What Happens When One Person Cares | by Linda Brendle

Last month, spurred by a post written by my brother Jim, I posted an article called “Does Government Assistance Discourage Private Charity.”  The post was also published by Red Letter Christians where it elicited quite a bit of discussion. The discussion was interesting, but after reading it, I realized I should have used the word “personal” in the title instead of “private.” Most of the comments centered on the relative merits of government charity versus religious charity. It made me wonder if the discussion participants had read my post since I included stories about person-to-person acts of kindness rather than institutional generosity. But as luck or fate would have it, Jim gave me another chance to get it right.

Quality Family Time | by Linda Brendle

“The Family that prays together, stays together.” The two sources I checked disagree about who actually came up with the slogan, but both agree that it was first used during the Roman Catholic Family Rosary Crusade, the post-World War II brainchild of Father Patrick Peyton. The slogan has been co-opted by others. In February of 1954 Parents’ Magazine said “The Family that plays together, stays together,” and in December of 2001, the Times said “History has forgotten Catherine Hogarth, as her husband [Charles Dickens] eventually did. Those who cook together stay together. Maybe because they cannot decide who should get the blender.” My version would read “The family that spends time together, stays together.” Not very catchy, I’ll admit, but true nonetheless.

If you believe the ads you see on TV, quality family time consists of expensive vacations to theme parks or time spent playing video games or crowded onto the sofa watching the latest movie on demand while eating tasty snacks. I recently saw a version of quality family time that was quite different from the Madison Avenue version.

Music Frees the Spirit and the Children | by Guest Blogger Maria Thompson Corley

I believe in the healing power of music, and I also believe it is our responsibility to care for “the least of these.” Maria Corley, one of my fellow AKA authors, asked for help in raising awareness about a new organization that combines the two. How could I say anything but yes.

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Children of incarcerated parents have a 72% chance of being incarcerated themselves.  One in twenty-eight children in America falls into this category.  While Big Brothers Big Sisters of America and other charitable organizations are actively involved in serving children with imprisoned parents, there is only one charity in the country specifically devoted to breaking the cycle.  Even more shocking:  SWAN (Scaling Walls A Note at a Time) has only existed since December of 2011.