wisdom

Tending roses.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

‘If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden,’ muse the characters in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. And, perhaps, on a more intimate level, so our mind is too a garden.

We cultivate our thoughts, enrich them with information, learn, grow, stretch. But weeds can overrun any garden, and we can find our minds overcome with anxiety, negative thinking, and endless catastrophic thinking.

But Burnett notes:

Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.

When we find ourselves overcome with negative thoughts, we can imagine our mind a garden. Something we can lovingly tend, plucking weeds, nourishing blooms, replacing gloom with gratitude, planting seeds of possibility and promise.

While there are many things in this world we cannot control, we still can control our thoughts and find a way to focus on ones that keep our mental garden thriving.

Obstacles or gateways?

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Benjamin Franklin’s parents could afford to educate him only until he was 10; he took it from there. Abraham Lincoln lost far more political battles than he won.  Oprah Winfrey lost a child when she was 14. Many writers, like J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, were rejected dozens of times before they ever sold a story.

History is full of people who initially failed but ultimately succeeded, perhaps at something wildly different than what they first started. There is value in an obstacle if you can see it with the right eyes– eyes that look for what is to be learned from the struggle, eyes that value determination and resilience, eyes that look for opportunity.

Which of your obstacles are really gateways to something better?

Praying with the news.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

How do we read the news and not get overwhelmed or angry, disconnected or depressed? How do we keep showing up with compassion and grace in a world where there is so much hate? How do we keep ourselves on the right path through the midst of it all? How do we continue to show up from a place of compassion, forgiveness, and grace? how do we keep our hearts from growing hard?

In this thoughtful letter, Rabbi Yael Levy shares his insights on how to pray with the news:

The 17th of the Hebrew month Tammuz initiates a three-week period of mourning that leads to Tisha b’Av, which is the day that marks the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and 70 CE.

Tradition teaches that the Temple was destroyed because hatred became the operating principle in the community. The scorn, contempt and disdain that characterized daily interactions caused the Divine Presence to flee and leave the Temple vulnerable to attack.

These next three weeks ask us to reflect on the hatred that we allow to take root in our hearts. The wisdom of the tradition acknowledges that hatred can sometimes feel energizing and “so right,” but allowing it to fill our bodies and guide our actions leads to destruction.

Many years ago I was taught the practice of praying with the news. I have shared it over the years and always find myself returning to it during this season.

In this practice, each time we read or listen to a news report that enrages us, we turn our attention to those harmed by what is happening and pray for their healing and well-being. Doing so encourages us to acknowledge feelings of anger, grief and despair, and at the same time it turns our attention toward connection and compassion. Praying with the news can help us learn to bear witness to devastation and mayhem, while keeping our hearts soft, our minds calm, and our actions clear.

I am struggling mightily with this practice these days in the wake of continued violence and oppression in this country and throughout the world. Hatred can sometimes feel like such a welcome harbor. Not only does it feel so right, it can also act as a shield, creating the illusion that I don’t have to acknowledge the grief and heartbreak I am experiencing.

I need practices to help quiet the rage and fear, to loosen the constriction of hatred and to help me be with overwhelming grief. I need practices to help me return to compassion, love, joy and possibility. I find praying with the news both painful and helpful. It keeps me connected, allows sorrow, and grounds me in care and love.Weekly reading from the Awakin.org newsletter.

Open your eyes.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Do you have any disagreeable people in your life? People you avoid, maybe?

What if they are the ones who need love the most?

Most teachers will tell you that the child who acts out is the one most in need of love and attention. but those kids have learned to ask for it in all the wrong ways. And those children grow up, sometimes into disagreeable adults who still ask for love and attention in all the wrong ways. Maybe they have been disappointed so many times, they’ve learned to strike first, to reject you before you reject them.

Do you know anyone like that?

It’s no particular challenge to love the people who love us. But the ones who rile us, who ruffle our feathers, who are caustic and rude? That takes some serious patience and humility. But, perhaps, that is a place you are desperately needed.

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.

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.

Dancing animals

Posted on by Shari Swanson

In this age of technology and instant gratification, sometimes we forget the simple pleasures. Like meandering, and chatting people up, and pausing to soak it all in. Kurt Vonnegut used to like to walk into town for a single envelope when he had something to mail, ignoring his wife’s argument that he could buy more than one envelope at a time.

Vonnegut responds, “…And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is – we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

Of course, an author depends on immersing themself in the midst of living, noticing details, trying to hold on to it all long enough to capture it in words. But don’t we all benefit from farting around and noticing the little things? Kind of like writing ‘I was here’ in graffiti. We’re here. This is our now.

Time to be a dancing animal.

Honesty legacy

Posted on by Shari Swanson

In order to make good decisions, you need the foundation of the truth. Double check, triple check, go directly to the sources. And if your understanding of what is true changes, so must your behavior.

As M. Scott Peck said:

Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth.

‘Revising our maps’ is his way of saying adjust our world view, our sense of what is right or wrong, our conclusions about happened. Bottom line: We will simply not get anywhere near where we want to go if we are operating with faulty maps.

Too many people these days are trying to adjust the ‘facts’ to conform to their world view (with misinformation or disinformation) rather than the other way around.

The real things.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

In this world of rapidly expanding AI capabilities and widespread misinformation, where are we to find our footing? What is real?

Let’s remember the true things, the unchanging things, and find our foothold there. As Laura Ingalls Wilder said:

The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.

And for more grounding, consider this passage from Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

It may be harder to discern these things, but only the truth will provide a firm foundation for our thoughts, our opinions, our relationships, and our lives.

Melting pot or mosaic?

Posted on by Shari Swanson


When I was a girl, text books used the term ‘melting pot’ to describe America as if everyone were thrown into one big pot and all the differences were boiled out, with America becoming just one big homogenous pot of glop. But better metaphors have popped up in the years since. Such as a salad bowl:

We don’t need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables – the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers – to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences.Jane Elliot

But perhaps my favorite is Jimmy Carter’s:

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.Jimmy Carter

I love the idea of a mosaic to define America—beauty in all the bits and pieces, each a small distinct individual unit but also a necessary part of a larger picture. 

No matter how you describe it, America at its best, living up to its ideals, is stronger because of its diversity, the unique perspectives, the mix of voices, backgrounds, cultures, and traditions.