Love

We are needed, that is all we can know.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Do not lose heart. The challenges you see today are the ones you must face. You are strong enough to do your part, and you will find allies everywhere you look.

Do not be afraid.

You may feel you are riding on stormy seas, but look around you. In the words of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.

We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.

You do not need to do everything. Do what you can, where you can, with what you can. Your actions combined with actions from millions of like-minded individuals will make a difference for good.

Do not lose heart.

Be still my soul and steadfast.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

No one knows what tomorrow will bring, and that can be frightening. We are in a volatile time. It helps to keep our attention on the present and what we can do here and now.

The great poets help calm our souls. Take comfort today from these tender words from Mary Oliver:

Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.

So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful. That the gift has been given.


+ Mary Oliver

We do not know what tomorrow brings, but we will approach it with full souls, grateful and loving, ready to meet the day with a steadfast heart.

For friendship.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

How lucky we are to have friends, true friends, who are in our lives just for the delight in it, for the compatibility of spirits, for joy, for shared experience, for knowing in this great big world someone gets us.

Enjoy this poem by Kahlil Gibran:

And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship. 
    And he answered, saying: 
    Your friend is your needs answered. 
    He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. 
    And he is your board and your fireside.
    For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace. 

    When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.” 
    And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; 
    For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. 
    When you part from your friend, you grieve not; 
    For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. 
    And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. 
    For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught. 

    And let your best be for your friend. 
    If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. 
    For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? 
    Seek him always with hours to live. 
    For it is his to fill your need but not your emptiness. 
    And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. 
    For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. 

Listening to our souls.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Are these the times that try people’s souls? What does it mean to have your soul tried anyway?

I’ve been thinking about this picture:

Those faces, contorted in rage, caught for history. This picture, reflecting a military presence during school desegregation, anticipating, presumably, a violent reaction from the mob, freezes a moment in history. I wonder how those women feel looking back on it. Would they be ashamed to have been part of a mob hurling epithets at this young woman? Would they feel contrition?

That period in history was certainly turbulent. Fraught with animosity directed at those seeking an education, because of the color of their skins, the women in the crowd wear their anger and hate openly in their faces.

We too are in turbulent times. Whole industries are churning out content intended to divide us, to make us hate others like the women in this picture? We are fed misinformation and disinformation designed to further these divides. Presumably the motive for this hate industry is profit, but at what expense? Will this hate-filled rhetoric cost souls?

It will certainly try them, and it is our job to protect our souls. To listen deep to the wisdom that seeks love and peace, harmony and cooperation. To deplug from the constant rhetoric of othering and hate.

It’s a loud angry world. Hush and listen to the harmony of your soul.

Bearing one another’s burdens.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Also Inauguration Day. When we picture King, we picture him as heroic, confident, strong. And these are likely the pictures you may see today.

And, of course, he was these things. Championing civil rights and railing against injustice, able to see inequity in the systems around him and dream of a better way. He was an advocate of love over hate and peaceful protest.

And yet, his life was not a peaceful one. He was killed for the beliefs he professed. And much of the progress he made was met with violence and hate.

Progress is not a straight line, and hate is ever-present. And hate can be powerful and beguiling and intimidating. And hate can creep into the consciousness of a group, or even a nation.

And yet, I will stand with King for love over hate, all these years later, and do what I can to continue his fight for justice and peace.

Because, even in the midst of hateful people and those who seek to divide, justice and truth are on the right side of history.

Allowing contentment to come to you.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

The new year brings with it an expectation to reflect and set intentions for how to perhaps improve from the last. Often these reflections result in an examination of all the ways we’ve fallen short and a profession to do better, eat better, exercise better…be better. Often the premise unspoken is that we’re not enough, we must improve, be different. 

I wonder if there is a better way to start a new year. Perhaps in astonishment that we have made it through a year filled with so many challenges and yet we persisted. Perhaps filled with gratitude that our opportunities to contribute and bring joy to others continues. Perhaps thinking about all the small wonders that make up our life and rejoicing.

