Faithfulness to the Path Given
February 19th, 2012 § 1 Comment
“The moon stays bright when it doesn’t avoid the night.” -Rumi
At best it is groundless and unmotivated. In its truest form, it is purely spontaneous, pushy, and it begs to transform us with all its redemptive power. We think we have arrived when we find it reciprocal, but never has it truly been discovered until we find it disinterested. In it’s most noble form, it is born by the need of another and in it we seek no compensation. It unearths in each of us a willingness to sacrifice, a willingness to fight. It forces us to be creative, and to step outwards of our passivity- it requires action. For it, we navigate the bounds of our resilience and the insistence of our hope. It is a peculiar thing, and in the absence of comforts or intimacy, we have the opportunity to redefine its purpose and meaning within each of us; we allow it to reshape the substance of the whys in which we live and we find out what it truly means, to love. Knitted together over time, this is the substance we find that becomes the reason for which we wake each morning to find a more equitable world, because within such loves, we find the justice of our very existence.
The sun overflows at the base of the Abedare Mountain range, a congealed line of mist floats through the air and if you stand still enough in the morning calm of the Great Rift Valley, you can feel the heart tremble. Transcending above the constant noise of mountain conifers swaying and elevated above the reverie of nature waking, are the voices of the twenty-six reasons I know such matchless love exists. It is a powerful reminder of the very justice of our cause, and the underlying force that drives us to undergo each and every day with the same fervent hope that drew the founders of Flying Kites here three years ago. It is a sign of life that might not exist had we not bound together to act and it is an echo of the change we still have the potential to make each morning as we kiss our cells to wake.
Beyond the gates of our home are the very streets and storefronts that some of our own children used to emerge from to gather what belongings they had left to begin each day again in the static cycle of street life in which they lived. Imagine now, for a moment, that this was you. By the time the insouciant sun rose, you would have already been scavenging, not just for yourself, but for the younger sibling you’ve been left to care for. Running is useless because there is not a place to go. You are naked to the waist. You search for anything and anyone; you search for meaning and hope in the suffering you have been dealt. By the time the sun sets, so too has the malnutrition and the only place left for you in the world is a road made of dust. It is an injustice that it exists at all, but in the house I now live are twenty-six stories of survival that show that it does. But that’s just it; they are stories of survival. And they exist because of acts that at one time may have seemed inconsequential in the midst of everything, but it was in these small details that we later find the blueprint for the turning point in all of our stories; they are the details where hope is born.
Taking action represents the human heart in its mightiest form, and to do nothing is left for the unimaginative and the frightened. If we do not advocate for the lives of others, then our compassionate cause loses momentum. It takes moral courage and personal action, and it takes an undying hope for a more equitable world in the face of an overwhelming majority who will say that the best thing to do, is nothing. But imagine now that you are that child on the street again, naked to the waist, and a perfect stranger enters your life to tell you that they can help. They can give you a home, the means to an education, food, and they actually want to give you love without anything in return. That is not nothing. In fact, it is everything that we would wish for ourselves if we were ever that child, or even more, if that child were ever our own. When you sponsor a child, you allow yourself to be that perfect stranger who one day becomes all the reason in the world we made it. 
In every bit of chaos is a chance to find harmony and in every midnight sky, so too exists the light of stars. It’s up to us to be the light pinned to the sky that brightens the whole world for those who are lost. After all, This is a story of twenty-six children, but it is also the story of each one of us and the moments we took to imagine their lives; the actions we took that caused a network of change, and the restored childhood that they have as a result.
This post is dedicated to a friend, who was at once a perfect stranger, that taught me that in acting on behalf of four children who we found on the vibrant streets of Uganda, all of our worlds could change. In his fight for their education and well being, he gave me the gift of finding the justice in the fight for the futures of our own children. All photos are courtesy of this friend, Brandon Jones.
