No one I know.

This past Thursday I, along with two coworkers, signed up to do a fundraiser called Cycle for Heroes at the Santa Monica Pier on September 11th. The Heroes Project is putting on this ride to raise money to help war vets who've lost limbs in combat. So three of us will relay for one hour each on a bike for the duration of a 3 hour spin class. I volunteered for this on little more than impulse. I don't know any war vets that are amputees. But I had heard about the Heroes Project only days before from a passionate young woman named JJ. She told me that the organization helps train these vets to scale some of the world's highest peaks. Climbing mountains gives them a renewed sense of purpose in life. I like that. The thought of it makes me feel good. I also like spin classes. So it seemed only natural that a combination of the two would be something I should be a part of. 

Cycle for Heroes is only one of three fundraising events that I threw my hat into recently. The other two are Cystic Fibrosis Yoga fundraiser which I attended earlier today at Yogis Anonymous, and the Lynne Cohen Foundation's Kickin Cancer 5K to support those battling ovarian cancer. I've done the Kickin Cancer 5K for the last two years, partly because its something my company has been committed to, and partly because ... Well, just because it feels right. It's like there's this Little Giver inside me that hears about a good cause and feels like it just has to jump into mix.

I had a moment earlier this week when the Little Giver went head to head with something I can only call the inertia of self. That sense of stagnation that just doesn't want to be bothered with yet another commitment. It has a name too, it's called Big Excuse. The conversation went something like this:

BE: you know you can't very well expect all your friends to give to all these causes. They are all broke. They're going to get annoyed with you asking for donations.

LG: well, if they don't want to give, they don't have to. But I feel like I just have to do it.

BE: But why? No one you know has cystic fibrosis or ovarian cancer. You don't know anyone who lost an arm or leg in the war.

LG: why do I need to know someone? Can't I just do it for all those people I don't know.

BE: Come on! Be honest. You're  only doing what you LIKE to do. You LIKE yoga and spinning so all you're really doing is going to a couple of classes. And you're doing that cancer walk because it's part of your job! AND because you LIKED it when you did it the last two times. It's pure self interest. The philanthropic part is incidental...it's just makes you feel better about doing something for yourself because someone else will benefit from it. 

LG: well, that may be true. But is that really a reason NOT to do it? 

At this point I remembered a prayer that I've been praying rather consistently every morning for the last few months. "Lord, help me love people like You do." I have felt more often than not like this prayer has gone unanswered. Not that I despise people or anything. I like them well enough. And I even love people in that "all mankind" kind of way that's neither personal nor actionable. But I have not loved sacrificially or joyfully on a one to one level. At least I did not think I had been doing that. 

But now I am wondering if that prayer has been slowly awakening the Little Giver inside me. The still small voice that joyfully accepts the invitation to give with scarcely a thought to the cost in time or money or effort. That is exactly what happened with the cystic fibrosis and cycle for heroes events. I was actually not even paying close attention when my co-worker read out loud an email she had received about the event. "We should do this!" She said. "Sounds good!" I replied and I was on board. The Little Giver had slipped in and made the decision before the Big Excuse had an opportunity to object. The Little Giver in me is getting smarter.

Several months ago when Dan Ward first posted about the Cystic Fibrosis Yoga Fundraiser event the Little Giver got excited. But Big Excuse was there right off reminding me, "well you don't really know what your schedule is going to be like then." So instead of clicking "yes" I clicked "maybe". And then I forgot about it.  

One of the chief tactics of the Big Excuse is forgetting. It's easy to forget; to get so busy with the "doing of things that matter little" that we fly past the "abiding in the things that matter much." I got the reminder from Dan yesterday about today's event. I knew I'd have to run my Sunday post church errands on Saturday in order to make it. I was tired. It has been a long week. I had a yoga class Saturday morning, I had to work for a few hours at the office and then I had all those errands to run (which turns out took half the time on Saturday that they do on Sunday), then I had to get home in time to eat, shower and change. My husband was in a play Saturday night in Pacoima at 7pm and wanted to get there early.  

It was after 11pm when I got home from the play last night. I undressed to discover a red swollen rash under my right arm. I had an allergic reaction to something, but no idea what. Oh no, I thought, I can't show up at a yoga class with this thing. I took two antihistamine tablets and rubbed in some cortisone cream. This morning it was no better. Big Excuse declared that the yoga class would have to be skipped because other yogis could not be forced to look an ugly rash. But surprisingly Little Giver vetoed this decision sharply, "quit whining and throw a t-shirt on over it. After all a child with cystic fibrosis can't just throw a t-shirt on over it, can they? No, they can't! But you can, so suck it up." It's funny how empowering a t-shirt can be.  Big Excuse made one last ditch effort as I was leaving church to head over to the class. "You didn't eat breakfast! You're not going to have enough energy for a two hour yoga class." Little Giver just ignored him as I started the car..."and what about all that gas you're going to burn driving to Santa Monica from the valley...we're broke you know!" Little Giver drove away leaving all those big excuses on the asphalt of the church parking lot.

