As I reflected in the quietness of my room, many images flashed through my minds; images of babies, smiling children, elderlies and faces … faces whom I do not know and yet they seem to be just like the faces of my friends.

It dawned upon me that these images of babies, they could have been the images of our babies. These images of smiling children could have been my smiling niece and nephews, giggling as they tried to climb up to the lap of their uncle. These images of elderlies could have been our grandparents and parents. Last but not least, these images of familiar faces could have been our best friends, friends and working associates. It could simply be the images of people whom we hold dearly and closely in our heart … it could be images of you and I.

In that moment of quiet reflection, I realised there is no Singaporean, American, British, Indian, Chinese or Japanese etc; there is only human being of one united race on Planet Earth.

Symphony of Love is making a special request from you to continue to send prayer and positive wishes of Loving Kindness and compassionate to our friends in Japan and for those of you who are able to help out financially, below are some ways:

1. Singaporeans may make a cash, cheque or SMS donation to the Singapore Red Cross for victims of this disaster.

For walk-in donations, the Singapore Red Cross is open from 9.30am to 9pm from Mondays to Fridays, and from 9.30am to 6pm on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.

For cheque donations, cheques should be made payable to the “Singapore Red Cross Society”.

Donors may also donate via their mobile phones to 75772. For every SMS, S$50 will be donated to the “Japan Disaster” fund.

2. For American, you can make direct donation to American Red Cross.

Resources related to the crisis in Japan and ways to help, from Google.

From Yahoo

Announcing the Rebuild Haiti Better World Book Drive! Better World Book is running a nation-wide book drive to raise funds for education in Haiti and they need your help to support a long-term effort to rebuild Haiti’s education system. By sending books, you can help fund their Haiti non-profit literacy partner, Plan USA. So dust off those great books you’re never going to read again, and do some good with them…

Ways You Can Help:

1. Send Books. Books can be sent to:

Better World Books
Attn: Help Haiti
55740 Currant Rd.
Mishawaka, IN 46545

Please send only books in good condition. Note: Book donations are not tax deductible.

2. Run a campus book drive for Haiti – click here to sign-up.

3. Make a cash donation to one of our partners:

Restore Education: Donate cash now to Plan USA
Rebuild Libraries: http://www.ala.org/haiti

How it works:

1. You send books to Better World Books at the address above.

2. The books donated will be sold on their global network of marketplaces including BetterWorldBooks.com.

3. 50% of the net sales are donated to Plan USA, earmarked for the Haiti education rebuilding effort.

About Plan USA:

Plan USA is Better World Book new non-profit literacy partner. Funds raised through the Rebuild Haiti Better World Book Drive will be applied exclusively to education in Haiti.

Plan USA has been working in Haiti since 1973. They were recently selected by the Haitian government to implement the country’s education restoration effort alongside the Ministry of Education, UN agencies, local and international NGO partners.

Better World has made an initial donation of $10,000 to the Plan USA effort to rebuild Haiti. You can learn more about Plan USA at: http://www.planusa.org/

You may be curious to know what is taught in the class. According to the newspaper report by Richard Hartung (a consultant living in Singapore since 1992), there are no exams or grades – just homework. Like, do something kind for someone we love and then do something for someone we don’t know. I would like to call it enlisting people into a kindness movement by getting them to consciously perform act of kindness for their loved ones and even for people they do not know.

As Richard says, “Kindness – the ripple with no end.” Indeed, the ripples generate from the act of kindness will travel far and wide; they will go on to affect many others from where they first start. However, the ripples on the surface of the water in a lake will stop if the factor generating the ripples stop. Like the rain stops falling on the lake or someone stops throwing stone into it.

Like the water ripples, the kindness ripples will stop too if we stop being kind. Therefore, we must continue to perform act of kindness in order for the kindness ripples to continue.

Richard asked a question, “Does a kind act here or there really make a difference?” I believe that no matter how small a kind act may be, it will go on to create ripples; it will always make a difference. As Dilbert creator Scott Adams put it more simply, “Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”

Not only that, as stated in the newspaper report, “Thinkers from Confucius to Dalai Lama as well as research from the US National Institutes of Health and many other sources all cite benefits to both giver and receiver.” We don’t need to be a genius like Albert Einstein to understand that; who has not felt good from being kind to loved ones and to strangers?

A water ripple that hits a wall before it disappears may bounce back to its source, depending on the strength of the ripple and how far the wall is. However, a kindness ripple generated will propagate and eventually but surely, it will go back to its source.

Let us take the time today to generate a kindness ripple through a small act of kindness, which will surely bring happiness to the life of others and to yourself.

We are different and yet we are also similar to each other. We are all sons or daughters to our parents, fathers or mothers to our children, uncles or aunts to our nieces and nephews, brothers or sisters to our siblings and friends to our friends. You and I, we are just souls being housed in different bodies.

When we focus on the differences, we see the differences in colour and culture. When we focus on the similarities, we can look beyond the physical layer into the beauty of the soul – the essence of life.

This is a journey with lot of challenges, but one which we do not travel alone. And together we can do it! Let us join our hands together to take on this journey of peace where our children understand and respect each other difference. And they treat each other with loving kindness and compassion. We can positively influence our children through our actions.