Kilimanjaro, Hakuna Matata
January 20th, 2012 § 4 Comments
“Called out of our captivities, into unknown places“
The night before we left for Kilimanjaro, I indulged in one last moment of repose under the soft applause of rain wondering briefly, what I was about to discover. My ears started to adjust to all the nuances of nightfall in the Great Rift Valley and I began to account for all the internal struggles I hoped would find peace somewhere along the way of our seven-day trek. The days to come would be a time of radical expansion and spiritual fulfillment, of exhaustive anguish and unsurpassed joys; but I could hardly know it as I lay beneath the star pinned sky against the staccato of my own heartbeat just ten days before.
In an instant we had each left our shame and privacies somewhere in Kenya and what was left was a mess tent filled with 14 strangers who were quickly becoming family. Much of our supplies were scavenged from our attic from things left behind by past climbers and with seven guides and close to forty porters it was that familial sense of doing absolutely anything for one another that was the wonder of how each and every one of us made it to the top. Our individual journeys unraveled as we continually evolved past what we had always misinterpreted as boundaries; it was through knowing the mountain that we were given the exquisite opportunity to know ourselves. It took learning her complexities, which can only ever be discovered from within, to reveal the intricacies of self that hide dormant in the absence of uncertainty. Through the words of one another, we met the people back home who would come to signify the sources of strength that carried us up the mountain and revealed the serendipitous ties of how we all came to be together, under a blackened sky at the foothills of Africa’s tallest mountain. Though we gathered from dissimilar paths, different parts of the world, we were unified by one cause and that was the lives of twenty-six children who had captivated us all.
Adventure Challenges gives individuals the opportunity to raise funds for our organization while embarking on a journey that tests the limits of both the body and soul. Of the different challenges to choose from, the magnitude of the Kilimanjaro climb is unparalleled in it’s test of endurance and it’s extraordinary chance for each climber to spend actual time at our home meeting the children at the heart of their mission. It gives the children the opportunity to meet those who fight for them and it offers the climbers the fulfilling prospect of coming face to face with the lengths at which their donations truly reach.
The group that came for the January climb was as dynamic as any and I was overjoyed to have the chance to fundraise and be a part of the team. When you bring people together from different walks of life to break free of the strenuous confines of certainty and into the gripping world of the unknown, what you will find are those in pursuit of meaning. For me, it was within the internal struggles mapped out that night before we left that was where I sought to find meaning, but I found along the way that there were battles that existed far deeper and much more unknown that were at the heart of what I truly needed to overcome. We are masters at trickery when it comes to ourselves. We have a flair for expending energy on struggles magnified by the heart without ever searching for the root of it all. It is in facing and conquering the things that lie outside of our realm of comfort that the source of all matters will expose itself, and to have had that opportunity, I am eternally grateful.
I was recently asked what the greatest challenge I had ever faced was, and having freshly faced and conquered just that, my answer at first came with ease. But as the words “Mount Kilimanjaro” left my mouth, I began to realize that it was not the mountain at all that was the challenge. Rather, it was that brief interlude during the most arduous day of the climb when I stopped believing in myself that was the greatest trial I had ever faced. When you stop believing in yourself, then your entire world has the potential to fall apart. It took someone who was at once a perfect stranger believing in me to stop my world from crumbling, and it saved my life. It is the wonder of compassion and interconnectedness, that we can come to save the life of another for whom we never would have known had we not reached outside of the bounds of our own lives. It requires us to act intentionally on behalf of another, and it requires us to believe that the compassionate world we wish to build is entirely achievable. We each have the extraordinary opportunity every single day to breathe life back into the world of another simply, by being there for them.
It was on our return to Nairobi that a friend sweetly whispered into my ear, “this is our real life,” and he was right. This is our real life, and this is our opportunity to make it everything we ever dreamed it to be, to stand up courageously and make a difference, to shake the standards of which our world stands. It will take an act, but in that act is a life saved and within that life, is all the meaning in this world.
