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Extend Grace
“I cannot cure my own blindness.” Anonymous If you were a child of the 70s, or perhaps were raised by one, you are likely familiar with “Schoolhouse Rock!”, the short, educational cartoons that punctuated Saturday morning television. To this day, I think I learned more about grammar from those segments than I did in school (nod to the virtue of a catchy tune and relatable narratives to convey a concept). Fast forward forty-ish years, unpacking our adjectives remains central to how we relate to the world around us. We have good days or bad days. We like foods that are salty and/or sweet. The tricky thing is how relative our…
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Odd Gratitudes
A friend and I took a walk last week. Dutifully, we maintained a six-foot distance. Neither of us have COVID…that we know of. But that’s the thing, right? Nobody really knows from one day to the next. With or without shelter in place orders, our limbic cortexes (lizard brains) stay on high alert through endless rounds of hand scrubbing. It seems counter-intuitive to suggest that we might be grateful in the time of a prolonged, global crisis. And yet it is there. Hidden in our optimistic choices that reflect and promote joy. For example, how many people do you know who have adopted a pet in the last five months?…
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A Year in a Word
HAPPY NEW YEAR! Whether you were Snapchatting at midnight from Times Square or at home stacking zzz’s, 2016 came to a close this weekend. Without question, this past year was one for the books–heartbreaking, unpredictable, and miraculous at turns. Trying to describe the year in just a few words is difficult. Fortunately or wistfully, the calendar has turned for all of us. Instead of looking backwards, we turn our attention to the future. While there is no way to fully anticipate what this next year will bring to our doorsteps, we can make a decision right now about how we will respond each day that it arrives. As always, we can choose…
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Upsiders
There is a story told of an old farmer and the series of events that come to pass in his life. His horse runs away. His horse returns…bringing with it a dozen wild horses. His son is thrown while breaking the wild horses injuring his arm. A war breaks out, and his son is exempt from duty because of his broken limb. Back and forth it goes. At each point in the story, the villagers congratulate or console the farmer based on his revised circumstances saying, “oh, how wonderful” or “oh, such terrible news” in turn. And each time, the farmer sagely responds “perhaps”. Like March weather in the Midwest, our life circumstances are often…
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Bloom
Purple crocuses have begun popping up in the yard. The branches of the lilac bushes are laden with buds. It has been raining for 24 hours straight, and signs of spring have sprung up all around us. Bulbs that went in the ground last fall have begun announcing themselves. It will not be long before they are more than hopeful tips of green. Soon they will bloom…where they were planted. This idea of blooming where we’re planted may seem counterintuitive in our consumptive, fast-paced culture. We have been trained to scan the horizon for the next big thing instead of focusing on what’s within our grasp. To that way of thinking, it will…
