Joshua Tree

Last night we watched DIY SOS. As part of this year’s BBC Children in Need, the team went to ‘The Joshua Tree’, a Cheshire-based charity supporting families affected by childhood cancers.

In just over 12 days, tradespeople, suppliers, and volunteers transformed the Joshua Tree’s Family Support Centre, providing family accommodation, a gym, therapy suites, teenage breakout-room, counselling rooms, recreation space, a therapy garden…

We saw…

…Reminders Families are living with the life-changing experience of childhood cancer.

Many individuals and families are suffering, struggling – physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, financially… It’s too easy to focus on our own problems and insulate ourselves from the problems of others…

I need to be reminded of the needs of others… and of good people, organisations and charities doing good things to support them.

…Compassion Both Joshua Tree staff the hundreds of folks who volunteered their time, skills and efforts, demonstrated compassion.

Knowledge alone isn’t enough. That knowledge must affect us, change us… seeing with eyes of compassion, feeling with a heart of compassion, acting with hands of compassion.

When I see friends with dementia, cancer, heart conditions… those living with them, caring for them… do I see, feel and act with compassion?

…Dreams Joshua Tree dreamt of the facilities to support families living with cancer. The DIY SOS team dreamt of creating a new purpose-built support centre.

Knowledge and compassion must lead to dreams – how suffering can be relieved, weak can be supported, hope-less can become hope-full.

I must be better at imagining the best solutions, creating high hopes, dreaming the impossible dream, believing that the apparently impossible is possible.

…Joshua Tree The charity’s called ‘Joshua Tree’…  

Joshua tree, the yucca palm, grows in the Mojave Desert in the Southwestern United States. Its ability to thrive in harsh deserts has led it to symbolize resilience, survival, adaptability, beauty, personal growth… faith, love, and hope in the aridity in the desert…

I’m reminded that my knowledge, compassion and dreams can be resilient and thrive in the most fiercely adverse conditions.