Beyond the surface

There is a man in town.

He has shaved his head.

Tattoos cover his whole body;

arms and fingers,

the neck, the skull

his lips, his eyelids

his face

I saw him tonight before midnight

on my way home.

A small dog walked beside him,

ran between his legs

I went up and asked if I could pat the dog?

A tiny fragile voice

said

Yes

He is only 14 weeks

…

just before leaving

I asked the dog’s name?

His name is Bluie.

Blue?

Bluie, it is  British slang for best friend

and that is what we are going to be.

said

the little gentle voice

As he walked away my friend

said

I saw him the other day and was afraid to look

I did not want him to think I stare,

to think I judge him.

Do you know how many people think I am

stupid because I am black,

because I am from Africa

I know.

You are talking to a man

with a beard down to his belt.

And little do they know

we are kind,

you a  doctor in mathemathics

and I,

a teacher.

And the tattooed man

a person who will  soon be

the little dog’s

best friend

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No Greed

Some time ago a good friend had been gathering clothes

Unconditionally given by people she knows

 

One boy

 

No country

No fixed home

No family

 

She says

please take anything you want

 

He picks only

one sweater

one t-shirt

 

She says:

Would you not like one shirt?

 

I already have three shirts, thank you

Maybe someone else need them

 

 

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Helping a snail?

 

I don’t know if picking up

the snail slowly crossing  the road

and putting her/him down

in the grass on the other side

was helping?

Maybe I confused the snail?

 

 

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The Ghost of Bob Marley?

Some times things are not the way they seem

and yet we are sure they are.

 

As a young man, or not yet a man but a boy,

I sat on the railing of a very high bridge.

my feet dangling

my eyes looking down the gorge.

 

The place I lived in seemed to be the entire world

and at the moment it was not a happy one.

 

The war hadn’t even begun for years to come

yet  inside me it was already there.

 

I thought about leaning forward and letting go.

Letting go of the thoughts that haunted me.

Letting go of my reality painfully pounding me.

And also,

letting go of life.

 

Looking back,

I don’t see why

I just did not take one step.

One step

out of my reality

to see that there is more to things than they seem.

 

Or that even though they are

the way they seem,

one step away,

one small step away,

another reality,

another adventure

is waiting.

 

 

 

I did not let go,

I just sat there

for hours

staring at the black river

making its way forward.

 

 

 

I left

with no money in my pocket

and a broken heart in my chest

to find goodness

in places and strangers I did not know.

 

I also found,

war

pain

hunger

sorrow

and things

I wish I did not see,

but

never

will I stop

flowing forward

from reality to reality

 

For what would life have been worth

had I let go of the railing

not having felt

pure

unselfish kindness

love

friendship

and

tiny moments of inner peace.

 

 

 

 

“If you are not living good,

I beg you, travel wide.

Said I am a living man

I’ve got work to do…”

Bob Marley – Soul Rebel

Mentally or physically, please step out of your reality and into another.

When you feel you can do nothing for yourself, do something for others.

Please do good.

You might find things weren’t the way they seemed.

 

 

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Kindness Revolution

Imagine if every person on Earth did at least one act of kindness today.

Imagine the kindness explosion and the positive ripple effect it would give!

Perfect love!

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Good people

In my life I have indeed met some truly good people.

I come to think of it today since

I might have left a truly good woman

giving unconditional love.

 

Sometimes I feel there is something wrong with the world,

but hen I remember:

 

If we see good we don’t think that all is good.

When we see one thing or person being bad,

we generalize and many think that all persons or situations similar must be equally bad.

 

So why should not the opposite also be true?

You see one thing good = more things are good!

If it is, the world is not half as bad as I thought.

There is at least as much good as there is bad.

In fact the people that do good (uncoditionally) are many times not seen,

but they are there, among us everywhere.

Many of them are not older than they can show with their fingers.

 

I am talking about unconditional good

without any expectation of getting anything back at all:

 

leaving nice and comforting notes in a book at the library for a mother to be,

so called guerrilla goodness.

Or letting a refugee live in your house until ready to move on.

Or the unselfish goodness that happens when you most need it:

 

Some 18 years ago (before mobile phones and digital cameras)

I left my home in a hurry. Brokenhearted I spent my last money and flew to the other side of the world.

In the south of Mexico I chopped and cleared jungle for roads to pass,

people gave me food that was left over when restaurants closed,

poor families sharing what little food they had on trains that traveled so slow it took days to get where you were going.

Those were unselfish acts as well as the five Mariachis escorting me from parts of Mexico City in which I would not have lasted long.

Or the veterinarian taking me into his home, treating my typhoid fever for weeks without asking for nothing in return.

 

But above all

the little Zapotec boy

with torn clothes,

not a half man tall,

that just before nightfall

high up in the Oaxaca mountains

spent all his money

to pay the bus

for a skinny bearded long-haired-giant

a stranger

whom he had never met before

also giving me half his bread to eat

even though I did not understand a word of Chatino.

 

 

That is unconditional good

and

I have not forgotten you little hero

 

 

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Today I cried

I cried for the first time in a long while.

Not only out of sorrow.

My tears went rolling down my cheeks as I realized how many people out there are doing good and how many people actually let their hearts guide them.

