If you are a recent acquisition in the Amanda Adams department of friends, be warned, I still have yearly girls’ weekends with a friend from KINDERGARTEN and others from fifth grade.  McDonalds coworkers from 20 years ago – Check, and high school friends – check and check.  You just can’t shake me, I’m loyal like that, and my Christmas Card list proves it.

So, out of both loyalty to my high school friend Liz who asked me to vote, and out of a strong belief that every time we stand up to be counted, we put a little cosmic check mark into the good guys column, I want to share this link with you.  If you click it, it will take you to a Chase Bank page where you can vote for the Sandra and Leon Levine Jewish Community Center nonprofit in support of their mission for Holocaust Awareness and strengthening their community.  Granted they’re usin’ facebook and that will scare some folks away, but if you’re a FB-freak like me, please vote and stand for something with me.  It’s free and it only matters as much as you are personally compelled to stand for something.

http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/charities/561100696-sandra-and-leon-levine-jewish-community-center-inc?src=vote_share

Before I was a heart mom, I was a writer, and before that a historian.  I studied Nazi Germany in all of my undergraduate electives and have always been drawn to how this time in our global history epitomizes both all that is terrible and all that is resilient about humanity.  When I read Anne Frank at eleven, I was baffled about how any one could hate this little girl enough to drive her into hiding. When I read Survival in Auschwitz in college I was astonished by the human spirit that could survive such cruelty and humiliation.  When I actually visited a concentration camp, I cringed at the audacity of hate.

When I listen to people, even today, hone their fears into sharp and misguided hatreds against people of all diversities, it reminds me of how easily we fall victim to our own fears and how stalwart we must be in our personal beliefs.  I think I will never lose my sense of horror or astonishment at the worst of people, but I believe in the glorious best that we can be when we rise to the challenge of bettering the world.  Please put a little better into the world today.  Yes, it’s just a Facebook vote, but you have an opportunity today to say – “Hey world, this still matters, I still care, and we’ve still much to learn about how to be better humans.”  Let’s keep learning it together.

Thanks!