Torrent of Dreams
December 30th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
“Great dreamers’ dreams are never fulfilled, they are always transcended.”
–Alfred Lord Whitehead
When someone has lived a life subjugated beyond our imagination, then a dream becomes for them as like as a thing and its shadow. Something refracted from reality that perpetually follows without ever more than a hope of catching it.
Each morning I cross my fingers that I’ll see him. His history could be told by the lines between his scars that lie cavernous within his young skin. Powerful emotion registers on his face, his determination and unrest, his peace and his joy can all be sensed by the contour of his profile. When he doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t say anything; it’s one thing I admire about him, a fifteen-year-old boy in our care. He wakes before any of the other children and stands perched in deliberate silence between the world and his shelter as his arms drape languid over the 4 x 4 window in our barn. With his head cradled always in his left hand, he wakes each morning to dream. Like the trees that ache and groan around the barn they so selflessly allowed us to make, I can tell he is growing older, stronger. When he does speak, there is a sincerity that reverberates in his voice, one that will forever remain in my heart. We talk to each other about our dreams, sometimes for hours before the rest of the house awakes. Those conversations are a preserve of hope of which I will draw upon for years to come. Dreamers find their way by such exchanges; they are the stars we use to navigate the terrain of our possibilities. He dreams of being a scientist like Nikola Tesla, of being the top of his class, and knowing all the constellations; he speaks passionately of dreams to become a man who loves his children, and has a place meaningful in this world.
If you really think about it, it is the most amazing concepts that camouflage themselves and slip seamlessly into our minds as the things we seldom think about. Things like our childhood dreams, and the people who gave us the liberty to believe in them. For the children in our own lives, we can work to provide the tools for them to receive the best education possible and to be healthy to grow into the young men and women they are evolving to be, yet living with these twenty-six children, I am beginning to discover that there is a gift even more precious we can offer. It is one that we innately give to the children in our own lives, but one that is often forgotten when considering the children we come to care for who have been left with nobody. It is a gift my own parent’s gave to me and it is the reason I am here with the children of Flying Kites today. It is what will determine the type of young men and women these children will become, and it alone has the potential to shape the very future of our youth. It is the permission to dream; to be the author of their own ambitions and to be present to believe in them until they are strong enough to believe in themselves. It is often the unlikeliness of met expectations that keeps us from acting upon the thoughts of our dreams. Someone along the way told us that our dream was something we could never achieve, pushing it into a limbo of dreams whose evolution has potential to unfold if only we had somebody to give us another reason to believe in them. By giving this to a child, we are giving them the prospect of finding true passion and happiness. It is the difference between giving aid and making lasting change for our world. Choosing to give to an entity that puts value in compassion means that you are enabling the passing of such an invaluable gift. In fact, you are no longer just giving to an organization, you are giving through it.
The boy who wakes to dream has taught me that so long as light exists in our lives then dreams will never abandon. It is when we allow darkness to overcome that dreams fall away as silhouettes into blackened asphalt. For someone who has seen everything they imagined meaningful stripped away in an instant of twisted fate, that thread of hope becomes the precipice at which they stand between dreams and darkness. We discover the true value of our dreams and determine the journeys we are willing to take to achieve them when we come face to face with the prospect of their loss. We test the limits of the heart when we open ourselves up to the intentional decision of choosing the ways in which we think about our circumstance and decide whether we are going to let the light that exists within each of us outshine the darkness. When we lose everything we have the potential to unearth the fighter that lives within all of us for the futures we know we deserve. We see our dreams most intimately when somebody threatens to take them away, for when do we know anything as utterly as when we lack it? Only when someone teaches us to give permission to ourselves, if even for a moment, to believe that our dreams can be in line with the reality of who we are, do we begin to live in the exquisitely beautiful world of dreams come true. We are never short of the opportunity to act on the behalf of another, it’s as simple as fostering a relationship with a child and telling them someone, somewhere believes in them and in that relationship lies the potential for the whole world to change.
