Category: Sunday Letters

I ran across a quote this week that has long been meaningful for me. It’s by author “George Eliot”, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, one of the leading English writers of the mid-1800’s.

“Wear a smile and have friends; wear a scowl and have wrinkles,” she said. Then she added this powerful line: “What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?”

It was rather synchronistic that I happened on that particular quote this week, for two reasons.

The first reason is that I had a remarkable experience early in the week. It was a gorgeous autumn day, warm and sunny with the last bits of scarlet and gold dancing in the trees, and I had been in the woods with my camera—one of my very favorite things to do. I found myself catapulted into what I call “a trance of beauty.” My spirits were high, and when I stopped to pick up a couple groceries on my way home, I found myself seeing beauty in every face I gazed on.

People noticed me looking at them, a smile on my face, and even the ones that seemed burdened and care-worn inevitably smiled back and returned my “Hello.” I could actually see them brightening for a moment, as if they suddenly felt recognized and affirmed somehow. It was magical, and I was moved by the power a simple smile held.

The other reason the quote struck me was because it’s second part – “What do we live for if not to make the world less difficult for each other?” – both summarized and answered for me, the unformed question that rolls around like a tangled knot inside me when I see the division and conflict around me.

We have been propagandized on every side into dropping each other into labeled bins, “for” or “against” whatever issue we can name, into seeing each other as either ally or enemy instead of recognizing each other as a fellow human being. And worse, we have somehow, it seems, fallen into a snare of thinking those who are “against” our positions deserve to be silenced, banished, at least from our personal spheres, and perhaps even from the face of the earth.

That sounds pretty drastic, I know. But it’s a stance I witness every day, to my deep sorrow. I don’t know how to cure it on a mass level. I suspect the cure must rise from the grass roots—from you and me. As the wise, old saying goes, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If you want to see more respect between people, give it. If you want to see more tolerance, more kindness, be more tolerant, be kind.

What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for one another?

To that I can only say Amen.

Wishing you a week where you strive to personify all the best that you wish to see in the world. You can always begin with a smile.

Warmly,
Susan

I’ve been leafing through old files again. It seems like the season for it. Today I ran across an essay I wrote on a lovely June Day way back in 2016, an age that seems to belong, somehow, to a different world. Still, we grappled then with the same kinds of fears we find ourselves facing today. Even though it’s a tad longer than my usual Sunday Letters, I thought the piece might touch you as it did me. So here it is, with love. ~Susan

I woke just before dawn yesterday morning. I’m not an early riser. The birds hadn’t even begun to chirp. Yet here I was, wide awake. I made a cup of coffee and took it out to my front porch to experience the beginning of the day. As I took my first sip, I noticed a faint ribbon of pink just above the eastern hills, gradually growing brighter. Looking directly overhead, I saw that the sky had gone from dusky gray to light blue graced by soft clouds. When I looked down again, a whole palette of color was lighting the sky—pale gold, coral, robin’s egg blue, soft lavender. And as if to acknowledge the coming of another day, the birds woke and began their morning chorus.

I let myself drink in the peace of it. The world has been such a brutal place these last few weeks, its violence and mayhem loud and sickening. Yet here I was, enveloped in birdsong and sunrise, sipping freshly brewed coffee. I felt lucky, and grateful, and kind of humbled to be so blessed.

I paused to do a few rounds of loving-kindness meditation, and as I sent wishes for well-being, peace and happiness to friends and acquaintances, to my community, to my region, to my nation, and then to all sentient beings with whom I share the globe, I realized that more of us are living unscathed by mayhem at the moment than are directly touched by it.

Most of us live our ordinary lives, attending to our daily routines and chores, relating in our usual ways with families and coworkers and friends. We share our smiles, and sometimes our tears. We share our rituals, our news, our opinions, our gossip. We play together. We squabble. We make up. All of us. All over the world. And isn’t that beautiful!

That we can go on, determined to live ordinary lives in the face of extraordinary times, is remarkable.

I came across a couple observations by American historian and professor Howard Zinn this week. He said:

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. “

I get the impression that Zinn is thinking of acts of high bravery and daring when he talks about how magnificently we can behave. And indeed we can. But I think courage is more than the extraordinary act performed at great risk. I think it’s also the determination to go on living ordinary lives as well as we can even when the world seems mad. The acts of compassion, and sacrifice and kindness can be tiny ones as well, consistently performed despite it all.

Mark Twain had this to say about courage: “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.”

When we live our ordinary lives in the face of what seems almost omnipresent violence and rage, we are being brave. By refusing to surrender to fear, however loudly and persistently the media screams about atrocities, we tell the world it cannot take the best of us. We will behave magnificently, holding to the dignity of our ordinary lives. And sometimes pausing to recognize that despite it all, we are surrounded by extraordinary goodness and beauty, and, sometimes, bathed in moments of transcendent peace.

