A Community of Lighthouses

A lighthouse has often been represented in literature, film, history, and culture as a guiding light, a safe harbor, a beacon of hope. Joseph Panek has described a lighthouse’s proximity to sea as an intentionality that warns sailors of potential dangers. A lighthouse “notifies sailors that land is near and warns them that they are approaching rocks, reefs and shallow waters which must be navigated with caution. [It] is also a comforting sign that the calm waters of a welcoming harbor are close at hand.” Lighthouses have been central figures in literature, in novels like To the Lighthouse by Virginia Wolf and The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, often symbolizing a guiding presence to all those voyaging or lost. This image of a lighthouse as a beacon of hope, a welcoming light, is a promise that solace and restoration are awaiting us when we reach dry land. Panek describes this comforting image of a lighthouse in its metaphorical sense, as “the element of Water represents the emotions, the Lighthouse is a Symbol for the Spiritual Strength and Emotional Guidance which is available to us during the times we feel we are being helplessly tossed around in a sea of inner turmoil.” In our lives, as we have sought these living images of lighthouses during our times of strife and trial, we have also become figures of hope and beacons of light for those in our lives undergoing trying circumstances. More often than not, we give of our energy and efforts in order to guide those we love to safe harbors. We expend our time, advice, thoughts, and feelings in order to guide our dear ones home, to safety and refuge. However, when we have spent our own emotions, when we have extended our own strength past what it is able to bear, the light in our lighthouse begins to dim, and we find that our guiding light may not be able to transcend beyond the shores of our own harbor. For this reason, it is essential that we take time to rest emotionally, that we actively seek out the people, places, circumstances, and practices that will refuel us and that will reignite our light so that we can continue to give off our luminescent energy and guiding light to all those around us. There are many ways that we can seek emotional rest in order to regain strength for ourselves and for those leaning on our strength. First, we should realize and accept that we will not always be a guiding light or a safe harbor for someone else. It is okay that we are not always the source of strength for someone else. It is okay if we are not the single lighthouse that guides everyone to a safe harbor. Once we relieve ourselves of the pressure to be the constant source of light, energy, and strength for every person in our lives, we may find that our light will not become dim, or its influence weak, but, rather, we may find that our light will beam brighter and that its scope will stretch farther than we could ever imagine. When we begin to rest, when we step down from being the emotional bearer, the allegiant advice-giver, or steadfast navigator, we will find time where we will be able to fan our own flame. In the difficulty of taking a step back, we will find beauty in realizing the force of our own light and the potential of our own strength. When we take instances and moments to rest in not being the lighthouse, we may find serenity in igniting our own flames and allowing our own lights to burn ever brighter. Once we take moments to step back, once we find time to rest and refuel, we will begin to seek out moments, places, and people that refuel us. When we take a step back from being the lighthouse, we may grow more comfortable in finding a lighthouse in someone else who will guide us to our safe harbor; we may be able to navigate beyond the walls and reserves that we have built up for ourselves, and we may see troubled waters grow calm. In seeking out a safe harbor in someone else we may ask ourselves: What fills us up? What reignites our fire? What keeps our flame alive? For some of us, we may be refueled by spending time with our closest friends, those who know us best and who are able to speak convictingly and intently into our lives. We may find a source of inspiration and strength in a long hike with a dear friend, a dinner date with close friends, or cherished time with family. For others of us, a period of rest and recharging our spirits entails a time of solitude, a long walk encountering nature, or some downtime with a good book. In any of these instances, though, we must become okay with abdicating our position as the lighthouse and the constant source of light for others in order that we may be able to find that light for ourselves in other people, places, instances, or things. When we revere this time of emotional rest for ourselves, we allow ourselves to refuel our passions, to regain our strength, and to reignite our light. Once we find strength in letting go, once we see newfound desires, inspiration, and hope in the midst of allowing others to shed their light on us, we will see our light spread further. Even still, in receiving the guiding light of others, we will begin to build and better maintain a collective light, a community of lighthouses whose luminosity casts its ever-flowing light to the ends of the earth. 

