i_believe_in_you dafremen New week, new sign. Today I go out for the first time with the message: "I BELIEVE IN YOU" I hope the response is as positive as it was for the first message. 081102 ... In_Bloom This is empowering since those who see and read your sign will have the words in their heads and maybe look a second or two longer at the people they encounter during their awake time Go you! 081102 ... auburn I can't wait to read this one. 081103 ... dafremen As I set out with the new sign, I was a bit trepidatious. Something had told me for over a week now, that this sign would be different from the first. I wasn't mistaken. The first difference that I noticed was a look that, if my intuition is to be trusted, looked like discomfort. If I were to take that intuitive feeling a bit further, I would say..shame. Yea, it appeared as a look, in some of the faces, as though..they didn't believe in themselves, or perhaps more correctly, didn't feel that they could or were living up to another's belief in them. I could be wrong..perhaps I am. But there were many positive responses. Lots of honks..just not quite as often. Quite a few that rolled down their windows and said, "I believe in you TOO!" A lady offered me a sandwich as her car rounded the corner. I thanked her and declined..expressing my appreciation for the gesture. Told her I didn't need food, just for her to know that I believed in her. Then the couple stopped. Greg and Mareesa(sp?). We talked a bit about why I was doing this. I explained as I had before that I just wanted to put a positive message out there to let everyone know that they were accepted by someone..just as they are. Then the conversation wandered into differences and similarities. I let them know how strongly I believed, after doing this, that people are basically good..not bad..not to be feared, but embraced. I told them that I thought it was a shame that our "spirit of competition" had turned into a war of ideologies when there was so much room in this world for different ideas and ways of living..and when we all shared so many more things in common than there were differences. They brought up their Christian beliefs, but promised that they hadn't done so to shove anything down my throat. I appreciated that, let them know what I believe: that Jesus knew something for sure. That his life was much more indicative of what he had to offer the human race than his death. That I didn't care if he was real or fictional, that I choose to believe he lived because the message is so important: that a man CAN live his life doing well unto his fellow human beings regardless of their actions toward him; not straying from that course. Not even under penalty of death. And we talked about protesters. How they shout angry words. Carry insulting slogans. Wear gas masks and bandannas. Cover themselves for fear of the retaliatory methods that the establishment uses against them. How that hurts their cause..makes them look threatening to the mainstream. How maybe the hippies and Jesus and Saint Francis and Martin Luther King and Ghandi...how they all knew something about affecting change. That you can't look at a person you disagree with...who treats your side with kindness, tolerance and empathy..be beaten down forever without giving in..before you start to question how right "your side" is, and how wrong the "other side" with its courageous kindness could possibly be. And we shook hands..and they thanked me again for what I was doing. And I thanked them again for saying so. Then they left..and I stayed, holding up my sign. I watched the smiles. There WERE lots of smiles. An hour later they stopped by with a cup of coffee. It's the first thing I've accepted since I began doing this. And it warmed my hands..much as the encounter had warmed my heart. 081104 ... Lemon_Soda I don't know what to write other than to continue expressing my appreciation for what your doing. 081104 ... auburn Daf... I believe in you. And I believe in what you are doing. 081105 ... LEMON SODA RESPONDING CHECK 081110 what's it to you? who go blather from