The show that I watched was called Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys – interesting as it is Netflix has recommended it to me multiple times. The episode dealt with a divorced single mother going to the psychic near her shop asking about her love life. Stopping right there because that is enough to know, I thought to myself would I want to know what my future holds? My thought was split two ways:

The first: I have actually talked with Hillary about going to see a psychic and we were so close to. Problem there was it cost $30 and we had to come back later. Never been back since and the idea has not come up. The optimism of something good being said still runs through my mind.

The conclusion: Why would I want to know my future? What if it turns out to be horrible filled with misery? What if it turns out amazing: find a good partner, have kids, white picket fence, the whole nine yards. Merely, the future would be boring with the knowledge of what would happen at every part of my life. Starting this new chapter in my life as a college student is one push forward (hopefully) to a brighter and more successful future that I have ideas about.

The world is my oyster for a guy who dreams big!

The people we served were so diverse.  Some were cleaned up like they were going to church; most were not groomed at all.  Some chatted with me; some didn’t acknowledge my existence.  Many thanked me; one lady had a very heated conversation with herself.  It might have been scary, except the staff has everything under tight control.  The supervisors are so efficient, very by-the-book, and strict with the clients.  The clients all know the rules and follow them without question.

Before I had children, I saw self-centered, greedy, entitled, bratty children in public and promised myself that would never be my child.   My kids grew up hearing: “Your value lies in what you give to others.  If you’re not contributing, making someone else’s life better or brighter because you’re in it, then you’re being useless.”  Now that they’re mostly all grown up, they tell me stories of their days, of how they improved someone else’s day, and I know they understand.

So on this Saturday, I got to brighten someone else’s day by getting good, hot meals to some people who really appreciated it.  Although I hadn’t wanted to go in the first place (who wants to give up a beautiful Saturday that could have been spent sleeping by the pool?), I’m looking forward to the next time we will be volunteering at Poverello House.

Good call, Justin.  Poverello House was a great place for us to be useful and give back to our community.

- Jill, Events Coordinator
My Lgbt Plus

“Prostitution is to sex what buying and selling is to giving and receiving.”

-Mark Boyle, the “Moneyless Man”

Within the recent centuries, we have begun a quick and messy process of painting our hearts green, forming our most intimate relationships with our wallets and our credit cards, and, in turn, tossing aside the value of human connectedness for a chance to do it all over again. Materials fill in the empty shadows that love once filled; SUVs take the space of children dancing in the street; a desire for a big house replaces the desire for a close family; mindless babble placed into our mouths by the workplaces we hate but depend on takes the place of songs in our throat. Money, the one liberator, the safety net, the main goal as a civilization, without us even noticing, has finally become a different type of net- one that constricts our being, raids the once existing community we had formed (or at least tried to, when our prejudices didn’t get in the way), and kidnaps the potential for all spiritual growth.

The world, and even more so the United States, depends heavily these days on these capitalistic ploys. Those who cannot afford proper health insurance must pray that they and their families to not become sick or injured, with the fear of fatal implications. Those who cannot afford to pay rent or for food must fear a lack of shelter or starvation. And now, as we have seen in the student uprisings in Chile, Puerto Rico, Quebec, all across the CSU and UC system, and across the nation and the world, corporate interests are now adopting the educational system, with their priorities in mind. There is a complete disconnect from our food, the origin of our clothing, our products made in some sweat shop in some distant land (maybe?), and, as we press our minds blindly on the “get more mentality” that money provides, we forget to care about who gets hurt in the process. We forget that complete independence does not exist, and that dependence on each other and an appreciation of it is what makes us human and what allows us to grow as spiritual beings. We may think, however, that we are too far gone, too comfortable sitting in the pot of gold to remember that the pot could easily be used to feed the masses, that it will be impossible to remove ourselves from what we have created.

But we must.

The only way this can be done, it seems, would be the adoption of a gift economy in which people support one another by providing for one another’s needs without question. A gift economy does not have a basis in “What can I get?”, but rather “What can I give?” It allows for intimate relationships between close-knit communities, where no one can get abused for their labor because in an ideal gift-economic society, the dirty labor is divvied up, and labor becomes a point from which to grow communally instead of which to gain from individualistically. The architects will build because they enjoy building and because the people will need shelter. The doctors will perform medicine because they enjoy performing medicine and because the people will need medical care. The teachers will teach because they enjoy teaching and because there are students in the world who enjoy learning. We will appreciate everything that we own and will not waste it because it will be a product of our labor. Thus we build intimacy.

Unfortunately, where we are right now will not allow this society to flourish. Instead, we hold onto our hierarchically formed ideals and principles, hoping to one day take another step up on the social ladder. Money is where we are planted right now, and will continue to be our constraint for decades to come. This, however, should not deter you. We must begin our own gift economy, and structure it around the society we already have in place. We must give when we can, even when it is just a few berries, even if it is a simple doodle. We must do this for everyone—for the teachers, the artists, the nomads, the children, the oppressed as well as their oppressors, those on the fringes of society, those who seem to own our society. We will care for each other much more strongly than we have ever before, and in this our liberation will be found.

