The Little Words Mean the Most

Armistice Day in our small French town

 

November 11. The official parade passes our house (directly behind the flag; we live in the same block as the town hall). The man with the sash is our energetic young-ish mayor whose leadership has done so much. He and Simone had a long convo about how much we've loved living here for 20 years. She congratulated him on his work. The procession visited the town cemetery first and finally the town's memorial square, where La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, was sung twice, youth read poems in French and English, and there was a band and chorus. Deeply moving.

A good marché en Pézenas: lots of convo; fresh pasta, roasted poulet, ancienne tomatoes, tasting at a local vintner, & Sim One bought herself a cold-weather puffy vest (because this farmers' market sells cheap clothes, too); it's snowing in the Pyrenees

 

Our afternoon walk in the village Valros & back home

 

And yet she doesn't hate me....

 

From an emailed critique this a.m., re: a proposed year-end appeal:

Hello from France, my friend...

 

It's not a strong letter, I regret to say. Of course, I really can't judge it without knowing to whom you're sending it. Effective letters are built backwards from their target audience(s).

 

Why not strong?

 

It opens slowly, with a 52-word paragraph. That's a closed door, not a welcome mat. The general rule: first paragraph is just a few words long.

 

Welcome ... I hope.

 

That was the opening paragraph of a high-performing direct mail appeal I wrote. Feel free to steal.

 

The type's too small. The line length is too long (no more than 70 characters; yours stretches to 113). The paragraphs are un-indented (the wrong style choice in the US for personal correspondence, as opposed to business). The preferred font choice on paper is a serif not a sans serif.

 

It's swimming in jargon like "cohort."

 

It's an interesting argument you present but honestly it's too complicated.

 

The formula for good offers [as proposed by Jim and Steven at The Better Fundraising Co.] is:

• The problem's easy to understand.
• The solution's easy to understand.
• A gift is affordable.
• There's some urgency.

And I see none of the above. This letter is in my judgment built to fail, not succeed.

 

Sorry to be so brutal. I figured you'd want it straight.

 

~ tom

 

------

 

And she graciously thanked me. Phew.

 

Béziers squares: A sunset walk through the nearest bigger city, 25 minutes away; it's roasted chestnut season & that's a water feature 2 inches deep rippling across an underground car park

 

An afternoon walk through neighboring Pézenas, arty town known for its Molière

 

The French flag as flown by our freezer

 

 

Sim One, Rock Hunter & the castle next door in a muddy pottery region

 

post-vineyard, hiking shoes drying in the kitchen window well

 

The house in France & a little sundown walk

 

The Dash: John Haydon's special message for us all

 

John Haydon recorded a special message for attendees of the 2019 Nonprofit Storytelling Conference. John was supposed to speak, but his doctor advised him not to fly, because of John's damaged lungs.

In the end very few saw his message at the conference, so I've transcribed it here. You can also watch it on Vimeo, where it's above 500 views as of Nov. 3, 2019.

 

Hi, everybody!

    I wish I could be there.

    I really miss you guys a lot.

            A quick thought: first of all, the cancer has actually spread a lot. But I wanted to talk about life and death for a moment. Not too long; there's a lot I could get into, because I've been thinking about that a lot.

            We're looking at a gravestone here at Mt. Auburn Cemetery. And every single gravestone has four components to it. One is the name. I don't know Henry. [Henry C. Parker] We're just using Henry as an example.

            Thank you, Henry! We really appreciate it!

            Henry was born in 1836. He died in 1892.

            What's the most important thing about this is THE DASH ... what we do in the middle of our life, you know.

            And my life is unfortunately going to be shorter.

            But in a way, to say unfortunate, is not correct. Because many people die when they're kids. I was at Dana Farber [cancer center] for two years almost. I'd see little kids, old people, every type of person.

            And every person has a precious life to live.

            And we don't see, we don't recognize, what a person does in the middle of their life. Tom has had an incredible life, an incredible body of work that has influenced hundreds and maybe thousands and maybe tens of thousands of fundraisers all over the planet.

            My hope in the past 12 years is I've done some work that I've influenced some people as well.

            And that's precisely the dash. The dash is nothing but a ripple of cause and effect.

            To take this a step further, as a Buddhist.

            Buddhism has a radical view of death. And it's confusing: the non-duality of death, which is this: Buddhism denies the existence of a soul, a Tinkerbell that continues from one life to the next.

            But Buddhism also talks about the eternity of life.

            So those two things seem like they don't go well together, they don't fit. But actually, it's really about the [things that we all do] to influence another person.

            I influence Tom. That will forever change his life. Tom influences me. That changes my life. When I influence you guys, somehow through this video or some other way, in a positive way, you turn around and you influence someone else.

            That continuation is, in a sense, the eternity of my life continuing.

            So when I die, which is going to be relatively soon ... when I die, I don't want you to be sad, I want you to be determined to say "I'm going to live more of a John-ness today," I'm going to take John with me to this lesson or to this place or to this day or to this friendship.

            That way you help make my dash much more meaningful and much more powerful.

            So we all help each other. When someone else passes away.... My mom, she died maybe 17 years ago and I still miss her every single day. And I'd ask my mom, "What would you do?" And she says, "Do this." So that's her life, literally. The cause and effect. The ripple of her life influencing my life to help influence someone else. It's all about other people.

            I don't have a bucket list, by the way. My bucket list is entirely, 100% about getting together with friends ... and that's it. Spending as much time as I can with the people who matter to me. Never wanted to jump out of an airplane. I have no desire to do that. If I want to see Moscow, that's a beautiful city, I can go to Wikipedia, I can get a DVD. But my friends aren't in Moscow. My friends are here. And that's the most important thing in my life.

            So, thank you all so much.