Keep on.
Uplift
Be patient.
What is worth fighting for? Sometimes a battle is won in a courageous show of strength and derring do. A fireman runs into a burning building to save a child. A passerby stops to help victims of an accident. A pilot steers a damaged plane to safety.
But sometimes the battle requires showing up time after time with love, kindness, and patience. Not giving up on someone. Having faith that love will win. Believing that relationships can be salvaged.
That takes courage, too.
Peace to you, my friend.
Do your little bit.
What is your little bit of good?
What is that thing that you can do to make….
the lives of those around you a bit better,
your world a bit brighter,
the day a bit merrier?
Do that thing.
Spread joy.
Take a moment.
Got a minute?
The rush of holidays and year end can be powerful. So much to do. We can’t stop bustling. Something might get dropped.
We don’t have time to see the look of wonder on a child’s face, or hear the kitten-soft whisper of snow beginning to fall, or breathe in the musky scent from a neighbor’s chimney. We don’t have time to drop to our knees with gratitude for being in this place and time, with these people to love, and these hands to serve, and these eyes to soak in the beauty around us. There is so much to do we simply don’t have time to pause and pay attention to the blessing of it all.
Or do we?
Hold on.
Is your life all ups, no downs? Do you ever feel a need to make it look like it is? Maybe to pretend the rough stuff doesn’t exist or put on a big smile to cover a broken heart? Do you ever feel like there must be something wrong with your faith if your life is going badly?
Truth is, shit happens. To the best, most faithful of people. Life’s struggles can feel overwhelming. You can get to the point where you simply cannot see how someone could think and feel the way they do. You can lose hope.
At times like these you need to breathe deep and get yourself to a quiet place. And it sure would do no harm, and maybe a whole lot of good, to read a poem like this:
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Barry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.
For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
And the good news is, you can read this poem, and your soul will calm without even being in that place where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water. The words of a good poem are like magic. They can heal you and still the churning waters of your soul. And they can help you remember the ‘day-blind stars waiting with their light’, because, yes, we cannot see the stars in the daytime, but they are there. Shining.
May you rest in the grace of the world and find peace.
Follow your bliss.
What is your bliss? What fills you with purpose and passion and spills out of you into the world around you?
That’s not always an easy question.
Sometimes we can look at the high moments in our work or life, the moments that brought joy and satisfaction, and follow them like breadcrumbs back to the bliss, that thing that we love doing.
Sometimes, we are born knowing our passion and purpose. It is as apparent as the nose on our face, if we can see it and follow it before it’s squashed by life.
In the attached video, one boy seems to know what brings him joy and purpose right out of the gate: making bears for hospitalized children, turning sadness into joy, despair into hope, and, maybe even, saving his own dad in the process.
There is so much to love about this story, but, as you watch, consider his parents’ response. They don’t force him to be like all the other boys. They don’t mock or deride him for his dream. They don’t push him into a mold of their own devising.
They let him blossom.
Take a hike.
To the beach, the mountains, the desert, the fields, the back yard. Wherever you can go, take the time to unwind in nature. Let its gentle rhythms soothe and comfort you.
The world is bigger than this day and this problem.
Let nature’s embrace help you find your way home.
Be a good friend.
Friendships are taking a hit these days. Politics, world views, differing opinions are tearing people apart. What is it that holds people together instead? One thing is an abiding concern for the other person, despite your differences. If you can advocate against the death penalty on behalf of a stranger, couldn’t you bring yourself to see what is good and redeemable inside a former friend? Inside an enemy even? Searching for common ground is hard work, but really the main point of living in community. Isn’t it?
QuotableCreek.com 