 

I love you

I love you for seeing the person and not the illness

I love you for seeing the individual and not the disability

I love you for talking to the person carried by the wheel chair and not to the person pushing it

I love you for doing good for others

I love you for not being afraid to still visit your neighbor, friend or workmate when they or someone in their family is struggeling.

I love you for being there when you are not sure what to do.

 

Hala

In Sweden, the apartment buildings most of the time has a slot in the door for the mailman to deliver the mail. It is about an inch wide 3 feet above ground and just wide enough to put your fingers through it after opening the lid.

I lived in a place where my neighbor was the sweetest father I have ever seen. Always outside playing with his little daughter for hours at a time, the youngest of four children. Her birthday is on February 14, easy to remember because of Valentine’s day. Such an adorable child, full of energy, curly locks and big brown eyes.

As soon as she started walking she used to stand on the balcony of the first floor greeting people going in and out of the building, always putting a smile on my face.

One day,

as I was walking up the stairs inside the building,

I heard my name echo in a fragile voice.

I turned around and saw no one.

I kept walking and there it was again:

 

david … david … david

 

I walked back down a couple of steps and through the slot three feet up  in the door of the first floor I saw the most adorable pair of eyes looking at me.

 

Today Hala is 4 almost 5.

She is a fighter, and a bundle of Palestinian-Swedish joy.

Hala has been and still is fighting a vicious cancer for several years. Her family’s weapon in this fight is never ending love. Something they will need as the struggle continues.

…

Donna

Today I read Donna’s story

Chris led me to it.

That is why I cried.

Today 3 out of 4 kids in Sweden survive cancer. My best friend did too, even though the odds in the 80s were not good. Please help improving those odds.

In Sweden: http://barncancerfonden.se/

In the US: http://www.childrenscancer.org/main/ways_to_donate/

or help Chris and Donna’s Good Things here

Love can take us far but money will do too. Many small drops makes a river in the end.

Stay strong warriors of love!

To Remind me

Please people add more links in the comment section, especially for other countries

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A teacher I love(d)

When I was eight I had an old lady as my teacher. At least I thought she was old. She always had long dresses with flowers on.

Once the whole class was invited to her home. It was a small apartment. She had baked cookies. I liked them and asked for the recipe. I found it some years ago among the few belongings I still have. It said “Teacher Märta´s cookies” in bad handwriting.

An accident had just changed my life and I was feeling quite emotional. I always liked her and felt it was a shame I had never told her so.

I thought she must be dead by now, but recalled where she lived back then. I looked her name up in the digital phone book here in Sweden. She still lived at the same address!

I remembered her with love in my heart and gave her a call. I told her my name, and would you believe it but she remembered me, some 30 years later. She even asked me how my two best friends from then were doing.

She was eighty years old by now. We talked for a long while.

Her remembering me just filled my heart with joy and brought tears to my eyes. She told me I had been one of her favorite pupils. Something I would have never guessed, since I could never keep my mouth shut and never remember to raise my hand in class.

Even my mother was surprised when I said I had called her. She told me that she thought that Märta did not like me.
I think subconsciously that she was the one that planted the seed of becoming a teacher in me.
Just thinking about this still brings tears to my eyes.

Märta Carlsson, I still love you

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Can love be lost?

You can never lose love.

Or at least I have never lost it.

It resides within my heart and comes in various forms.

Sometimes it fills it to the brim and from time to time  it lingers hidden in the core.

Never is my heart without it for always someone loves me or I someone,

even though at times it is hard at the moment of changing shapes.

9 years is the longest relationship- non-stop-love I have had.

When it changed its shape there was pain and grief,

but never was it lost!

Nine years of love is carried within me forever like the love from my grandfather was with me for 32 years until he died.

Is that love lost?

I think I am still carrying 32 years of continuous love with me until it is time for me to die.

So is it 32 years of  love or now 36?

4 years have passed since his death and I still love him even if he is not here.

And who knows if the love my grandmother feels for me will ever be lost?

For its magnitude fills more than our hearts.

It spills over and floods into and joins all LOVE;

Love;

the positive energy that flows like an invisible wind over all man- and womankind.

Unseen by some but available to all who dare to love without expecting anything in return.

Love can´t be lost:

http://bournefield3.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/to-my-mum-with-love-always/

http://kathleenmae.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/hero-of-all-time/#comments

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There is hope for our future generations!

Sometimes something that is a little bit bad can bring out something good.

A couple of 12/13-year-old-boys was teasing a girl at the school I teach. Not saying anything really bad, just teasing her, which is enough to make someone sad.

A few days later I spoke to one little boy and asked him if he knew why I wanted to talk to him. (He had just jumped on the teasing train as the last person, not really knowing what it was about).

His big eyes looked up on me like two huge question marks.

When he heard that a girl was sad and realized he had a part in it,

compassion, empathy and sadness filled the big brown eyes.

A small heart grew greater than his little body and was crying out.

With tears watering his eyes,

small almost silent words formed on his lips as he asked

“How can one make sadness go away when you have hurt someone?”

“We must find the girl so that I can apologize”

Sitting there I understood that I had just witnessed a small miracle. In that boys heart lies our future. And it can be a good one.

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