Compassion Challege -- Day 19

I'm encouraged to participate in this November challenge with my church congregation.

Inspiring Compassion: The 30 Day Compassion Challenge. 30 days to explore the topic of compassion: Mindfulness, Compassion for Friends & Family, Self-Compassion, Compassion for All, Compassion for Our Planet.

Friday I gave a little of my time to Alban. He's the high school student who is a complete anachronism. He doesn't like any of the music or movies that are popular now and rhapsodizes about the culture of MY youth (much of it crap, Troy Donahue, for example). I sense that he's quite lonely in real life -- how many of his classmates mourned when Keith Allison died? -- and am glad that he has a tribe of Facebook followers.

Anyway, he's seriously into Elvis, which I applaud. He's also very indiscriminate, thinking just about turd The King squeezed out is worthy of attention. Elvis once famously said that the only thing "worse than watching a bad movie is being in one," and was aware that much of his 1960s work was subpar. But Alban loves it all.

He IM'd me on Friday, wanting to discuss Frankie & Johnnie, Harum Scarum and other Elvis movies that are just beyond awful. I wouldn't do that. I mean first of all, I was working Friday. Secondly, I didn't want to be a hypocrite. Those movies blow. 

But a lonely boy in another state was reaching out to me. That's a gift in a way, isn't it? And so I answered him, saying, "Let's not talk about where we disagree and focus on what we have in common." We shared an online conversation about King Creole, Viva Las Vegas and Follow that Dream. I gave him a little movie trivia -- King Creole was directed by Oscar winner Michael Curtiz, famous for Casablanca. 

Alban was happy.

That's the thing about this compassion challenge: it's so EASY to lift someone else's spirits if I just stop to think about it!

Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness.