… right this moment … or at least the minute you get done reading this blog …

What if we all got up exactly this moment and went out and took action to help someone else? Maybe not someone we know … someone we don’t know … yes.

Someone who has a need perhaps we can’t even discern. But somehow we do.

What if?

One of us got up and drove to the Five Points area near Main Street in Sarasota and offered a meal to a homeless man or woman? Today. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not at Thanksgiving through a remote donation to an intermediary organization. Live. Up close and personal. Just offer food to someone who might be hungry?

Or, if one of us got up from our computer screen, walked into the kitchen, pulled every non-perishable from the shelves, and drove to All Faiths or some other food pantry — right then and there — to help feed the hungry?

What if one of us simply smiled and held the door for someone else as we’re out running our errands later today?

What if we call our neighbor, the one who’s house-bound and ask if there’s anything they need — an errand, a ride someplace, or even just someone to shoot the breeze with?

Or, when we go out to dinner tonight with our lovers or friends, what if one of us invites the person dining alone — the one up there sitting at the bar by his or herself — to come join our merry group?

What if we schedule 3 p.m., today to drive to a veteran’s shelter and offer to scrub the floors or peel potatoes.

Or we call up a local nursing home and offer to come and sit and talk and read or just listen or just hold the hand of someone who has no one else to visit them? Someone who hasn’t had their hand held in so long they’ve almost forgotten what human touch feels like if it isn’t from a health care provider.

Yes, what if right now, we call and make a donation for Haiti.

Or what if we go online and sign a petition to support the rights of people everywhere of every sexual preference to simply marry whom they like.

What if we bought a few grocery gift certificates and took them to families in need?

What if we went and threw open the doors of our overstuffed closets and pulled out every item of clothing we haven’t worn in the past year and right this minute drive to a shelter and give our clothes to someone who barely has a shirt on his or her back.

If we go to Starbucks today, what if we say to the cashier, here’s $5 to cover the order of the person behind us?

What if?