Each of the three instructors, Dan Ward, Jennifer Pastiloff and Leslie Kazadi taught a portion of the class. Dan was my first flesh and blood yoga teacher. Before taking his class back in 2009 my experience with yoga had been a beginners DVD from Gaiam. Dan said something in one of those early classes that I never forgot. That one of the definitions of the word yoga is "Yoked to God." I'd had been deepening my connection to God for sometime before that, and those words resonated for me. As I have grown in my relationship with God, I have found that He meets me as readily and joyfully in my yoga practice and He does in my prayers. 

There were moments in the class where I felt little nudges of confirmation from God that this was exactly where I should be. Each of the instructors has been touched by CF in some way. Dan's nephew suffers from CF. I thought about a little boy struggling to breath. "People with cystic fibrosis also have difficulty digesting food so they don't often get the nutrients they need to live," he told us. I remembered the excuse of not having had breakfast and decided that I would find the strength to hold as many poses as I could on behalf of those could not. 

Jen recently lost a friend to CF. When Jen said at one point, "you may not know anyone with cystic fibrosis", I remembered the Little Giver in me deciding that not knowing someone was irrelevant, that I can give of myself for those I don't know. I offered my breath out to those who struggle to breathe each day and those who have taken their last breath because of CF. 

Leslie teaches classes for those battling CF so she knows many people with this deadly disease. She spoke of a class she taught where she told the students to release their last breathe for savasana ...but then checked herself as she realized how imminent that last breath might be for many of them. As we melted into savasana at the end of class she sang and I had a vision of the young Hispanic pastor we had met at my husbands play the night before in Pacoima. We stood in the darkened parking lot of the church where the play had been performed. He told us how he had received his calling to the ministry. His brother had invited him to church. He didn't want to go, but something drew him there any way. As he listened to the minister speak, he felt everyone around him in the church pews disappear and all that remained was him and God. "Who will you serve?" God asked him. He had been living a hard life with drugs and alcohol abuse. He was offered the choice to continue in that stagnant life...that inertia of self, filled with endless big excuses or serve God. And when he asked God what it meant to serve Him, the answer came that he was to preach the love of God to the young men of Pacoima. To love them, to give them a hope and a future without fear. 

As I laid on my mat breathing softly and listening to the music of Leslie's Tibetan Singing Bowl, I remembered this pastors eyes as he spoke. They had welled up with tears that glowed like flames from the street lights. His love for God and his love for the young people of his city was one love. It is the same. You can not love God without that love pouring out onto others. And it can not be restricted to church settings or events sponsored by religious organizations. It must pour out on to everyone and everything or you make it false. God is relational. And He insists that we prove our love for Him by how well we love the people around us, whether we know them personally or not. Because the truth is, we are all connected. The relationships are there, we only need to step into them. 

There was a bulletin board at Yogis Anonymous with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. I took a photo of it. "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'what are you doing for others?'" 

On September 11th I will pedal my legs for an hour on behalf of men and women I don't know, and remember that they lost legs and or arms on my behalf. I'll pedal to say thank you, and to encourage them not to quit. On September 29th I will join with a dozen friends and coworkers and thousands of strangers and walk for the thousands of women who suffer from ovarian cancer. I'll walk knowing that some of them are hooked up to chemo lines fighting for their lives without the strength to stand let alone walk. 

In my heart I hold this ever present promise, a prayer that I often pray for those in need when I am utterly helpless to do anything: "my spirit strives with your spirit." For unfamiliarity amounts merely  to not knowing each other's names. We are not separate from one another. To say that no one I know suffers from these afflictions is not really true. For I know that there ARE those who suffer I have seen their faces in photographs, and I know that were I to meet them, the only thing to change would be knowing the name, feeling the warm touch, hearing the music of another soul's breath. "Ah yes, we do know each other after all don't we?" So why wait for that day? Why not love now? Why not love like the connection is real..because it IS real. 

I've been drawn to these fundraisers partly by the desire to do good, but also because of relationships. My relationships with Dan, JJ from the Heroes Project and Kimberly from the Lynne Cohen Foundation.  And this is what God uses to teach us his love. Each other. We are the students and the lesson plan and love is our teacher. "Love The Lord, with all your heart, mind and soul. And love your neighbor as yourself." That is everything. The more I seek to love God, the more good I find I want to do good in the world, and the more pleasure I get in the doing of it. It is not mercenary to enjoy the act of giving...to get something out of it. In fact it is almost required, "the lord loves a cheerful giver." In other words, have fun, take joy in loving each other. To give joylessly from a sense of obligation or guilt requires no love at all. Sacrifice does not have a monopoly on love. Joy too must have a stake in it. To give oneself for the sake of love is just as divine as to give oneself UP for the sake of love. To follow the impulse to love at every opportunity, to ignore the excuses, to look beyond the boundaries of whether or not you know someone, this is what it means to love as God loves. Unconditionally and with reckless delight.

Now go. Love someone. 

 

If you'd like to contribute to any or all of these causes please follow the links below. You may not know anyone who will benefit from it, but you can certainly love them like you do. 

The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation: https://www.cff.org/GetInvolved/ManyWaysToGive/Donate/index.cfm

9/11 - Cycle for Heroes Splits59 Team Page: http://heroes.convio.net/goto/splits59

9/29 - Kickin Cancer 5k Splits59 Team Page: http://www.splits59.com/kickincancerdonate