I use Charity Navigator to evaluate the various organizations that are making relief efforts. If you have never visited the site, you might find it helpful.

I don’t consider myself rah-rah-religious, but Convoy of Hope ( a religious disaster relief organization) does a kick-ass job at what they do. In a matter of a few computer clicks, I sent them a few bucks, and specified that they be used for the Japan catastrophe. You can do that right from the Charity Navigator site.

I’m not writing this to toot my own horn. I simply wanted to point out how easy it is to help.

Princess Gail and I moved from Toledo, Ohio down here to Winston-Salem, North Carolina a little over a year ago.  North to South. It has been a fun sort of culture shock! I find it interesting how in the same country, people can be so very different. The pace of life is different. The accents, inflections, tones, and phrases of our English language are different. The way people treat each other is different. The music, art, and even the view of history are different. Gail and I should stand out like sore thumbs. Ha!, maybe we do! But you wouldn’t know it. Everywhere we go, we have felt the warm welcome of “Southern Hospitality.” We don’t really fit in yet. We may as well have “northerner” tattooed on our foreheads. Yet we feel accepted… just the way we are!

It took a while, but I think I figured out why we are treated so nicely. It was a slap-my-forehead-duh moment. It’s not about the things that make us different! It’s about the things that make us the same!

We all are born, grow, and learn. We all work and play. We all sing and dance. We all love and are loved. We all are students and teachers. We all make mistakes, we grow some more, we are forgiven and we forgive. We all suffer, pay the taxman, and we die. There are so many things that bind us all together as human beings. It is so easy to understand that there are variations to these things, but that in their essence, they are human things, common to us all. Common. Communion. Community. Peace!

I will look for those things in people that make us the same!

This is the perfect meme for the moment! Thanks to Queen Mimi for these peaceful questions!

1. How do you find your own personal peace/nirvana?

I try to figure out what is making me anxious. Sometimes it takes a prayer for clarity. And many times I just have to keep repeating the Serenity Prayer over and over like a mantra. Other ways that work for me are physical exercise, relaxation exercises, and our massage chair.
2. Where do you go to find respite and solace?
Is there a particular place, city, country, room in your house?

Our house is roomy enough to find a quiet spot, and we are all respectful enough to give each other alone time when needed.

3. Who is the most peace-loving person you know? What makes them so?

Martha Wheeler.  She is a long time friend from Toledo. I have always been impressed by her kind and peaceful manner. She accomplishes an amazing lot, and always in an elegant, peaceful, unhurried, and unruffled way.

4. What do you do when your inner peace is threatened?
Do you have a strategy, a routine, religious faith, a mantra……to calm yourself down?

See #1.

5. What is your favorite comfort food?

Cookies or pie.  I prefer pie, because I count it as a “fruit group” selection!  ;-)
6. Do you have a pet that brings you happiness and peace? If not, what type of animals bring you peaceful thoughts?

Birds, because they are outside pets! (I wouldn’t mind an imaginary dog, either!)

7. What is your favorite peace song?

Peace it Together. It’s a song I’ve been working on for a while. Maybe for the next BB4P?

8. Did you post a peace globe on November 5th and participate in BlogBlast For Peace?

Duh… like, who didn’t!?!

So today I am grateful for those times in between… the good times!  Just as we have our share of suffering, we are also blessed with times of joy and peace! We carry those with us, too!  I will try to always remember the good old times… while looking forward to the good new times!

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A look back to my peace post of Nov 6, 2008.

People of the world!  Children of the world!

I look forward to a future where we all live together in peace and understanding. It is not a pipe dream. We can make it happen, if we each do our own part.

On November 5, 2009, the people of the world will get together on the same wavelength, in a spirit of universal love:  The BlogBlast for Peace!

Please join us! Your part is important!

People of the world!  Children of the world!

I look forward to a future where we all live together in peace and understanding. It is not a pipe dream. We can make it happen, if we each do our own part.

On November 5, 2009, the people of the world will get together on the same wavelength, in a spirit of universal love:  The BlogBlast for Peace!

Please join us! Your part is important!