making a difference

Embracing this life.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

The might have beens are a killer. We each take so many forks in the road, it’s easy to wonder how our lives might be if we had taken a different turn—gone to a different school, chosen a different career, picked a different partner. Those might have beens can keep us up late with longing and despair about the life we currently have. And, more importantly, they can strip those lives, the actual lives we are living, of joy. 

Consider this poem by Carl Dennis:

The God Who Loves You

BY CARL DENNIS

It must be troubling for the god who loves you 
To ponder how much happier you’d be today 
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings 
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened 
Had you gone to your second choice for college, 
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted 
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music 
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion. 
A life thirty points above the life you’re living 
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point 
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you. 
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments 
So she can save her empathy for the children. 
And would you want this god to compare your wife 
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus? 
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation 
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight 
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel 
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife 
Would have pleased her more than you ever will 
Even on your best days, when you really try. 
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives 
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him 
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill 
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you 
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene 
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him 
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend 
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight 
And write him about the life you can talk about 
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed, 
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

Carl Dennis, “The God Who Loves You” from Practical Gods.Copyright © 2001 by Carl Dennis. Reprinted with the permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. For online information about other Penguin Group (USA) books and authors, see http://www.penguin.com.Source: New and Selected Poems, 1974-2004 (Penguin Books, 2004)

We have choice and agency in the life we have. It is there we find meaning and purpose. It is there, in the now, that we can find joy. Embrace that life.

Consider the children.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

We all hurt right now. Our whole world grieves the loss of what once was. The present turmoil and divisiveness weigh us down. Each of us is struggling.

But what of the children? How are they doing? How will they remember this time?

They look to us to keep them safe, to care for them, to put their needs first. They don’t understand the greater turmoil. They see, keenly, what is right in front of them. What is that?

While we may not have a ton of control over world events, we do have control over how we treat the littlest among us. Consider the profound effect your words and actions have on children just starting to be introduced to the world. Temper your anger, your frustration, your dismay. There is no harm in having a full range of emotions, and teaching children that they, too, will be subject to sadness and disappointment, frustration and anger, bewilderment and helplessness as they age. But never let them forget that you love them and are with them and that you will stay in their corners come what may.

A persistent hope.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

What is hope, really, but a persistent insistence that things can be better, that there is more to it, that the final answers are yet to be revealed. Emily Dickinson describes hope as 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.”

And this feels right. Hope sits there perched, singing, warming our souls and keeping us fed. A wordless song because we may not even have the ability to put our emotions into words or know what it is we hope for. And this is a positive, persistent hope, but somewhat passive, waiting. 

And yet, we know, too, that hope gets its fingernails dirty because while hope sits on the periphery expectant, it can also be in the fray fighting for a better world. That kind of hope is captured by Matthew @CrowsFault:

“People speak of hope as if it is this delicate ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.”

And this, too, seems true. Hope keeps our souls fed but also prompts our entering the arena, helping us to do the hard work to make a better world for all.

Love in this place.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

It’s okay to be heartbroken for more than one group of people at the same time. When it comes to showing compassion, we don’t have to pick sides. Sometimes, often really, maybe even always, there is hurt and anguish everywhere, and we can mourn the lot of it. 

Beware people who tell you not to be concerned for this group or that group and the hurt they feel. 

Beware those who try to dehumanize others. 

Beware those who lump you in as the ‘enemy’ for working to assure people are treated humanely.

Beware people who draw lines between us and them. 

Beware those who try to limit you to a label or single identity. 

Our hearts are big enough to embrace it all. What we must save is love.

The light that is you.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

All things break.

Including us.

Nothing lasts.

Including us.

And yet most of us internalize myths that we are meant to live pain-free lives and that there is always more time. How much more could we accomplish if we embrace the reality instead?

We’re breakable. But our vulnerability is our strength. And when we mend from something painful, we are likely to have tools and skills and sensitivities that may help us and make us more empathic going forward. Breaking and mending is part of growth. Part of change. Part of evolving. To be scared of breaking is to be scared of living.

Time’s short. Now is the time to reach out, apologize, help…whatever it is you’re waiting for a different day to do. There is no promised day. Things don’t just happen. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. We help heal the broken world, and our own broken selves, by continuing to love even in the darkness.

A lullaby for these times.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Picture a fussy baby, afraid to fall asleep, but then comforted in his mother’s arms by her lilting lullaby, her breath soft against his face, her song sweet to his ears.

Who among us can’t, at times, relate to that child? The future seems particularly uncertain. Worry disrupts sleep. Anxiety weakens our resolve. 

There is something about a lullaby, though, the soft tones, the repetitive melody, the gentleness of the presentation, that can help soothe and relax, comfort and reassure us. The sweet song can reach into our long past baby consciousness and help us rest. 

Take a minute to enjoy this beautiful rendition of Billy Joel’s Goodnight, My Angel, by Social Dissonance with soloist Ryan Nagelmann. May it help you find peace. 

Binding up wounds.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

So much of our suffering is invisible. Loneliness, sorrow, depression, not fitting in. We can bind up our own cuts and scrapes, but how do we bind up those kind of wounds?

There is an old parable about heaven and hell. In both, people are forced to eat with spoons that are too long to feed themselves. In hell, they are starving. In heaven, they feed each other.

When it comes to these invisible hurts, we are healed by kindness, one to another. We don’t know when we are being kind that it may help someone, but it certainly can’t hurt. And it may be just the long-spooned nourishment that someone else needs.

To inspire acts of kindness today, watch this video of a poor baby elephant stuck in a muddy hole. The gratitude its mother shows its rescuers will melt your heart.

The right to vote.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Today, in the United States, we vote. We celebrate a country that allows its citizens input into this remarkable experiment of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. 

We honor this country and its principles of equality, freedom, and justice for all. Our understanding of those concepts has evolved over time, and taken some steps back, but today let us be grateful for how far we’ve come and consider the steps that we each might take today and every day to make this country move closer to the ideals for which it stands. It is both a privilege and a responsibility to vote.

Embracing life.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Reading history is one of the best ways ironically to really enter the present. As James Baldwin says:

One must say Yes to life and embrace it whenever it is found — and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it is.
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. ~James Baldwin

We look at our past and see people making their ways, making mistakes, celebrating triumphs, struggling but then getting back up. And this is true during objectively awful times of war or suffering as well as in more relatively peaceful times. People go on. They find a way to come together, to survive, to do better.

I wonder what historians will say fifty years from now about the times we are in right now. Will they point to the divisions between us or the attempts to heal and grow. Will they see in us the grit and forbearance we can recognize in our ancestors?

Choose truth.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

We are in the midst of a slander epidemic. In today’s world, someone can publish fake news, and it can go viral, spreading around the world in an instant. People eagerly like and share derogatory information about people they don’t care for or political candidates they oppose. Companies can crumble based on the public’s wrath over a false bit of news. People’s lives can be ruined.

And what of the effect on all of us? It is to the point where we can’t trust much of anything we read unless we do our own diligence with fact checking and research.

What happened to the truth? What happened to accountability?

As with most things, the buck stops with each of us. We can’t control the world, but we can choose whether we want to further lies. Take your time before you believe what you hear. Do your research. And let your words and actions shine with the light of truth.