perspective

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

Active love.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Love isn’t a feeling we fall in and out of. It’s an action we choose to take even when it may be challenging. Sometimes it brings pain. When we think of love as an active verb, like, as Mr. Rogers suggests above, ‘struggle’, rather than as an emotion, it opens our eyes to the fact that we must work at it. It’s a struggle, a constant readjustment and tinkering, constantly expanding our own understanding and empathy. Love is not molding someone to our vision of what they should be, but accepting who they are and supporting them as they blossom. Thinking of love as something more akin to struggle encourages us to keep looking for new and better ways to show up for the people in our lives, to view the relationships as evolving rather than static, and to appreciate all the little successes and breakthroughs in those relationships along the way.

Giving anonymously.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

There is something about an anonymous gift that brings special joy to both the giver and the receiver. For the person getting the gift, it makes you feel like the whole world cares, that around any corner is the person who cared enough to make your life special. And to the giver, it strips off all the status and pride and self-satisfaction you may get from a public gift and, with the lusciousness of a secret, fills you with love and gratitude that you are in a position to make a difference.

Consider this delightful story about a somewhat anonymous giver, call him George Walker, and his gift to a young boy in the Philippines.

“Dear Timothy, 

I want to be your new pen pal. 

I am an old man, 77 years old, but I love kids; and though we have not met I love you already.

I live in Texas – I will write you from time to time – Good Luck. G. Walker”

Now, after President Bush’s death, we have learned that George Walker was President George Herbert Walker Bush, but look at how much joy is in his writing when it is semi-anonymous. He is embracing the true spirit of giving.

For more on anonymous giving, take a look at this feature I wrote on anonymous giving filled with inspiring stories.

What are some things you might do anonymously to spread your love?

Moving the chains.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Any great achievement depends on small steps forward. Progress. Getting up again and again. Pushing through challenges. Ever forward.

If you are confronting a large, overwhelming project, break it up into small manageable pieces, and then tackle those. One at a time.

You’ve got this.

Binding invisible 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.

Help others, help ourselves.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Sometimes we help; sometimes we need help. Sometimes we teach; sometimes we are the student.  Sometimes we follow; sometimes we lead. But the truly profound thing in each of these examples is that we are always on both sides of the continuum at the same time. The teacher learns as much from her students as she teaches. The leader who best leads remembers what it is like to be led. And when we help others, it makes us more empathic, more generous, more loving and expands our own humanity. We realize we are one. We are a community that best thrives when all work to help each other.

Take a moment.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

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?