In one of Ghana’s many languages, the word for “poor” best translates to “without friends, family, or community.” We cannot allow ourselves to become poor in the search of riches.

Zack Wahls talks about his inspiring speech delivered to the Iowa legislature in defense of same sex marriage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu8RkskFi78

The Long family talks about their child Tyler who was bullied until the point where he committed suicide after taunts from other kids at his school 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6RDpOGqeCg

“If we don’t make a change 10 years from now our children and grandchildren will be here talking about the same thing we are talking about”

- David Long, father of Tyler

I guess I don’t really know what I expected to find, but what I saw was definitely not it. Hundreds of homeless meandered around the shelter, waiting for it to open. People sat on curbs and benches while others sprawled out along the concrete. I was surprised. Naively, I had had no idea Fresno could be home to so many vagabond. Men, women, and children all stood in line around a truck that was dispensing water. Across the street from the shelter, there is a makeshift settlement of mini-barns, complete with portable bathrooms.

Whilst volunteering, I met a few students like myself. Some were high-schoolers seeking community service hours, others were apart of various church groups. I teamed up with a girl from a nearby high-school, and together we began to pass out sandwiches. She spoke of her excitement for her upcoming graduation, her plans for college, her hopes for the future. I felt a little funny discussing these matters in a homeless shelter, elbows deep in sack lunches and surrounded by people whose only hopes were for a second plate of food. Many surprised me again by offering smiles and wishing us luck on our various journeys. I felt bad that there wasn’t more I could do to help these people. However, the girl’s chipper attitude was contagious. As we passed out food, we received many a thanks for our time.

Sooner than I would have guessed, we were out of sack lunches to give. We helped assist the remaining families into the building, and served them lunch. Afterward, we quickly cleaned up before being thanked and dismissed. I discovered giving back doesn’t have to be painstaking, or difficult. Giving back just requires patience and a willingness give someone else a moment of your time. I know as well as anybody that life gets busy, and its easy to get caught up in the here and now, but looking back, after volunteering, my day seemed a little brighter. I had helped feed the hungry. Though it might not seem like a huge accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, to the people whose mouths I fed, it meant the world. Knowing that I had contributed to silencing a hungry stomach kept the smile on my face as I drove home.

Song Playing As I Type This: “Say Yes” by Iyeoka

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“One of the great movements in my lifetime among educated people is the need to commit themselves to action.”

- Peter Drucker

Every day should be a day of giving. My Lgbt Plus took the month off from hosting a community event to research organizations in our community who can use the extra hands on help. In a short time the Poverello House jumped straight to the front of the line based on their amazing work they do.

If you are not familiar with the Poverello House, they serve three meals a day, 365 days a year to anyone in need. On top of serving meals Poverello House offers the following services:

• free medical and dental care through the Holy Cross Clinic
• provides showers and laundry services to the homeless
• serves as a day shelter and safe haven for people on the streets
• houses a 28-bed residential alcohol and drug rehabilitation program and a five-bed transitional home
• distributes free clothing
• provides recreation, mail service, transportation, and, in 2004, opened the Village of Hope, a temporary overnight shelter for homeless people who want an alternative to the streets.

On Saturday, April 28, 2012, My Lgbt Plus staff members will be at the Poverello House serving meals from 11:15am to 3pm. If you would like to join us, please email Justin Kamimoto at justin@mylgbtplus.com. We would love to have you join us while we help out the Fresno community.

You see the episode used two, of the many, topics people do not commonly discuss: secrets and death. Secrets to protect the ones we love and care about from the shattering surreal-ness and close proximity anyone can have to death.

A human who struggles with the hardship of knowing she could potentially have a cancer gene her mother and grandmother both had….

A human who fought with a sister growing up, to learn that her eldest protected her from a verbally abusive household between a mother and father…

A human who gets put into the hospital for having heart defects and tries to hide it from a family member to protect their sanity of protection…

A human who gave up the love of his life in an ending battle with cancer but died piece fully with that love in his arms…

All these human beings all held a secret to protect someone else. Why do we as humans put the burden on ourselves to protect the ones we care about? Why should the final moments before it’s too late be the time to learn the truth about what our life really was?

It wasn’t until now that I am putting the pieces together sitting on my bed with my box of Klenex here – yes I’ll be the first to admit it I’m a cryer and when it starts it pretty much does not stop. When we get to the end of our lives we reflect back on the times we had in our previous years. While sick as a dog in bed the movie “The Prince & Me” (good movie by the way – highly recommend) came up. The King was dying and told his son to marry the commoner bar working girl from the States if love should conquer the traditions of 100 years past – another tearful moment there.

Point is – why carry all of these secrets around for other people and ourselves when they are the borden that pushes us down, instead of projecting us forward? “The truth will always prevail” is a darn good saying because I’m feeling that. Friends, family, loved ones, they are all there to support you during the times that you need them the most. When is that time? Always. There is not a day that goes by that I/we don’t.

If you have something to tell me, don’t keep it a secret, please do tell me. I’d love to hear it – good or bad. Let the truth set you free.