Cassie’s cute kid videos remind me of a random act of kindness I heard about a few weeks ago via the internet. A four-year-old girl who was heartbroken over the death of her dog wrote the following letter (with help from her mom):
“Dear God, Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick. I hope you will play with her. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her. Love, Meredith”

Meredith put the letter and photo into an envelope, addressed it to “God/Heaven,” put several stamps on it to ensure the letter would make it that far, and dropped it off at the post office. Several days later, a package arrived for Meredith. In it were the Mr. Rogers book When A Pet Dies and the following letter:
“Dear Meredith, Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away. Abbey isn’t sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don’t need our bodies in heaven, I don’t have any pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by. Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I am wherever there is love. Love, God”
Wow.
I’m pretty sure anyone, regardless of their spiritual/political/religious/whatever orientation, or lack thereof, can appreciate the love this little girl had for her dog, and the incredible generosity of the anonymous postal worker whose random act of kindness soothed her mind and heart. It’s something she’ll probably remember for the rest of her life. I think it’s a safe bet that someday she’ll do something kind for a stranger herself.
Meredith’s mother, filled with gratitude but having no way to find the postal worker, put her thank you on the internet via a Best of Craigslist post. But that’s not how I heard about it. I found it on Perez Hilton.
Yes, I confess I do read Perez, although I don’t watch television, listen to pop music, or know anything about most of the people he blogs about (and don’t really care to).

While I’m pretty sure gossip doesn’t count as Right Speech, and I’m appalled by his tendency publicly mock teenage female celebrities (regularly referring to one as a slut, another as ugly), there are some things I really appreciate about him. Apparently others do too, since he ranks #21 on a list of the top 100 blogs.
Some of the things I like about Perez’s blog:
1. He comes across as genuine. I get the sense that what you see on the blog and who he is are the same.
2. He relentlessly and unapologetically pursues his passion for gossip (relentless pursuit of one’s passion is cool)
4. He uses his popularity to promote causes he believes in: gay rights, liberal politicians, nonprofits and charities, responsible parenting, etc.
A few days ago here on One City, Ethan Nichtern posted about how blogs are a truly democratic form of communication, and that their interactive and multi-layered content is much closer to the truth of interdependence than printed media. I would add that blogs also have the power to create, define, and strengthen communities: intentional, defined communities like the ID Project, and unintentional, loosely-structured communities like Perez Hilton readers. Blog in an angry way and you might spark anger in others. Blog about random acts of kindness, and you might inspire more random acts of kindness in the world, ’cause all blogs are part of the same big ol’ metacommunity called the internet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about community in the past six months or so, as I’ve worked to get the first ever ID Project chapter off the ground here in Portland, Oregon. My involvement in the ID Project community actually began a few years ago, when I stumbled across the podcast on itunes while searching for podcasts about Buddhism. I became a regular listener, and often wished I didn’t live 3,500 miles from New York so that I could attend the gatherings in person. Later, I began reading Sentient City, and this blog. I started feeling as though I were a part of the community even though I was lurking and not participating. Fast forward to this spring, when I decided that since I wanted an ID Project chapter to exist in Portland, I might as well start one. And now, here I am, and here we are, and we’re officially launching the chapter in three weeks (more about that soon).
While in the process of writing this post, I got a telephone call from IDP Portland meditation instructor Davee Evans. He had noticed Cassie’s post, and wanted to tell me that he had recently posted on his own blog about the same video, in a way: it was included in a larger discussion by the anthropologist Michael Wesch. Wesch taught a course called Digital Ethnography at Kansas State. He and his students put themselves into the youtube community via numerous videos. The students sat, individually, in front of a webcam and just talked, were themselves. Then they put these videos online and asked people in the youtube community to respond.
The talk Davee links to on his blog is a summary discussion by Wesch about the power of youtube to do just what we’ve been talking about here with respect to blogs:
1. Give everyone a voice
2. Provide a forum for expressing authenticity, individuality, passion, and joy (and also sometimes for pretending, or for expressing negative emotion)
3. Create intimate connections between people (check out the section from minute 30 to minute 34)
4. Develop communities
5. Make a positive difference in the world
Davee’s right. It’s worth watching even though it is 55 minutes long. It’s fascinating, inspirational, entertaining. (The part about the Charlie video is about 13 minutes in.)
What communities do you feel connected to? What have you found online that has inspired you?