It takes a connection, a relationship, and the compassion from one individual to another, but is there really anything less you would ask for your own children if they were ever left in this world without you?
My own dreams are unraveling as I train to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in the name of our children in one short week with our Adventure Challenges program… Tales of the climb to come.
Soul Cognition
December 8th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness. Touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” –Frederick Buechner
There is a hunger alive in each person whose path I have crossed since embracing this journey, but it is not the type of hunger that has come to define this part of the impoverished world; it is a hunger entirely different. It burns deeply in the eyes of those who have chosen to give everything up to be present in the childhood of our 26 and it burns ever more deeply in the eyes of the children who by no choice of their own have seen everything taken away before even entering our lives. It is a hunger in the hands of our mighty donors who make the noble decision to put value in where they allocate and not what they accumulate, it is in the millions of people who fight their way just for one chance to escape the deepest and darkest regions of life. It is a hunger I’ve grown to know intimately in my own life and one whose powerful grip I know only grows tighter with disdain. Everything begins to take second stride when we are living in pursuit of fulfilling it, and to be out of its pursuit is analogous to never fully breathing. It is a hunger that increasingly more of us are living with, and as a result is the reason why it is possible that just a handful of strangers can better the childhood of an entire community. It is a yearning to find a place in the world that is meaningful and in turn to feel the eternal enrichment of ourselves that lives at the crux of this pursuit. This journey and these children have taught me that there is only one way to satisfy this hunger, and it is the only way in which we can ever express the difference we truly want to make in this world. It is simply, to give.
The advantage of living in a culture other than your own is the freeing of perspective. In stepping away from everything we once knew, we afford ourselves the distance to decide the value of what exists in our lives purely by living without it. This desire to find a place in the world that is meaningful and to give to others is surprisingly more evident in a place where there are not even things to give. It has opened my eyes to the ways in which we give outside of the material realm, and the potent importance of giving that lies specifically in the human sphere. The children at Flying Kites have become my most poignant teacher in this lesson, and one in particular painted it for me in all his captivating hues one day early in the morning in our matron’s kitchen.
We were up earlier than normal to surprise the kids with banana pancakes, after discovering that they had never in their lives eaten them before. The kitchen was lit by an overcast canvas of static light, I felt the warmth on my face as steam danced liked dervishes through the air from our tea. One of our loved guards was perched casually in the window, the frosty air exaggerated his breath with each bellowing laugh. An aria of Kenyan folk music rose from the ground below as I looked to one of our oldest boys to acknowledge the moment that would forever remain in both of our memories. He was up early insisting that he help us in exchange for teaching him how to make our foreign treat. I was grateful for his presence. His eyes are so full of sincerity it is hard to look at them squarely, and he expresses everything with them. There is an understanding and disquiet in his glances that flies to distances far beyond his seventeen years. I’ve never been so convinced of the potential of anyone. He was placing the banana slices on the rounded heap of pancake mix with the precision and diligence of a practiced artist when he turned to me to say,
“ Unanitia Moyo”
The tilt in my head suggested I needed a lesson in Kiswahili, and after finally deciding his pancake was fit to flip, he turned again to face me, “it means you inspire me.” The comment seized me like night air and I began to think about all the ways he inspires me more than I could ever possibly inspire him; the ways in which he teaches me, simply by existing, to never stop fighting for my own meaningful place in this world. It was a moment stamped so deeply on my heart that it will never require any effigy to remind me of it, because it was a crucial lesson on the beautiful ways in which we give of ourselves. He gave me nothing of particular substance, but instead he shared with me that which was alive within him, and it was one of the greatest gifts I’d ever received.
