40 Days of Compassion

Plaza Cleaners in NW Porltand Oregon, 21st & Johnson

Day Six

The other day I came across a stunning documentary film called Home on YouTube. It starts out with a rich montage of beautiful landscapes narrated by a woman who explains how the Earth was formed and, more importantly, how it survives.

The survival of our ecosystem, I gather, is dependent on thousands and thousands of microsystems being in balance, and the whole first act of the film does a brilliant job of showing how every little system in our universe is connected. Barham talked about this quite eloquently in his post, Let’s Play a Game: we are all part of one net, microsystems of the macro. There literally is no separation between me, a dog, a tree, and the sky. It’s a unified field of energy. So as the planet suffers, I suffer.

When you suffer, I suffer. To think otherwise is one of the greatest tricks the human mind has achieved…

And, of course, this is true vice versa. As I suffer, the planet suffers. Lines get blurred, and now we start to see that when I suffer, you suffer. When you suffer, I suffer. To think otherwise is one of the greatest tricks the human mind has achieved, seemingly borne out from the instinct for self-preservation — If I help him, there will be less for me! But it is a lie, and I wholeheartedly desire to overcome it!

The question for many of us is: How do I sustain my lifestyle if I’m out there worrying about any other system but my own? Sure, some may say, on some quantum physical level all sorts of lines between me and the guy holding a beggar sign may be blurred, but I see the line drawn quite clearly in the sand and my side of the line reads: “I worked my ass off for the luxuries I’ve amassed, so what were you doing while I was slaving for an education and knockin’ on doors until my knuckles bloodied?” At least, I’ve found myself saying that. Like I said, the tendency is to notice how and why we’re different rather than consider how and why we’re the same.

Doing Business with Compassion

All of this brings me to the point of this post: I want to recognize a local business here in NW Portland, owned by a couple who gets that as the community thrives, so do they. They get the “microsystems in balance” approach to making the macro a better place to live, be, and do business.

Plaza Cleaners recently started an initiative to help those unemployed obtain employment by giving them a free suit cleaning. To some, this gesture may not seem like a big deal; to my former homeless friend, Nathan, this would have been an absolute godsend as he was struggling to pick himself up out of the streets and secure a job.

I HIGHLY commend business owners like Steve and Anne Young who go out of their way (that is, their profit) to help the community. Does it ultimately come back around and help their business, too? Well, I know for sure that they got at least one more paying customer today… me!