Think Pink by Wearing Pink

I was in Southern Ontario attending a course in August.  I went a day early to catch some sights, and found myself in St. Jacobs on Saturday morning, taking in the Farmer’s Market.  I ate a they-must-serve-these-in-heaven home made cinnamon bun for breakfast (and learned a few things to improve my cinnamon bun making technique), and wandered through the stalls.  There were fresh Ontario peaches, being sold by the basket–more than I could eat.  I asked if I could buy just one yumma-licious looking peach…and the straw-hatted farmer just picked one up and tossed it to me, saying he couldn’t sell me one, but he could give me one.  I knew it would taste good, but a peach received as an act of grace is even more delicious.

I also went on a horse drawn carriage ride through the near by country, stopping off at a maple syrup farm of some old-order Mennonites.  Simple hard working people, who use horses for transportation, and dress in conservative dresses, and pants with suspenders.  Large families who work hard year round, with no computers or televisions. The tour guide answered all sorts of questions that those of us on the carriage had about their lifestyle.

These people don’t carry insurance.  If someone needs help, they all pitch in and pay for it together. No health insurance.  No building insurance.  No need for insurance.

They. Help. Each. Other.

As a matter of fact, if someone’s barn is destroyed by storm or fire, they just all pitch in and build a new one. Women prepare the food.  Men bring materials and tools and skills and they work together to rebuild.  They work hard…and these actually become social occasions where there is a chance to spend time with each other.

Just one problem with the whole deal, the tour guide told us.

Everybody wants to help all the time…and it’s difficult to build something with so many folks around eager to do their thing.

So they draw up a schedule, to pace when the folks come to help build so that everybody isn’t there all the time, and the operation can be organized and orderly.

Nice problem to have, eh?  Too much help.

Helping is good.  It’s helpful to help other.  (DUH!!)

But helping helps the helper too, eh?

There’s something about helping that connects one human to another, to remind us that we all share this global village, and we belong to each other.

We belong to each other.

It only makes sense to find ways of reminding ourselves that, of getting involved in little and big ways in the lives of others…those we know around us, and those we haven’t yet met.  Maybe will never meet.  But need our help. And I’m thinkin’ that helping is good for us. I love painting parties, or afternoons spent with friends raking leaves of someone who can’t…there’s good laughs and kinship shared.

Helping is fun.

October is National Breast Cancer Month. This week, at Bergen and Associates, we’re gonna have us a little fun.  Our work with clients is serious and important, and we’re not gonna touch that…the important work of improving connections in the lives of our clients will continue.

But we’re gonna “think pink” by “wearing pink”. And we’re gonna invite our clients to wear pink too! During the week of October 14-20, we gonna keep a “tick sheet” at the front desk to mark a check mark each time someone enters our office is wearing pink.  At the end of the week, we’ll count the check marks and make a donation to the Canadian Cancer Society.