You see, in the world of giving there is a natural law of abundance that exists, because once we decide to look within ourselves to give to someone else, then we are never short of resources. We ourselves are already the conduits of change that we are hungry to become; we just have to start looking within to find creative solutions to the callings that exist all around us. In the lens through which we experience life, we have the option to decide how to engage in our own greatness and how to act mindfully to enrich the lives of others, and that itself is an exquisite gift. It’s taken much of my life and many fateful strangers to teach me that when we give to somebody else the relief of some small bit of suffering, they never forget the chance they were given so they are likely to give to somebody else, and the effect keeps going. It’s the effect that makes Flying Kites so valuable and so radically distinctive. We are showing these children that parents or not, they deserve a chance to find their own meaningful place in this world, and to challenge their own potential. You can see it in their eyes every single day that it is a gift that one day they will give back too. By giving and teaching to give, we nurture ourselves and the world that exists all around us, we plant the seeds for a future that breaks static cycles like that of poverty. It’s how we express the difference we wish to make and in turn, ripen the graces of our own souls.
Our hunger is a sign of life. It gives breath to dreams whose evolution to reality have a potential to unfold, save only that a move be made, a button pressed, a lever pulled. People only start to get really interesting when they rattle the bars of their cages, and if you feel this hunger to make a difference, then there is no more opportune time to act than now. It’s a matter of satisfaction, and it’s a matter of living. When we are living in the pursuit of the difference we wish to make then we are finally arrived at the holy and hidden heart of a life fulfilled.
The Sun Never Says
November 24th, 2011 § 3 Comments
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look
What happens
With a love like that-
It lights the whole
World
-Hafiz
The sky was filled with nearly night. I could barely discern the features of the man who stood in front of me through the watery panes of my glasses, and the words that emptied from his mouth were void of any lingual familiarity. The still waters of the Nile shamed the light of the illuminated city telling me it was not yet dawn. I could hear the crowd of displaced passengers, restless and growing in size swelling outside the door as my breath began to compete in tempo with my heart. My eyes pined for the light just beyond the blinds drawn shut, and I began to recollect the events that precipitated my plane’s unplanned landing in Sudan.
“I didn’t even tell my son how much I loved him.”
The hollowed voice of the man beside me shook me to waking. A rogue wind swept through the aisle and the emergency lights lit themselves as the plane jolted to the left, I gauged the seriousness of my awakening by the wrinkle in my neighbor’s brow. My mind was hurtling through darkness, not wanting to recognize what was about to happen, but the realization gaining on me. The commotion ahead surrounded a man with an unkempt beard whose voice carried clear across the hierarchies of airplane seating. The sad timbre in his voice reverberated in each of us as the dreaded words escaped his mouth.
“I am going to blow up this plane.”
Everything in me rose to my face wishing I could, by some inconceivable means be back in the warmth of the home I left so far behind. And in an instant, all the reasons I was on a plane to Nairobi in the first place came charging at me in sobering clarity. All of the reasons I pined for this dream flashed uninvited to the forefront of my conscious and I could hardly believe that in one action it could all be taken away. Such are the beautiful and the complex faces of the karmic coin, juxtaposed and undeniable, and impossible to be judged unless we ourselves are the protagonists of such a fateful action.
All of my earthly possessions were stacked two suitcases high in the belly of the plane, I was moving to Kenya to spend the next year of my life volunteering with the children’s home at Flying Kites. I suppose the fate of this plane was as uncertain as any, but as deadened silence fell upon our sputtering aircraft, our blood began to leak conscious into the monster we call fear, and the future seemed as uncertain as ever. A heroic effort is a collective effort, and it took the combined force of many to restrain the man and the snap decision of our pilot to emergency land us in Khartoum. It felt like a matter of minutes. We had landed, my bags were taken away, my passport was snatched, and my only company was a man interrogating me about the absence of a Sudanese visa. I reached in my back pocket for a stack of tissues encased in plastic from CVS in an effort to ease my feelings of estrangement. It was a lengthy three hours before the circumstance of our landing revealed itself, a man was handcuffed and escorted out of Khartoum International Airport, my passport was back in my hands and I was brought to a small plane set to land in Nairobi the following morning. There, once again, it was clear that nothing was going to stand in the way me getting to Kenya.