Each new year is an opportunity to wake up with the enthusiasm of Scrooge after his ghostly visits and realize that here we are, in the thick of it, able to love and be loved, able to contribute, and make a difference, filled with delight:

“Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious. Glorious!”

When he finds out from a boy outside his window that it is still Christmas Day, Scrooge says, “I haven’t missed it. Yes, the spirits did it all in one night—they can do anything they want to do.”

Then his thoughts turn, with glee, to anonymous giving, saying to himself, “I’ll send [a turkey] to Bob Cratchit’s! rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. “He shan’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim….”

“The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.”

Chuckled until he cried. How thin the edge between joy and grief. What a gift it is to be here. How precious in its finiteness. But here we are, dancing, able to bring joy to others. Here now, but not forever. 

Rejoice!

Happy new year!

For as long as we can.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

One of my personal heroes, Jimmy Carter, 100 years old, has passed away, and the world is a bit darker without his light. He has been such a wonderful example of walking the walk. He said:

“My faith demands – this is not optional – my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I can, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

What a wonderful way to look at our possible impact. Using what we have, not waiting until we have more or better resources or to be older and wiser, or wishing we were younger and stronger. Right now, with what’s available. 

And wherever we find ourselves, adopting a bloom where you’re planted attitude. Even if we are in our own harsh spot. Considering what can we do here. 

And always looking for opportunities to do good. Not necessarily solving the world’s problems, but doing your own little bit of good. Right here, right now. 

Let’s go. 

Thank you, President Carter, for this reminder. You will be missed.

Staying alive with joy.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

How do we make sure we aren’t just staying alive but staying vibrant? Making our moments count? Making an impact and difference in the lives of those we care about? Making our lives matter?

Consider Virginia Woolf’s words:

Whatever happens, stay alive. Don’t die before you’re dead. Don’t lose yourself, don’t lose hope, don’t lose direction.

Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin.

Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design.

Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also, outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with hope, with Wow Scenery.

Stay alive with joy.

There is only one thing you should not waste in life, and that’s life itself.

How do we become hard-hearted as we age, focused so much on ourselves and our own needs? How do we deaden ourselves to community and lives being lived around us, turning inward and reclusive, dying really to the fabric of life?

I just watched the muppet version of Christmas Carol which did a great job of capturing Charles Dickens’s classic story about the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge, first his turning in, the selfishness, the greed, the callousness to those around him, his miserliness in spirit and deed.

But then, with the spirits’ intervention, Scrooge has an epiphany and realization that life is a looking out, a contributing, a generosity and an overflowing of joy. His life becomes filled with vibrancy and exuberance and a realization of the difference he can make in the here and now. At that moment, he becomes part of something larger than himself, alive with possibility and connection.

Each of us faces Scrooge’s dilemma. We may not be miserable misers, but perhaps we have turned in to focus on ourselves. Perhaps we’ve become callous to the suffering around us and blind to the good we can do. Perhaps we’ve lost the joy.

Scrooge’s story reminds us all that it isn’t too late to turn over a new leaf, to reach out to those around us, to wear our love and concern on our sleeves, to care. And by spreading joy, we find ourselves drenched in it as well.

Grief to love.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Christmas is a joyful time, but joyful times often bring complex emotions, particularly of loss for the people and loved ones who aren’t with you at the table. We remember times past when we were all together, when things seemed less complicated, when relationships seemed more solid, and we mourn that loss even as we celebrate.

Love makes us vulnerable as there is the possibility of loss. And loss hurts. That’s the human condition. And to try to avoid the pain of loss by never loving would be a far greater loss really. For to miss loving is to miss the whole joy of living.

Grief happens. When we think of grief as the flip side of love, though, we can offer ourselves some solace.

Consider these words by Donna Ashcroft today, and every day. You are loved.

From ‘Loss’ by Donna Ashworth