Wishing you a week of brave, wonderful, ordinary life.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Hervé Lagrange from Pixabay}

I have to confess that it’s been work to keep a positive perspective on life of late. I keep getting news about misfortunes in my circle of close friends. I’m frustrated with new software that seems to make no sense to me. My house needed sudden and unexpected repairs. And in the larger world, well, you have only to turn on the news to see that things appear to be coming apart at the seams.

What’s helped me the most is accepting that this is life. And gosh! Good or bad, I get to live it. I get to experience the whole range of human emotions – Not only shock, disappointment, anxiety and grief, but gratitude, serenity, hope, and joy as well.

And by accepting, I mean allowing myself to experience whatever emotion is flowing through me at any given time. Not to fight it. Not to push it away. Not to want to hold onto it. Not to judge myself for it. But simply to let it be and to feel it.

It helps, too, to look at the story I’m telling myself about whatever circumstance I find myself in, and to ask myself, in Byron Katie fashion, whether it’s true and whether I can be certain, and how I would be without that story.

When I do that, I often find an old Zen story coming to mind that reminds me that none of us has any idea how things will turn out, or what fortunes await us. Here’s a version of that story that I found years ago online:

Once upon the time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“Maybe so;maybe not,” replied the farmer.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“Maybe so; maybe not,” the old man said.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“Maybe,so; maybe not” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“Maybe so; maybe not,” said the farmer. . . .

That story has served me well over the many years since I first heard it. I hope it will stick with you and serve you, too, when you’re tempted to label your circumstances as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

And finally, the beauty of autumn has held me in its arms and reminded me that for everything there is a season, and that the seasons turn. And this is life. And we get to live it. And that, my friends, is miracle enough and then some.

Wishing you a week of perspective, brushed with autumn’s beauty.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Rebekka D from Pixabay}

I happened across an interview with Dannion Brinkley this week that presented a new way to look at how I interact with people. (Dannion’s best known for his descriptions of his three Near Death Experiences and what they taught him. You can search for his books on Amazon if you’re interested, or find him on Youtube or Facebook.)

One of the experiences Dannion had while he was clinically dead was undergoing a “Life Review.”

We’ve all heard the claim that “your whole life flashes before you” as you’re dying. Dannion says that what we’re not told is that we don’t see our life as if we’re living it again. We see it from the point of view of every person we ever encountered. We experience the thoughts and emotions that our interactions with them created in them—the warmth, the uplift, the comfort, the encouragement, and the hurt, the anger, the indifference, the discounting, the isolation.

It sounds sort of like the 360-degree feedback sessions some companies use for employee evaluations, where your co-workers and maybe even your customers say what it’s like to deal with you. Only the Life Review isn’t a mere report from people. It’s far more intense. It’s actually experiencing yourself from the other person’s point of view—seeing your face, your expression, whether you looked at them or gazed away, hearing what they heard from you, your words, your tone of voice, feeling what they felt during every exchange they ever had with you.

Regardless of what you make of Dannion’s story, imagine that you were offered an invitation to undergo such a ‘life review.’ Think about the important people in your life—your parents, your partner, your siblings, your kids, your neighbors and coworkers and friends. Think about your pet. Would you welcome a chance to see yourself through their eyes? Through the eyes of the person you most recently talked with? Or would you maybe rather not?

What if you did a mini life-review for yourself each evening as you tucked yourself in for the night? Would you be pleased with the way you treated other people in your life that day? Would you be motivated to be more patient, more attentive, kinder, more aware of their needs?

I turned the idea into a game for a day. I imagined that everyone I encountered had the letters “LR” for “Life Review” written in invisible light on their foreheads. It turned out to be a good game. The only rule was the golden one: treat them as I would want to be treated. On the whole, the day was filled with genuine connection and smiles. As a bonus, I got some insights into situations where I need to pay more attention to the way I respond to some people, and that’s always a good thing. More patience, more clarity, more connections, more smiles.

It was an exercise in full-immersion empathy, putting myself in the other person’s position, imagining what they most needed or wanted from me. Mostly they just wanted to seem real to someone, to be recognized, respected as a fellow being, appreciated. That’s what all of us want, I suppose. I know that when you offer someone that much, they glow. And you do, too.

Wishing you a week that’s bathed in a golden glow.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Fran • @mallorcadogphotography from Pixabay}

If you’ve been reading these Sunday Letters for a while, you may have heard this story before. I tell it from time to time because it’s a favorite of mine. And as we slide into the holiday season with all the high emotions it brings, it feels like a timely reminder. So here we go:

One day, while riding in the car, my teen-age son and I were listening to the radio. Some guy was explaining that we don’t always feel warm fuzzies toward someone we love. “We like each other because,” he said. (Because she made you laugh. Because he did the dishes. You can imagine any “because” you like.) “But,” the radio guy continued, “we love each other anyway.”