I learned more about gratitude in the exhausting, murmuring moment Angie reached her arms around me, than I had in all the months before. The feeling of a friend’s embrace in a place far away from home is a treasure that I will forever use as a star to navigate the midnight ocean of uncertainty. We arrived at the house some time past noon, and the details that followed are ones etched deeper in my heart than any. To see the faces of the children I had dreamt about in so many ways before we met was more fulfilling than I could ever explain, and it took but one touch from one tiny hand for a river to flood my heart. One of the greatest joys of living a dream fulfilled is the significance immediately drawn to everything around you. You are no longer just going to work, you are doing just as you’ve always wanted to do. You are no longer just seeing a child, you are looking into the eyes that you would incite wars to defend. You are no longer just going home, you are going exactly where you are meant to be. Most of all, when you find yourself face to face with destiny, there is the thrilling prospect of complete surrender.
The greatest potential for profound understanding to unfold grows from the trials we face, and it can be our most vulnerable moments that allow us to reach the true substance of life. For me, it took ten days living under the impression I’d never see everything I once owned again to realize it was never the things I carried that I needed at all. It took the transition to a life unknown to discover the most precious thing we can offer to life, is our surrender to the wonders of its uncertainty. We look to our children to see the courage it takes to trust in our destinies, and to the stars above to realize that it all connects in a beautiful constellation somewhere.
*Today is Thanksgiving, a time to reflect on all that we have and to express gratitude for all the people in our lives who have helped us achieve such a beautiful vision. Your attention, your donations, and your endless loving support have transformed a dream to change the life of one child into the reality of saving the lives of many. On behalf of everyone here at the Flying Kites family, the 26 children whose lives you have forever impacted, thank you.
Les fous d’Afrique
November 21st, 2011 § 3 Comments
“The soul is healed by being with children”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky
They say that we are unstoppable in our dreams. It was an adage that traced my vision as I first watched the sun gradually dissolve itself amongst the dissipating skylight of the Great Rift Valley. I began to understand that what differentiates dreams from reality is a matter of action, and the moment we begin to live in pursuit of our dreams, we are living in a realm of possibility. Dreams flow from the fabric of my new home at Flying Kites Kenya and being in the presence of people who work passionately for the children they have come to care for is a remarkable reminder that ideas matter, and that love and compassion make all the difference in the life of a child and in the future of this world.
Beneath the roof of the stone country house I now call home, lives 26 children who have undoubtedly captured my heart. Our family extends to the volunteers, matrons, guards, cows, sheep, chickens and cats that share in the childhood of the extraordinary children in our care. Our home is situated at the foothills of the Aberdare Mountain Range, and as far as the eye can see, the sky is planked by a dreamscape of rolling hills, roaming cattle, and running river water. The mud roads that lead up to our home make for an adventurous walk to school during the weekdays, and for an illustrious accomplishment each time we make it back to the gates that house our life here in Kenya’s sprawling countryside, some 9,000 feet high.
Day by day Kenya and its people take my breath away. Journaling underneath the staccato of rain on our tin roof has become for me an emotional survey of the beliefs, the convictions and the conceptions I held so tightly before. I listen to the beauty of this world perpetually unfold itself into the words that scrawl the stories of those who have come to surround me, and the collective paths that have lead us all to live beneath the same roof are as unbelievable as any; a powder keg of possibility and hope. Uncertain fate and boundless possibility have become something to live for, and I’ve been surveying it all as if through a kaleidoscope that I may never have the chance to look through again.
