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Share the Love

After reading the latest bad news from @susanreynolds on Twitter, I just wished I could help her. Many of you know her — she’s an incredible woman who is in the midst of treatment for a particularly nasty strain of breast cancer, and now he’s facing a test that could show her the cancer has returned and metastasize. Plus she’s got a sick brand-new grandbabby.

Not a happy time, and I wanted to do something for her, beyond donating to her Frozen Pea Fund, which is definitely the best thing any of us could possibly do to help her and others. But sometimes you just want to sit down, feel bad for her for a moment and then visualize her getting better, and pray that she may have peace and health for both her and her granddaughter.

So, through a series of very interesting series of Twitter discussions about it, I’ve formulated this rough sort of plan.

1. If you’re on Twitter, and if you or someone else on Twitter or someone close to you is going through illness, death, painful life changes or any of the sort of things that make you feel really alone sometimes, post about it to Twitter and hashtag it #spreadthelove.
2. If you see the Tweet, take the name into your heart somehow. Some of us would want to say a quick prayer for the person, others might have their own prayer rituals or circles to participate in, or just simply thinking some good thoughts and “sending” energy through your own means.

Some of you are completely atheistic and may think any of this sort of thing is complete hogwash. That’s your right to believe, and this is not intended to turn Twitter into some huge religious prayer gathering. It’s just a chance for us all to care for each other as the family that some of us have become a part of. All I ask myself is for you to not mock our faith and beliefs and not turn it into something that’s met with expressions of annoyance or mistrust.

Because this is intended to be a positive community effort to do one thing — care. No money is involved at all. This is not intended to be a means for anyone to ask for money or help. Any attempts to do so would invite abuse, and that would ruin the action.

If you are not on Twitter and have someone that you would like for me to put forth as part of this, e-mail me at ariedana (at) yahoo.com (if this takes off, I might make a form to fill out.) If you aren’t on Twitter and you’d just like to see requests or comments, go to http://hashtags.org/tag/sharethelove/. All the entries that have #sendthelove will show up there, hopefully. You can also see them at http://summize.com/search?q=sendthelove.

Susan Reynolds said she loves the idea but thought that others would disagree. I’m sure there are, and I’d be happy to hear why this is an awful idea in comments. I’m not an idiot though, nor am I trying to become some sort of Twitter saint or to get money for anything. Far from that. But it would be nice for us to participate in a group for good without spending a dime. If nothing else, it’s good for our souls.

© 2008 A Place to Crash.