Inspiration Friday: Know What You Stand For 2025.10.31

Inspiration: Happy Friday!
Today is the 304th Day of 2025.

We have $304,000.00 today.
10% savings = $30,400.00
40% taxes = $121,600.00: This week I am expressing gratitude for these tax dollars being spent to support White Sands National Park located in the state of New Mexico. White Sands was designated as a National Monument in 1933 and then officially became a National Park in 2019. You will find among other wonders that this park is surrounded by military installations, it is home to the largest gypsum sand dunes in the world and the site of the first atomic bomb testing. There is plenty to explore. Learn more here: https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm

How will you spend the remaining $152,000.00 today?

HERE IS MY PLAN: Know What You Stand For

“There comes a time when you feel the pull…

A knowing that your energy has been scattered —

across memories, people, fears, and places that no longer need to hold it.

That’s when the Universe whispers:

Call your power home.

Gather your light from every corner of time,

and breathe it back into your being.

Because when your energy is whole,

you move through this world not as a seeker —

but as a force of harmony itself.

Your light is sacred.

Your presence shifts worlds.

And the moment you stand fully in your vibration,

everything around you begins to rise to meet it.”

Bill Phillipps

How are you showing up in the world?

The world needs love. The world needs our willingness to be kinder to others today, not tomorrow. Feed someone. The world needs us to be kinder to ourselves. How kind can you be today? Be kinder than that! How are you showing up the world?

$100.00: Self-care. I am getting extra canned goods for our home pantry! And I love that!

$0: Priceless: Stand for Something

“Innovators are more focused on the vision than the obstacles that stand in the way.” Simon Sinek

Make time for others. Lend an ear or lend a hand. What would it take to be more present in your community today? I saw the following story posted on Facebook this week. It inspired me to ask myself “what would Marge do?” I stand for democracy. I stand for freedom of speech. I stand for contributing better to my community. I stand for hope. I stand for responding to life with love. What are you standing for these days?

From a Facebook post this week:

“My name is Marge, and I’m 72 years old. I’m a retired third-grade teacher. I live in the same beige ranch house in a quiet Ohio suburb where I raised my daughter, fought with my husband Bill (God rest his soul) about the mortgage, and watched the neighborhood change from young families to… well, to people like me. Old.

After Bill died, I thought I’d become invisible. I was just the old lady with the wind chimes and the overgrown tomato plants. People waved as they power-walked by, but they didn’t see me.

That changed on a hot, sticky Tuesday in August.

I was dragging my recycling bin to the curb when I saw him. A boy. He couldn’t have been more than ten. He was rail-thin, with elbows that looked sharp enough to cut glass, digging through my bin. He wasn’t looking for cans; he was looking for food.

He froze when he saw me, like a deer in the headlights, his eyes wide with that specific shame only hunger brings.

I’m a retired teacher. I’ve seen that look before.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t threaten to call the police. I just held up a finger, went back inside, and made the quickest sandwich of my life—peanut butter and jelly on white bread. I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and walked back out.

He flinched when I got close. I just set the food down on top of the bin.

“It’s for you,” I said softly.

He snatched it and ran. He didn’t say a word.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I kept seeing those eyes. This isn’t a third-world country. This is Ohio. Kids shouldn’t be eating trash.

The next morning, I raided my garage. I found the old Igloo cooler we used to take on fishing trips. I dragged it to the end of my driveway, right by the sidewalk. With a black Sharpie, I wrote on it:

“Take what you need. Share what you can.”

I filled it with bottled water, granola bars, apples, and six more PB&J sandwiches in Ziploc bags.

By Friday, the cooler was empty. So I filled it again.

On Sunday, I went out and found the sandwiches gone, but someone had left two cans of tuna and a bag of rice.

On Monday, someone left a pack of diapers and a box of tampons. By Wednesday, a local veteran had left a stack of new thermal socks with a note: “Stay warm, brother.”

A tiny, anonymous community was being born at the end of my driveway.

Of course, that’s when Brenda showed up.

Brenda lives three doors down. She’s the president of the Homeowners’ Association and carries a clipboard on her daily walks. She stopped right in front of the cooler, her face pinched.

“Marge, what is this?”

“It’s a cooler, Brenda.”

“You’re attracting… elements,” she said, lowering her voice. “It’s a liability. It’s lowering our property values. We have standards in this neighborhood.”

I looked Brenda, a woman who has never missed a meal in her life, straight in the eye. “I saw a child eating out of my garbage can, Brenda. My property value is the last thing on my mind.”

She huffed and marched off, clipboard in hand.

A week later, it went viral.

Some high school kid filmed the cooler, now overflowing with canned goods, bread, and baby formula. He put it on TikTok. By the weekend, I was “The Pantry Granny.”

Reporters showed up. A local church donated a small, used dormitory refrigerator. A hardware store ran an extension cord from my garage for free. Kids from the high school art club came and painted it with sunflowers.

