love being around young people with passion for changing the world, hanging out with their hope, vision, and enthusiasm.

And I especially love making a difference in their lives.

Five years back a young man from Germany in his early twenties who was in the Bay area studying dance stayed at our house. Ralf and I shared some meals, and also some songs on the guitar.

He came with me to the local health food store, Good Earth, where I loved singing classic songs from the 60’s and 70’s by the fireplace and getting others to join in. He watched me several times gather a tribe and build a sense of community through music. He was really touched.

When it was time to part ways, he told me that he was going back to Germany with the courage to play his guitar for the first time in public on street corners. He blamed me for inspiring him. I accepted the blame, and thanked him for injecting some of his youthful energy into my life experience. His last words to me: “Scott, you will always be in my heart.”

Such purity. Ralf was an angel, like all of us, but it seemed he was more aware of it than many of us who have had more time, more opportunities to cover up our angel-hood.

A week later I met up with fifteen more youth angels while in Sausalito, a busy Marin County town brimming with tourists right across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

I was there with my guitar, making up[ songs for anyone who accepted my invitation to be serenaded. Two of my friends were there with me with Free Hugs signs held high, doing their thing.

We ran into a group of foreign exchange students from countries as diverse as Germany, Italy, France, Bolivia, South Africa, etc. I asked if they could come with me to a patch of grass and sit in a circle, and they did. I made up a song to honor them for their brave journey to the U.S.

We also sang some songs together, Imagine, We Are the World, and Don’t Worry Be Happy.

They were on a global adventure, brimming with love of life, trusting the universe to support them in a foreign land. Our meeting and our singing together brought tears to my eyes. I am so glad for my smart phone, YouTube, and how easy it has become to share these experiences with the rest of the world.

Aren’t we all on a global adventure?

Here are two of my young German friends in Sausalito.