We love each other even when. That’s because love can embrace even those things in each other that drive us batty, or that conflict with our own cherished viewpoints or beliefs. Liking usually can’t go there; it stops at the differences.

My son and I loved the radio guy’s statement: We like each other because; we love each other anyway. It was so true that it made us laugh, and from that day on we often said to each other, as a kind of affectionate joke, “I love you anyway.”

I thought about that this past week when I ran into a difficult situation with a friend. She was recently diagnosed with a serious medical condition and when she asked me to pick up a certain snack item for her, I said I would feel uncomfortable doing that and asked if maybe she could make a different choice. Later, I gently suggested that she see a dietician for help in changing her eating habits so her body could stay as healthy as possible as long as possible.

She told me that she knew I was trying to help, but that it was up to her to choose what she wanted to eat and what she didn’t, and she didn’t want any more of my advice on the subject.

I thanked her for telling me that, and promised that I would respect her wishes. And I will – even though in my version of reality, the things that she’s eating are killing her.

What do you do when someone you love is, in your view, choosing to do things that may cost her life? Things that make you furious, that make you feel helpless, that, according to everything you know and believe, are potentially deadly mistakes Do you abandon your relationship because it’s too painful to see your friend’s choices? Because she’s refusing to accept what you (of course) believe to be superior information?

Nope. You love your friend anyway. You love her enough to honor her free will to make her own choices about her own life.  That doesn’t mean you consent to enable clearly self-destructive behavior. You can draw lines and say what you are unwilling to do. Your free will counts, too. 

You can work to find compromises. You can even do things for her that you strongly disagree with, as long as you’re clear that you’re helping only because you honor her right to make her own decisions and not because you‘re condoning them.

In essence, it all boils down to the Golden Rule – treating others the way you want to be treated.

Yeah, it gets difficult when you and the other hold strongly conflicting beliefs. You have to face the fact that each of you has plenty of evidence for what you believe, and that, in the end, beliefs are just that.

Whether it’s which foods to eat or not eat, or what political party to support, or what treatment to choose for a medical condition, or what God to believe in or reject – each of us must choose for ourselves. And each of us has the right to expect those who love us to accept our choices – whether they agree with them or not.

Because, in the end, it’s really true. We may like each other because, but we need to love each other anyway.

Wishing you a week where liking triumphs almost every minute.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Ben Fleeson from Pixabay}

I was paging through the local newspaper this morning and happened across the area’s high school football scores. I chuckled as I remembered the year our junior high school’s team got off to a dismal start. After losing their opening game 37-0, they went on to lose the next one by an even more crushing 67-0. Ouch. But eventually, they tasted victory and held their own for the rest of the season.

When you think about it, all the games we play—even the ones we call “life”—are a bit like experiments. And as Buckminster Fuller said, “There’s no such thing as a failed experiment, “only experiments with unexpected outcomes.”

Losing isn’t the same thing as failure. You form your strategies and put them into play the best you can. You bring all you know to the game; you call on all your experience.

But life is full of mysteries and variables, and the only way to learn more is to do the experiment, to play the game. Sometimes it all comes together just the way you had hoped. Sometimes it doesn’t. Accidents happen. We make mistakes. We get reminded that we’re mere human beings. But win or lose, we always come away knowing more than we did before we took the leap.

It’s the unpredictability of life that makes it interesting, after all – and fun.

You may think that you’d like to know what the remainder of the day holds, or what tomorrow or next week will bring. But if you did know, life would soon become one long and tedious déjà vu. Surprises keep us awake – and show us where we need to be paying more attention. They teach us. They give us new opportunities to use our strengths and talents and to develop them.

I hope when the coaches of losing football teams sit down with their players that they point out what the team did well and help them to do it even better. I hope they’ll help the kids discover how they can bring their strengths and talents to improve in the areas where they’re weak. And more than anything, I hope they tell their players that losing isn’t failure, and fill them with enthusiasm for learning more about playing the game, and loving it, win or lose.

I hope the next time you stumble, when something doesn’t work out the way you wanted, that you’ll remember it’s just one of life’s unexpected outcomes, meant to lead you onward, to make you better next time, and to unveil a few more of its mysteries for you.

Wishing you a week winning – however things go.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay}

The host of the program I was listening to last Tuesday asked his listeners to send in their stories about a transcendental experience in their lives, one of those defining moments that you know you’ll always remember.

He read a couple of them, and you could feel the emotion in each one, the quiet power and beauty. Then he came to one that topped them all.

