

He said thanks in a deep and sincere way, like a light went on in him.

I looked back and the others did ignore him. I stayed for two minutes and not one pedestrian even looked at him.

Little did he know that his deep thanks lit up a light in me, too, inspiring me to be conscious of more opportunities to give.

Take up the challenge at here. It's easier than you think.

How shall we give today?

Saturday, May 17, 2008

A Family Imagines No Possessions


In this article in the New York Times, a family aims to give away all their accumulated possessions and "let the Universe take them for a ride" instead. They aim to be organic homesteaders in a movement called voluntary simplicity.

“It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

Watch them change everything about their lives as consumers and discover true values; finding out what life is really made of: Love and Happiness--at their blog, Cage Free Family. Read the full article here.