Sevenly: People Matter

“People matter.” That is the motto of Sevenly, the world’s leading cause-marketing company. Based out of Orange County, California, Sevenly conducts cause-marketing campaigns in which they partner with various charities in order to raise awareness about the work of these organizations as well as contribute funds that directly benefit project and program initiatives. Through their sales, Sevenly donates 7% of every purchase to these projects, in an effort to rally a healthy consumerist mentality and cultivate powerful and intentional social impact. Every seven days, Sevenly partners with a new charity, creates a new campaign, designs new graphics, and supports a new cause. Just four-years-old, Sevenly has been supporting charities, inspiring positivity, and affecting change through social impact since its founder Dale Partridge dreamt up an idea to change the world in 2011.In a quaint little coffee shop and bar in Old Town Orange, California, I sat down with Lindsay Robb, Sevenly’s Charity and Influencer Outreach Associate, to learn more about Sevenly’s influence throughout the world. Lindsay’s primary responsibility is to find “unique charities that are making a difference in an interesting or new way” and to convince them to collaborate with the company in order to bring more awareness to their cause.Ever since she was little, Lindsay has been influenced by a love of giving back, a wonder of roaming the outdoors, and a persistence to defend and assure environmental and women’s rights which has paved the way for her to offer her talents and passions to Sevenly. As a “business that has a heart for more than just business,” Sevenly forms a connection with its employees, volunteers, charities, and supporters through its founding principle that people matter. Lindsay described the depth of the impact that Sevenly has on it supporters through a story in which one woman’s life was drastically changed after the simple decision to buy a tee-shirt. This particular supporter learned about an organization called Mercy Ships which sends fully stocked and operative hospital ships to developing countries around the world in order to provide medical care and services to regions that lack clean water, electricity, medical personnel, medical facilities, and basic medical care. Because of Sevenly’s campaign for Mercy Ships, this woman was prompted to learn more about the organization, and through her own research, she was inspired to commit to a two-year mission to be a nurse on Mercy Ships. That is the kind of personal impact that Sevenly inspires in all of its supporters around the world. That is the kind of undeniable power that Sevenly has in bringing causes, issues, and epidemics that seem to be miles away all-the-more pertinent to advocates, supporters, and individuals all around the world.Sevenly’s effortless ability to connect its supporters with a cause in a tangible and lasting way inspire each individual to know of their worth and of the impact they can disseminate throughout the world. In sparking your own impact this Christmas or holiday season, in realizing and exerting the power and light that you carry in order to make a difference in the world, you may consider actively contributing to Sevenly’s mission. There are many ways to get involved with Sevenly’s causes. In fact, supporting one, or many, of Sevenly’s seven-day campaigns is one of the best ways to get involved, according to Lindsay. But, even learning more about the charities or organizations through Sevenly’s campaigns and then spreading awareness and promoting the causes of these charities among your own family and friends is an effective way to instigate world change. There are endless opportunities to partner with Sevenly; the incredible thing about Sevenly is that it appeals to such a vast array of backgrounds, passions, talents, interests, and dreams. In its mere four years of existence, Sevenly has partnered with each and every organization you could possibly think of. For instance, their campaigns have served powerful international organizations like the United Nations Foundation with which they have collaborated to support the foundation’s global goals. These goals, known as the Global Goals for sustainable development, or SDGs, are seventeen goals which aim to achieve three major global ambitions in the next fifteen years: end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change. These goals are attributed to widespread movements like women’s rights and gender equality, girl-child education, racial equality, and are being used in efforts to provide solutions to global injustices such as poverty, hunger, disease, and environmental and social epidemics. In their partnership with the UN Foundation, Sevenly spent a month campaigning and preparing for their seven-day feature on the foundation, during which time, it slowly and consistently built and established an awareness for the foundation’s work. Sevenly has also partnered with Autism Speaks numerous times in which it has supported many of its projects, such as raising funds to support their iPad program in which kids who experience difficulty with verbal communication can communicate with their parents.With an influence this wide and an impact this transformative, it is no wonder Sevenly is leading in the market of conscientious consumerism and social impact. In addition to spreading the message of their campaigns and joining in the movement of their causes, you can incorporate Sevenly’s products in your gift-giving this year. Aside from purchasing their shirts, which are their best-sellers, you can gift journals, stickers, and posters. But, one of their most inclusive gifts is their CAUSEBOX, which requires a quarterly subscription, and includes products from other socially conscious and impact-oriented organizations like Krochet Kids International and 31 Bits. For $50, you would get almost $150 worth of product that you can enjoy and that also provide a social good or service to people across the world.In using your own resources to support Sevenly through spreading or raising awareness of their campaigns and causes, or through actively purchasing a product, you are contributing to the lasting influence that Sevenly exerts around the world. Your purchase, then, spreads far beyond the realm of consumerism, but it doubles the impact you have. Lindsay elaborated that in giving someone a Sevenly gift, “you give to someone you love and you make them happy, but you also contribute directly to someone else’s happiness. And even though you may not know them, they’re still a person having a Christmas somewhere, and if your gift can positively impact their life, too, it’s just double the bang for your buck.”This is what makes the work and impact of Sevenly so beautiful, so unique, and so powerful. Through every purchase made, every campaign shared, every organization researched, you are contributing directly and conscientiously to world change. Sevenly, then, welcomes the passions and talents of every different type of person. Whether you are going to commit to an opportunity to work for one of the organizations that Sevenly has sponsored, or whether you are going to contribute to the funds raised by Sevenly through purchasing a product, know that you are contributing to world change. Through buying, through sharing, through drastically altering your life to work on a ship that brings free medicine to regions throughout the world that are desperately in need of it, you are spreading your light, you are affecting change, and you are growing and deepening your impact. Lindsay noted that “it’s really just a simple switch from instead of just buying this shirt that made someone else richer,” to directly and intentionally contributing to world change. She added that “there are so many social good companies like Sevenly” in which you can buy a product that helps “alleviate poverty and hunger, and it’s [these] little small changes [like buying a simple shirt, journal, sticker, or poster] that can really make a difference.”Finally, Lindsay’s hope for Sevenly is that it would not be needed anymore. She admits that “it would be amazing if all the causes in the world were perfectly solved and didn’t need [Sevenly’s] help to raise funding and awareness.” In the meantime, though, Sevenly will continue to spread its influence to even the most distant regions in the world and, with the help of its supporters, learners, researchers, influencers, and world-changers, it will bring joy, love, hope, and light to those otherwise unreachable places and it will bind the bond of humanity ever-stronger in its efforts to support causes that bring hope and restoration throughout the world.Below are some of my favorite picks from Sevenly’s products for presents and stocking-stuffers:Sevenly Gift Card -- Get a gift for anyone here!Dreamer Tee -- Shop it here!Journey Tee -- Get the look here!Adventurers Tank -- Get it here!Ocean Tee -- For us beach-lovers! Get it here!Henna Hand Long-sleeve -- Shop it here!Shop these beautiful prints -- For that creative in your life! Here are two of my favorites:Beauty PrintMountains Are Calling PrintMy personal favorite is the CAUSEBOX -- The gift that keeps giving! Learn more about how to bless someone with this gift here!