A GoFundMe someone started raised $15,000 for “Marge’s Pantry.”

But with national attention came local backlash. The comments on the news articles were a warzone. Half were, “God bless this woman!” The other half were, “You’re just enabling drug addicts and the lazy! You’ll be sorry when you get robbed!”

Then the letter arrived.

It was from the Township Zoning Board. Brenda and a few others had filed a formal complaint.

I was invited to a public meeting. It was a kangaroo court. They didn’t talk about hunger. They talked about “health code violations,” “risk of vermin,” and “unregulated food distribution.”

“We need standards,” one man said, adjusting his tie. “We cannot have individuals running rogue charities on residential property. It’s a safety issue.”

The motion to ban “all personal food and item distribution on residential lots” passed. 9 to 2.

They gave me 48 hours to remove the fridge and the cooler. Or I would face fines of $500 a day.

I went home and cried. I cried for Bill. I cried for that skinny kid. I cried because I finally understood that this is the country we live in now. A place where you need a permit to be decent.

I unplugged the fridge, defeated. I thought kindness had lost.

The next morning, I woke up before sunrise. I looked out my window, and my heart stopped.

The fridge was still there.

And next to it were two more.

One was an old chest freezer. The other was a large metal cabinet.

Mr. Henderson from two streets over—the one with the massive “TRUMP 2024” flag on his lawn—was plugging the freezer into a heavy-duty extension cord he’d run from his own garage.

At the same time, the two college kids who rent the house on the corner, the ones with the “PRIDE” flag on their porch, were loading the metal cabinet with canned soup.

They weren’t talking to each other. They were just… working.

By the time I got outside with my coffee, my entire lawn was covered in signs. Homemade. Scrawled on cardboard and poster board.

“WE ARE ALL MARGE.” “FEED FIRST. ASK QUESTIONS LATER.” “HUNGER ISN’T A NUISANCE.”

The city sent the first $500 fine. GoFundMe paid for it in three minutes. They sent another. It was paid in two.

I never fought the citations. I just pulled up a lawn chair.

Every morning, I sit by several fridges. I offer coffee to people who stop by. I listen to their stories. I watch strangers argue about politics while stocking the same shelf with pasta.

Last week, the boy came back.

He looked different. Taller. He had a new jacket on. He told me he and his mom were in a shelter now, and he was back in school.

He didn’t take anything.

He handed me a small, brown paper bag. Inside was a ham and cheese sandwich.

“It’s for the next kid,” he whispered.

You don’t need permission to be kind. You don’t need a permit, or a nonprofit license, or a committee.

You just need to see the person in front of you.

They can write all the ordinances they want. They can fine you. But they can’t make it illegal to see another human being.

Kindness isn’t a program. It’s a revolution.

And mine started with a sandwich.”

Collectively, we are better than how our government stewards are behaving these days. The greatest threat to our democracy is the belief that someone else will save it. Make time for others. Lend an ear or lend a hand. What would it take to be more present in your community today? I stand for freedom of speech. I stand for contributing better to my community. I stand for hope. I stand for responding to life with love. What are you standing for these days?

$150,900.00: These dollars are contributing to the local schools feeding the children breakfast and lunch daily. We can all do something kind. Respond to life with love. Repeat. What would it take?

$1000.00: for a date with my husband that includes dinner and several games of Cribbage. We are playing together. How much love can you stand?

Flow Five Friday: Current “real” life expressions of gratitude, love, and contribution to wellbeing.

$5.00: this week’s five-dollar bill will be found in an envelope with a box of canned goods that were dropped off at a local food bank. I am choosing to be the energy of what works in life.

Five increments of time: I got to judge a children’s Halloween costume contest. And I love it!  Being there; how does it get better than that? How are you “Flowing Five” this week?

Well-Being: Something that I am doing or not doing for self-care in real time.

I am making playtime a priority in life. And I love that!

What are you doing or not doing for self-care?

Planet Awareness: Contributing to the health of Earth.

 “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” –Mahatma Gandhi

I am focused on the joy of keeping things out of landfills with intentional reuse, recycling, repurposing and reducing the number of items that I consume.

What are you doing for the health of our planet?

Hold Space or Contribute to a Friends Life Intention

This week I am supporting Hunter who initiated a food drive with his fifth-grade class for a Halloween treat twist this week. One of Hunter’s living intentions is to be a kind person.  One way that you can help support Hunters’ living intention is by donating or collecting nonperishable items for a local food pantry in your community. Let’s be kinder humans together.

Choose joy. Be kind. Love others and strive to be a better human. What would it take?

Choose to feel good. Be Joy. 
Practice gratitude. Amplify Kindness. Expand Generosity. 
Ask, Receive, and Give with More Ease. 
Respond to life with Love.

PS: If you have been playing with me for several years, below are the current daily deposits in other years Vibrational Accounts: