No recent event has galvanized America as much as September 11, 2001. As reported in the Austin American Statesman on January 27, 2002, Derrill Bodley, a man who lost his only child on United Flight 93, recently traveled to Afghanistan at the invitation of Global Exchange, a group dedicated to uniting families of Sept. 11th victims with victims of the U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. At seeing the devastation there, and especially after speaking with a father who lost his five-year-old daughter in the bombing, Mr. Bodley was able to put his own grief in perspective. Much of the money he receives from his daughter’s death - a settlement from the airline company and a sum from the Red Cross - will go toward relief projects in Afghanistan. He says: “It’s not just giving a dime, but giving until you feel it. That is what I am doing.”

A movie, PAY IT FORWARD, was released some time ago. In it a young boy, Trevor, was challenged by his seventh-grade social science teacher to think of an idea to change the world and then to put it into action. He did. He vowed to do one large favor for three different people, something they couldn’t do for themselves. By accepting his help, each recipient was then obligated to do likewise. So, one good deed became three, three became nine, nine evolved into twenty-seven acts of goodness, etc. One can certainly posit that Darrill Bodley is ‘paying it forward.’

As with The Greatest Generation of World War II, there has been sacrifice on behalf of others and a recent outpouring of good will and good deeds across the country as many experience a compelling mixture of fear and hope, a restructuring of priorities, and the discovery that helping others helps ourselves. Winston Churchill once said: “All my past has been but a preparation for this hour and this trial.” We, too, each of us, are being tried and tested. A question before us is how to exponentially multiply the individual acts of kindness and compassion that we witness daily, and turn these ‘small yeast cubes of caring’ into ever-expanding loaves of compassion, reconstruction, and revitalization.

Picture this, if you will:

Now, imagine people in many different communities Paying It Forward. Not just geographic communities, but communities of people everywhere -- civic groups, classes of school children, the local book club. You get the idea. Further imagine there is a recording, if you will, of all these good deeds, whether altruistic ones, spurs to the economy, whatever that can be thought up, created and carried out by caring people. This recording is not to foster competition, but rather cooperation, a sharing of ideas that can, in turn, galvanize others to action. These acts of goodness within these small groups would then be reported in the local newspaper, a natural ‘clearing house,’ as it were, sounding the clarion call for more individuals in the larger community to find a pebble, a stone, a rock, thereby challenging others to become an agent of change, a Churchillian chevalier. More yeast, more loaves. These local cosmic classified ads would then be transmitted to other newspapers around the country, which in turn, would issue their own calls to kindness. The recordings would ultimately be collected and shared in a central location. Where? If nowhere else, on Oprah, our modern Delphi oracle. The right national venue would show up, of that I am sure. Instead of reading about cells of terrorism, we would read about cells of caring. The daily column might even be entitled: “Let’s Rock and Roll,” rocks from the pond image and ‘Let’s Roll’ from Todd Beamer, a hero of the downed plane in Pennsylvania.

By rocking and rollin’ the United States would infuriate and frustrate those who perpetrated the atrocity of September 11th. We have only to light the match to this powerful idea, this spiritual oven of synergy. Our current war will not be won on the battlefield, but victory will rise in the hearts of mankind. Margaret Mead, the noted anthropologist, said it so well: “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.” Let all of us reach deep within ourselves to find strength, compassion and resolve to join Derrill Bodley and Trevor in paying it forward.

Copyright: Carol Abbassi, 2002