To see the ideas of the organization personified in it’s children’s home in Kenya is surreal, and it is hard to imagine that it only opened itself up to the care of orphaned children four fast years ago. The children here are raised to be creative and open-minded, they are encouraged to find a place in the world that is meaningful and our role is to support them every single day to live in pursuit of their dreams. Raymond Chandler once said, “Ability is what you’re capable of doing, motivation determines what you do, and attitude determines how well you do it.” Flying Kites is faced with the mighty challenge of fundraising vital support for it’s most critical stage in development, but if what I have witnessed in my first two weeks here is any indication, we are up for the task.
The journey of transformation that occurs as we grow through the compounds of distance and time to push past the trials of our very own ambitions, is an extremely exciting one. We are all capable of the extraordinary, but we must continually be jumping off cliffs and developing wings on the way down. Jump alongside me as I embrace the unraveling details of this journey and surrender to the love of 26 children, to the enormity of human compassion that surrounds us in every living moment. Flying Kites is fighting for ingenuity in the name of every child who deserves to be loved and to have the chance to find the boundlessness of their own potential, but reader, we need you to join us on this march for compassion. And in return I will spend the next year of my life showing you first hand the impact that your care makes in the story of our children, a story for which your heart could never prepare.
*I’ll let the details of my arrival trickle into the next post, you wouldn’t believe what could happen in 48 hours of travel.
Ode to the Donor
October 12th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.
-Charles Darwin
It is a beautiful autumn day in Washington DC. I write you as leaves filling the fall spectrum are furling their way to the ground while the steam from my mug spindles toward the sky, and it is a joy to behold. In keeping with the season, today I’d like to fall into gratitude and celebrate each of you that have made the conscious decision to open yourself to generosity. Two short months ago I set out to raise $10,000 for Flying Kites Global, a non-profit that operates a primary school and home for orphaned children in Kenya, and today I am happy to report that this goal has been surpassed. To say I accomplished this on my own would in no way be true, this dream was pushed forth into reality only because of the compassion of others. Here is the true value of karma and compassion- that it reaches outwards of our own realm and effects the life of another.
With over 15 events and an outpouring of donors the results and implications of the collective donation are tremendous. Along with contributing to the well-being and happiness of 27 incredible children in Kenya, we have also accomplished fulfilling the following needs of their home: Avocado and peanut butter for HIV positive and underweight children for one month, two months of generator fuel for the home which allows the children to study long past sundown, two months of rent for the Flying Kites home, three months of professional private counseling for the children, one month of food and care for the home’s milk cow, vertigo medicine for a matron, and new school shoes for 27 kids.
This is a beautiful thing, and it is an illustration of how our generosity and compassion have the potential to affect another, in this case 27, so directly. I want to thank you with such an immensity that does not yet exist in any language, even French. Thank you for showing up, for lending your ears, opening your eyes, donating, committing, and for the unwavering support that has been offered. In many ways, this is the beginning for all of us. For me, reaching this goal becomes the momentum for a journey of contribution for the Flying Kites kids. And for you, it is the beginning of a relationship forged with the children whose stories will soon reveal themselves on the pages of this blog. I am certainly blessed with this opportunity. With your continued support, I will introduce you to children whose potential may challenge your own, to individuals who display compassion in extraordinary ways that will give you hope, and to the limitless opportunity we each have every single day to make a difference in the life of another.
If you’d like to help me soar past this goal, I have something in mind. The 27 children at the Flying Kites home hail from the Central Highlands of Kenya, and have never seen an ocean in their lives. An additional $5,000 raised would allow for all 27 of the children, plus 6 staff members to travel to the coast of Kenya for a weekend of brand new experiences. This would literally be a dream realized for every one of the children. If you can imagine seeing the ocean for the very first time, then you can imagine how unforgettable this gift would be. If you are nodding yes, I invite you to contribute to the fundraising site today.
With deepest gratitude,
Hannah
Open Your Eyes
October 12th, 2011 § 2 Comments
I like to imagine that at any given moment, there must be millions of acts of kindness taking place around the world. I like to imagine that somewhere, someone is clueing a stranger in on their trail of toilet paper stuck to a heel, or that someone somewhere is putting a fallen baby bird back in it’s nest, but most of all I like to imagine that the acts of kindness that are happening right now are far grater than the ones my own mind can even imagine.
What distinguishes the human species is the imagination. We can imagine the suffering of a mother in defenseless search for a lost child, the cling to life of a harpooned whale, the joy of a bride on her wedding day, and the struggle of a far away stranger to make ends meet. It is this imagination that lays the root for empathy, and our empathy for others that makes us capable of committing extraordinary acts of kindness. Let this be a lesson in the importance of each other, and the inescapable gift of our consciousness to imagine the joys and pushes of another’s life because only an innate sense of empathy toward others can motivate us to act on their behalf.
Imagine what it would be like to transcend the words of Rumi’s poem, and go beyond to the feelings these words so powerfully give rise to. Imagine what it would be like to build the strength of those feelings so that they become a radiant way of being with which to move through our daily lives. Our life can become a source of magnificence to the world or it can add to the already mounting anxiety and negativity. The choice is up to us. We are all capable of extraordinary things, and the moment we open up our eyes to our interconnectedness we begin to forge a sense of stewardship toward the compassion it takes to elevate ourselves to act as we were born to do, we fly.
Inspiration
September 1st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
“To reach the depth of the soul, that which is unmanifest, we need to be totally open to great joy without attachment.” –Ligia Dantes
What would it take
To let joy go
With the same wide arms
That drew it in?
Willingness to be a flute
Hollow open at both ends
Trusting the power
And range of its voice
When the gathered breath
Strikes the waiting
Space within
-Shailja Patel
Four Keys To a Better Future
August 27th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love” -William Wordsworth
The causes and conditions of our future are largely in our hands, and our greatest tool for sculpting the future our children deserve, is loving kindness. In kindness towards others and ourselves, we both cultivate and reinforce inner strength and equanimity that sustains us in the face of challenge and great joy. The art of karma is that we need not external circumstances or material goods to lead purposeful lives, we only need to act in kindness. Nischala Joy Devi derives four keys from yoga Sutra 1:33 that I believe if integrated into every day life, we allow ourselves to become the architects for that very future:
Kindness to those who are happy
Compassion for those who are less fortunate
Honor for those who embody noble qualities
Equanimity to those whose actions oppose your values
You see, we really don’t need crystal balls or tarot cards to tell the future; we can see it reflected in each action we take in the present moment. Lord Buddha said “What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now.” In both our actions and what we choose to support, we have the opportunity to advocate a foundation for the world that children are born dreaming of. Today I choose to support Flying Kites, the organization that has driven my devotion to this very project and which has burgeoned individuals whose kindness and compassion inspire me each moment to push forth in the name of social consciousness.
Flying Kites is a non- profit organization that operates a children’s home and primary school in Njabini, Kenya for children who have been left without family or possession. It is an organization that stemmed from the loving kindness of three extraordinary individuals, and that remains driven by providing compassionate care to the children who come to live there and see their dreams realized. I can not possibly speak highly enough of Flying Kites, nor can I convey my immense gratitude for the breadth of opportunity and welcoming they have offered to me. I can only radiate their voice and mission through my own acts of kindness in hopes to amplify the noble vision of extraordinary care to all children.
The beautiful thing about kindness, is that we never run short of opportunities to practice it. Whether it be vibes of success, one dollar, a million, or anywhere in between, choose to support Flying Kites today by donating either through my personal fundraising site, or the organization itself. Our own serenity and strength can be determined by the actions we choose to take right now, and we have the opportunity each and every moment to choose to act in loving kindness.
If you live in Seattle, here is a spoiler alert: keep your eyes peeled in Capitol Hill for the children you support through Flying Kites may soon reveal themselves somewhere around 11th and Pine.
