“Love isn’t the work of the tender and gentle. Love is the work of wrestlers.” ~ Rumi
Dear friends, family and colleagues,
This letter has been a hard letter to write. It’s been many months in the making, mostly because it’s hard for me to ask for help. So let me get right to heart of matters.
The Need
Like many of the elderly in 21st century America, my retirement savings have not kept pace with increasing interest rates, taxes, rising living costs like food, gasoline, insurance, healthcare and other ongoing expenses.
As many of you know I have been struggling with aging and the treatment effects of throat cancer for the last three years. Chemo and radiation therapy profoundly change your body and brain in unexpected and challenging ways. And while my earnings over 6 decades have mostly been sufficient to support myself and my family, my ability to invest wisely and manage money skillfully has never quite made the grade (I actually never expected to be around at this late date).
The Ask
So, here’s what I’m asking: listen to your own heart. My own heart has finally prompted a request for whatever support you might be able to lend to my wife and me to allow us to remain in our home of nearly 20 years. If this process has to be transactional, I want it to be a win-win for everyone. But what truly transforms a transaction in my experience, is when the heart embraces the exchange.
What we need is for 100 people to lend us $40 a month (or 40 people lending $100 a month) for two years to get us to whatever the universe has next in store for us then. We are essentially asking our community to provide a “Soul Second” personal loan against the current $400,000 – $700,000 equity in our home. And while we know real estate only realizes value when it’s sold, building is booming here on Whidbey Island, and we fully expect and intend to be able to return what you lend, plus 5% annual simple interest, beginning after two years or upon the sale of our home, whichever comes first. During those two years we will be fully engaged in a collaborative discernment process to discover what comes next.
Whatever you can do to help will be much appreciated. If you’re open to having a conversation with me about this challenge, that would be appreciated and welcome as well. Should you feel so inclined, monthly lending amounts can be offered through Paypal directly to: sigmundjung@gmail.com or through Venmo to: @Mark-Brady-59 . There is also a Patreon page you can access HERE to see the work I’m currently creating to offer to the community.
Sincerely yours,
Mark & Muriel
P.S. Feel free to consider inviting and collaborating with any folks in your circle who might also be open to this request who have the means and experience to give Big Heart Answers to the Big Brain Question.
P.S.S If you want to see the detailed plan we have in place to insure everyone gets their loan repaid with interest (should a Boeing jet drop a fuselage door into our kitchen during tomorrow’s dinner), email me: sigmundjung@gmail.com
Mark, I have known you to be the most generous person on the planet for over 20 years. I am happy to be able to support you and Muriel in this project. I know it is vulnerable to ask, but you also need to receive. It is an honor.
Jeanne
Mark, I have known you to be the most generous person on the planet for over 20 years. I am happy to be able to support you and Muriel in this project. I know it is vulnerable to ask, but you also need to receive. It is an honor.
Jeanne
Thank you, Jeanne. For the support AND for YOUR ongoing teachings over the years, by instruction and by example. My life’s journey has been richer by full measure.
XOXOX Mark
Dear Mark, Although I am not in a position to be able to offer you financial support (I recognize parts of my own challenges in your description), I want you to know, again, that your work is valued. I pray that all that you have given be returned, a thousandfold.
Jacob
Thank you, Jacob. I appreciate you taking the time to respond and let me know “what’s true for you.”
Blessings,
Mark
Mark, your generosity and wisdom for years now has been a constant in the world and it’s an easy gesture of the heart to give something back to you at this critical time. I’m not sure how to make the gift recurring on Venmo, but I will look into it. I just sent it now. I don’t want a pay back.
Thank you, Sasha, both for the support and expression of appreciation for my labor of love. As for recurring Venmo, don’t spend your life energy trying to figure it out. I’ve marked my calendar to provide responders with a monthly “progress report.”
Again, heartfelt appreciation for you reading all these years. Readers are why writers write. 😉
Blessings,
Mark
Dear Mark, for me, the most impactful blog you have written, after “The Big Brain Question”, is the one entitled, “The Two Perilous Questions.” What’s true for me? And what do I want?
Well, what’s true for me is that my life and my work have been immeasurably enhanced by you, by what you have chosen to spend decades studying, learning and sharing with me and so many others.
What I want is to offer support in response to your open letter…and this I will do. Love, Debby
Debby, Thanks so much, both for letting me know the impact I’ve had and your offer of support. Interestingly, those two offerings – The Big Brain Question and The Two Perilous Questions – greatly impacted me when I originally researched and wrote them, and they continue to – to this day. Just this month I reread and rewrote them to be meaningful to several people working in the criminal justice system.
And so life-learning continues on.
Without you . . . there’s no me! 😉
Blessings,
Mark
Dear Mark;
I am so moved by your letter. Thank you for your courage and vulnerability in writing it here. As Jeanne wrote, you are one of the most generous people I have known in this life, generous with your time, wisdom and listening. True gifts in our world today. I am honored to be able to assist you at this time on your journey, as you too have assisted me in the soulful journey of life.
With blessings and love, Susan O
Thank you, Susan. Like you with Poetry Medicine, I have mostly been doing my best to offer to what I have felt called to offer, trusting that it will all work out one way or the other. So far, these many decades in, it seems to be working out, not necessarily according to my plan, but clearly to A plan – designed by a planner with a much more comprehensive view of the Whole than I have. Also, like you, I will keep doing my best to remain tuned in.
XOXOX
Mark
Hey Mark! I would like to send you 25.00. hit a wall with PayPal and the link to email you didn’t work either. Wondering if other people are encountering this? Your sharing is enriching my life and you did a beautiful request for help! Any suggestions for pay pal? Blessings! Byron Odion byodion@gmail.com 509-319-1791
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Hi Byron, Thanks so much. Give paideia@yahoo.com a try with Paypal. Many thanks. Mark
That did it Mark, thanks! You might want to send an update with that link! I lived on Whidbey for about 8 years. 2003-2011. Still have good friends there. Lee and Tanya Dvirnak and Detmar and Christa Straub to name a couple. Really appreciate your shares! Always enhances my life! I’m sharing a song I wrote on whidbey island as I was getting ready to depart for the Methow valley where I live now. The old friend in the song is our beloved dog Jake that is buried on a farm on Bailey road. Be well my friend! Blessings on your journey! Byron Odion byodion@gmail.com 509-319-1791
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you rite with courage, grace, honesty.. if i could help i would. thank you for the bravery to reach out. and for all your enlightening newsletters.
Thank you, Tanuja. You’ve apparently taken to heart what I’ve been teaching for years: every well-intended response is a help. It’s much appreciated.
Warm regards,
Mark