Mindy Corporon: How to heal and make a ripple by reaching out
Can seven days of love and other focused activities really make a ripple to change the world? We think so.
From the day our families were victimized by evil and hate we have stood by our vow to make good come from evil. Not just the evil that touched our hearts, our families, our community, but all evil. You know what I mean. The evil in our world has gotten louder.
We must take a stand with the idea that it is better to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
I have learned this past year — since my father and son were murdered — that we are more alike than we are different. I am talking about all of us. It is hard to know we are alike when we are afraid of what we don’t know.
Our SevenDays mission was created for this purpose, to spread the word about love, discovery and living purposefully. Our mission is to touch the entire Kansas City metropolitan area from April 7 to April 13 with education, kindness and song. Our mission is to enhance our knowledge so we are less afraid, more accepting and more willing to extend kindness to others. Can we be the ripple?
A few have voiced their opinion that I may not be grieving well, taking care of myself, or am hiding behind my Christianity and not really feeling the impact of the loss of my father and son.
I can assure you that learning to be a smaller household has had a huge impact on our family. All the dreams we had anticipated with Reat are shattered. Wanting to talk over a topic with my Dad and realizing I have to do this through prayer — it’s a bit tricky to know if I heard him correctly.
Attending family birthday parties and holidays with two fewer people at the table is a perpetual reminder of what is missing in our lives. Lives we must continue, until we don’t.
My belief in God and Heaven keeps me grounded. In the time that I have remaining, I am going to do more than survive this tragedy. I could stay in the dark place that comes with sadness but then evil would win.
The competitiveness in me won’t allow me to just survive. The deaths of Bill Corporon, Reat Underwood and Terri LaManno have fostered the desire to do more than survive. Can I be the ripple?
Who better to teach the rest of us how to do more than survive than those who have and are doing so now? The guest speakers for SevenDays are survivors of tragedy, hate and evil. Jacqueline Murekatete survived the Rwandan genocide. Sonia Warshawski is a Holocaust survivor, and Tyron Flowers is a gang and gunshot victim survivor.
They survived but they are doing more than that. They are healing by helping others. By helping others they are creating ripples. This is what SevenDays is about: healing through a ripple of change. Healing our hearts, minds, souls, family, neighborhoods, community and our nation can happen from a single ripple, from any one of us.
Join us for SevenDays. Find details at www.givesevendays.org. Be the ripple, change the world.
Mindy Corporon is CEO of a wealth management firm. She lives in Stilwell, Kan.
From prayer to peace: The SevenDays events begin with a discussion and prayer gathering at 7 p.m. April 7 at Leawood City Hall. The week ends with a peace walk on April 13. Find details at www.givesevendays.org.
This story was originally published March 31, 2015 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Mindy Corporon: How to heal and make a ripple by reaching out."