Change Yourself, Change the World
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"Like the in breath and the out breath," she says, "you gather the light and give it out. That's just the way it works." |
Wings of Love
Love in action. We've all heard the cliche a million times but there's something about the way Nancy Rivard says it, that it reverberates in your heart for days to come. Maybe it's because she actually walks the walk and speaks with the confidence of experience; maybe it's because there is an uncanny sincerity in her demeanor; or perhaps it's impossible to pinpoint one particular reason.
Whatever the case, if you spend an evening with this World Woman of Peace (1999), you get a flavor of that infectious enthusiasm, a love affair with humanity that fills Nancy's heart and surrounds her
Discover The Love
On Christmas Eve 1983, Nancy Rivard suddenly lost her father to bladder cancer. "I wondered what life was about that it could be taken from us like that," she recalled. "I began to evaluate where I was going." Nancy purposely got herself demoted from the management track at American Airlines and went to work as a flight attendant. With low-cost travel passes and a flexible schedule, she toured around the world, searching for a calling -- for healing.
As a child, Nancy would write letters to "God" and submit them to her messenger -- the wind. Perhaps her father's untimely death provided the answer to her incessant question -- what is the deeper purpose of my life? In pursuit of understanding life and death, Nancy's travels took her to exotic places and provided incredible experiences and insights. She lived with the Hopi Indians, adopted a girl in Sri Lanka who was later killed, encountered healers in the Philippines, met with spiritual teachers in Thailand, Africa, India, Russia and the list goes on an on. But she kept on learning and re-learning the same answer. "Stop looking outside for teachers and answers. Look within, find yourselves in service and discover the love that is aldready within you," she says.
Power of One
Looking for a way that she could use her job as a flight attendant to serve the world, Nancy Rivard thought of an idea: volunteers could deliver medical supplies, school materials and plain old love to needy children in the United States and abroad, travelling at the same low fares airline employees receive. "I knew that if I could expose people to the types of helping experiences I'd had, they would find the same joy and fulfillment," she says. Nancy wanted to share the love she was so vividly experiencing. Excited about her proposals, she took 'em to upper management at American Airlines, where she was working. But all her attempts were in vain.
"To get rejected again and again was very tough," Nancy recalls. "I wanted to share love and awaken humanity to a higher connection with life but I didn't know how." But then she got yet another powerful message from a spiritual teacher -- think small, change yourself, know the power of one. So she did just that. Nancy began collecting sample-size hotel soaps and shampoos from her co-workers and delivering them to Bosnian refugees. The recipients were so grateful, they had tears of thankfulness and joy in their eyes. Following her first trip, two other flight attendants joined.
Today, Airline Ambassadors delivers close to $10 million in goods with the help of 4000 volunteers and less than 5% overhead! Nancy often tells friends, "When you do good work, doors keep opening."
It's simple: love in action
If you're really tuned in, Nancy's riveting stories coupled with an electrifying presence can just blow you off your seat. I mean, who has experienced instantaneous hurriances when they open their arms to the sky and ask for help? How many people have witnessed first-hand, mind-shattering miracles where the only thing you can
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| Art by David Delany |
But you see, that's the thing about Nancy. Despite all her escapades, experiences and endeavors, she comes down to one basic thing: love in action. It's that simple. Everything comes down to that. "The extra-ordinary lies in the ordinary," she says with confidence. While she used to travel the world seeking answers, she now looks to each present moment.
"Each moment contains everything you ever need to know. If you're confused, it's simply because you don't have enough information," Nancy notes, "Just stay with it for a while and it'll clear up." And per Nancy's experience, when that confusion clears up, you naturally arrive at service to all. While before you might've thought of cleaning up your life and then doing service, now you realize that your personal life works itself out when you are focused on giving unconditional love in each moment. The tomorrow you were waiting for has never come and never will. Start now.
Experiencing The Thunder
On paper, one could rant and rave about the work that Nancy has inspired, about how she was on the back cover of Reader's Digest, is a World Woman of Peace, a Rotary fellow, an Ambassador for Peace and so on, but to know her is to really to meet her, to share her presence, and to hear the thunder of love behind her voice.
After searching for life's deeper meanings in all corners of the world, after meeting numerous sages and saints, after experiencing inexplicable phenomena, after all the mundane trials and tribulations, Nancy came to an understanding: she saw that the extra-ordinary lies in the ordinary, that joy comes in service, and that the potential of love resides in each action, every moment.
So when she says "love in action", it's no longer a cliche. It's an experience.
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About the author, Nipun Mehta:  More about Nipun's iJourney >> |