Give-- Joy to the World

I believe that empowerment is powerful. It has the capacity to rectify offense, transform tragedies, assure hope, and sustain joy. It has the ability to connect people from nations, countries, and continents apart. It is capable of weaning differences of race, ethnicity, gender, culture, and religion. Empowerment reminds us of our shared humanity and, in doing so, encourages us to see the needs others as equally, if not more, important than our own. It radically changes the way we love, the way we share, the way we sacrifice, the way we rebuild, the way we dream, the way we inspire, and the way we live.It is officially December 1^st, and the Christmas and holiday season is fresh upon us. For some of us, this is crunch time, but also the best time of the year: we begin to fill our schedules, plan parties, see to our shopping lists, wrap presents, decorate homes, reminisce and relive old traditions, and cherish time with our loved ones. But, through the business of the season, my hope is that we will be reminded of our impact and of the light that we each carry. As we prepare to shower our loved ones with gifts that show our appreciation and love for them, I want to provide opportunities for you to see your gift go further. Over the course of this month, I am going to feature the work of various organizations that are making an impact in communities throughout the world. I not only want you to be familiar with how these organizations are making a tangible impact in these communities, but I want you to become aware of how your talents, skills, dreams, passions, and everything that makes you unique can contribute to the work of these organizations.As I started preparing for this series, my hope was that I would be able to offer our readers with the means to buy gifts that would go further, that would make a real impact in the world. But, that hope surpassed anything I could have imagined it to become. As I was interviewing CEOs and co-founders of these organizations, I came to realize that our empowerment stretches far beyond even buying gifts that give back. Our empowerment and our talents, our passions and our dreams, have the capacity to add to the work of these organizations in a way that they might not have seen before. Our empowerment has the immense capacity to strengthen the transformation that these organizations are carrying out in communities around the world. Our empowerment has created a unique force within each one of us that adds a valuable and lasting presence to the work of these organizations so that they are able to surpass the dreams and goals that they have set for themselves.In my preparation, I also noticed a parallel between all the meaning we associate with this Christmas or holiday season and the meaning in the work of these organizations. Love, joy, and peace are sentiments that we associate with the goodness of the holiday season. We see lights strung in trees, we feel magic in the air, we hear laughter ringing throughout our dinner conversations, and we are filled with the richness of love, joy, and peace. Then, with the joy that is so present in our hearts, we find ourselves more compassionate and more generous in the way that we treat those around us. This mantra of love, joy, and peace that we see written on cards, engrained in decorations, or even exchanged in greetings becomes prevalent in our actions. “‘Tis the season!” we declare as we throw spare change in charity buckets, or offer spare dollars to someone in need, or simply lend a helping hand. But, the meaning of love, joy, and peace goes far beyond the timely constraints of the holiday season. The embodiment of love, joy, peace, compassion, kindness, generosity, and hope, then, are reflected in the way that we treat one another. The joy we see in Christmas cheer is found again when we support an organization that replants trees throughout the world. The hope that we experience during the holidays is found again when we involve ourselves with an organization that empowers people to rise above poverty. The peace that we see so eminent in this Christmas season is found again when we support the work of an organization that restores dignity to survivors of human trafficking. The compassion that we practice throughout our generosity during this season is found again when we contribute to the work of an organization that provides clean drinking water to the roughly 660 million people in the world who are lacking it.My hope for this series is that the power and influence that we see so eminent in these organizations would inspire and empower us to use our capabilities, our strength, our talents, our dreams, our hopes, and our ambitions to contribute to the transformation that is enacting positive change and restoring love, joy, and peace throughout the world. I hope that through seeing the work of these organizations, Sevenly, Tentree, Krochet Kids International, 31 Bits, iSanctuary, Generosity Water, and the Little Market, that we would be inspired to first recognize the unique value that we are each able to offer to the world and that we would use that uniqueness to inspire a movement of empowerment wherever we are.‘Tis the season … to change the world.

