Giving-Making People Happy

So today I am deciding to be silent because I can feel my voice needs it as does my soul. I so love to please people. But instead of beating myself up about it I am going to explore the love part of it. I know all the rest, the part about me needing to please other people and how that isn't healthy. But public servants make it their life's work to please, they exist to be in service to others. Now intellectually I know that the balance is that this giving does not take away from them it actually expands them. So I am not sure my role in service but I will explore that part that loves to give; the part that expands me. Just to have a lookie lou.

I perform partly because I love to see all those joyous smiles out there. It brings me joy. When I see fans crying I do not understand it, I am intrigued and want to know more about them. What made them cry? Are they crazy? Are they projecting their love on me am I just a mirror reflecting love back to people. They think its me or something I am doing or any person that is idolized but really it is our own love reflected back to us. Or maybe the singing actually touched them. I know I am touched by words.

I was watching an episode of "Six Feet Under" and this character named 'Daddy' died. Anything about daddy's and death touch a chord with me. So they read this poem at his funeral. Okay its a television show but I was floored. Weeping at the beauty and melody that the words sewed together - like a beautiful piece of lace on my grandmothers couch that was covered in plastic to protect it. Okay I made that part up but if I had a grandmother I figure she would be the kind that would have those lace doilies and she would have a living room full of plastic. The words moved me. Someone's art changed me, echoed the love that I hold in my heart for my father and healed my heartbreak just a little. Did the writer have some experience of pain that he was working through or was he writing for the love of writing. Either way he touched me. What I can garner from this is that whaterver the reason I perform; to get noticed, because I feel alive, because it is cathartic for me to live and learn outloud because that is the example that was mirrored to me every Sunday watching my father work out family differences on the pulpit, or just simply because something touches my soul in a particular way.

I like mothering people. I love to cook. When I cook my food is so wonderfully a part of the creative process and it tastes darn good to! I want to share this goodness with others. I love that they say, "Matt you can cook!!" or "you should open a restaraunt" or "oh my God" and I also love sharing a piece of the God in me with them. This is what I have to offer. I sometimes throw delicious food away because it is too much for me to have all to myself. Part of the love in making it is giving it away- I love sharing my love through food with others. I love that people appreciate what I share.

I enjoy helping people. And again my ego is here as well. Do I feel a bit of "yeah I helped them see that" of course but the real joy comes in the spark that you see in someones eyes as they come closer to home, closer to themselves. I witnessed a live birth once in my life. Not that I haven't cried many times watching "A Baby Story" on TLC but when I saw that baby I was convinced of 2 things. 1. We are aliens (half a joke) 2. That their is a spark of life that is ignited at birth. I have been blessed to see this birth spark many times in my life with people. In audiences, in a meeting room at a Weight Watchers session, in private counsel with friends and loved ones and it moves me, it gives me such joy.

They all connect me to me and me, to the humanity of others; they all connect me to God who is LOVE. Sometimes, not always I feel that when I am doing these things I should be no other place doing no other thing than loving in the present moment as I see fit. Maybe that is the place called heaven.