[Agape] Loving Your Community

It has been said, and sung, that “where you invest your love, you invest your life.” But, what if we reverse that statement? Does it hold the same weight when we say, “where you invest your life, you invest your love.” What is the significance about where we choose to invest our lives? We all have a community or various communities that we belong to. Some of us have had multiple communities in multiple places that we have lived in and traveled to over the course of our lives. Others of us have had one single or immediate community that we have called our home for most of our lives. Still, while some of us have conscientiously chosen the communities we wished to be a part of and invest our lives in, others of us have been led away from our immediate communities to new and unfamiliar communities that we would soon call our permanent homes. But, the love we show to our communities and the relationships we build within those communities should remain the same whether or not we have willingly chosen those communities we are a part of. Regardless of what has led us to where we are today, and what has led us to call these places our homes, we must make a conscious effort to invest our love and lives into the communities that surround us.They say, “Good fences make good neighbors,” but have these physical fences that we have automatically put up transpired to creating emotional or intellectual boundaries that we have set with our neighbors? How well do we know our neighbors? Do we know what goes on in their daily lives? Do we know where they work, if they have children, what brought them here, or what they enjoy to do? Frankly, it is impractical to know everything about all of your neighbors, but it is more than practical to begin saying hello to your neighbors, to start asking them about their days, or to even invite them to dinner. It is more than practical to begin fostering relationships with your neighbors. We have been placed in our communities for a distinct purpose to invest in those communities. So, whether we have delightedly chosen our communities or we have reluctantly stayed in our communities, we have a purpose to invest in the growth of our communities. More than that, we have a purpose to love those people who are joining alongside us in growing our communities. When we change our perspective on our communities, we realize the importance of investing in the lives of those who make up our community. Our neighbors, then, become more than people who we cross paths with each morning while we rush off to work. They become more than people we see driving down the street, walking their dogs, or playing with their kids outside. They become more than people we call when they play their music too loud late at night or when it seems like they are performing a tap routine on the floors of their upper-story apartments. When we realize the importance of investing in the relationships we form with our neighbors, we begin to slowly tear down emotional or intellectual fences we have unknowingly built up between ourselves and these familiar strangers. When we begin to invest in the lives of those around us, the way in which we connect to the world becomes more intertwined. When the authenticity of our relationships grows with each intentional bond we form with our neighbors, we allow that same authenticity to carry out into the relationships we form outside of our immediate communities.When we begin to intentionally invest in the relationships with our neighbors, we will be more apt in investing in our cities. In the same way that we have purpose in our communities, we have a distinct purpose in our cities. Whether we are politically, culturally, artistically, intellectually, spiritually, or socially investing in our cities, we should not only know that we have influence in our cities, but we should believe in our influence. Furthermore, we must start acting out of our influence. For example, it is no concealed fact that local and city elections tend to have the least voter turnout among the various governmental elections, but it is a troublesome fact, nonetheless. If we have the most significant influence in the matters of our cities compared to the matters of our states or of our nation as a whole, then we should use our voices, talents, and passions to invest in our cities. We should also be aware of what is going on in our cities: things our city is thriving in, areas of need, and how our cities are being led. Once we are aware of the circumstances of our cities, we will begin to use our influence and our talents to contribute to the work of our cities. Whether by our own will or by the will of others, we have been placed in our cities for a specific purpose. We each have the capacity to love our cities through our talents, through our ambitions, through our passions, and through our inclinations in order to watch it grow.So, let us love on our neighbors and let us invest in the growth of our communities. Let us believe in where our lives have guided us and let us use our strengths and talents to impact the various communities we have become a part of. For, where we invest our lives, we invest our love.