It was from a woman who identified herself as Maria. When her daughter was ten months old, Maria and her husband took her to the zoo. The baby fell asleep after a while and Maria was carrying her in her arms when they decided to visit the gorilla house. Someone had told them that a couple of the gorillas in there had babies.

They were barely in the door when Maria found herself across the glass from a seated mother gorilla, cradling her own baby in her massive, hairy arms the same way Maria was holding her daughter,

The two mothers stared at each other, each of them sharply aware of the bond that linked them. Maria bent down and held her sleeping daughter nearer to the glass so the mother gorilla could see her more fully. To Maria’s surprise, the big gorilla carried her sleeping baby to the glass for Maria to see. For about ten minutes, with only mere inches and a pane of glass separating them, the mothers showed off their babies, comparing their little hands and ears and faces and feet.

Those ten minutes with the gorilla mom were a defining moment in Maria’s life. They made it clear that the right decision for her was to turn down a job she had been offered. It was well-paying and would have been a definite step up on the career ladder. But it would have required her to put in a substantial amount of time. She took a lower paying one instead so she could spend more time with her baby. The moments she shared with the gorilla showed her that children come first. “That’s what nature directs,” she said.

Maria went on to have another daughter two years later, and now she’s expecting twin boys. And she credits her family life to what she learned the day she met the mama gorilla and her baby. May they all live happily ever after.

Wishing you a week in harmony with nature.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Candice from Pixabay}

In a current events forum I frequent, I noticed a signature line: “Carpe Diem [Latin for “Seize the Day”]—It may be the only one you’ve got.” The writer intended it as a comment on the current state of world affairs, as a caution that because our world seems such a powder keg, we had better make the most of today.

I know that in certain circles, it’s popular to suggest that you should avoid the news, given its typically distressing nature, and focus instead on thoughts of a positive bent. I’m all in favor of focusing on life’s goodness, and firmly believe that it far outweighs the bad. But personally, I prefer to know what’s happening around the planet, whether the news is scary or not, and even when it sometimes breaks my heart.

For me, keeping tabs on world events is a matter of satisfying my curiosity about the nature of outer reality. It’s engagement with the world and part of the stewardship of citizenship. Even when reading it suggests to me that the whole human race is galloping headlong toward cataclysmic disaster, I’m happier knowing the context in which I live than I would be not knowing. I figure I can’t be part of the solution unless I have some understanding of the problem, after all.

But getting back to that signature line, “Carpe Diem” has been worthy advice since a poet named Horace first penned the words over 2,000 years ago. The rest of the sentence that begins with those words is “and put no trust in tomorrow.”

Of course we all do put trust in tomorrow. Trusting in tomorrow is what lets us dream and hope and plan; it’s what gives meaning to many of the activities we invest ourselves in today.

Nevertheless, tomorrow is an iffy kind of thing, even in the best of times. And while we’d like to believe it will unfold more or less according to our expectations, that’s never a certainty. The advice to grab hold of today is recognition of that fact. “Carpe Diem” is a spirited reminder that today—in fact, this moment—is the only day we know we have. It’s meant to be grabbed with eager attention and lived with vigor and zest. And if we squander all its moments living for, or dreading, our tomorrows, we miss the riches it holds for us to enjoy.

It’s a reminder to be aware of those things that bring you happiness and satisfaction, and to take time to savor them in the here and now. It’s a reminder to smell the roses, to appreciate good company, to feel gratitude for the things that comfort and challenge and strengthen and uplift us. That’s how we make memories worth reliving, after all, and how we give our lives meaning and flavor and joy.

“Carpe Diem.” It’s a bit of happiness-counsel worth heading. Put it on a sticky note somewhere that you’ll see it and when you do, take a moment to live its advice.

Wishing you days of vibrant joy.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Jan Alexander from Pixabay}

I was doing a little reorganizing this week and ran across some old notes about an interview I’d heard with Neale David Walsh, author of the Conversations with God series that was so popular a few years ago. He had just released a fourth book, Awaken the Species, and he was talking about some of the main concepts it covers.

In case you’re not familiar with the Conversations series, or not even vaguely interested in reading what somebody says about God, you may find it intriguing that the first point the voice that Walsh identifies as “God” had to make was “You’ve got me all wrong.”

As Walsh pointed out in the interview, even if you’ve dismissed the idea of the existence of God entirely, if that sentence has even a smidgeon of truth to it, it suggests that you might want to ask yourself what you do believe about the possibility and nature of an infinitely conscious Supreme Being. (Maybe, for example, you picture God as the source of the code that makes up the matrix of existence.)

That suggestion—about questioning beliefs—reminded me of one of the most challenging and valuable assignments I was ever given in college. It was the final exam in a course called “American Thought and Language,” which covered significant (and often opposing) concepts that had arisen in the country since the time prior to the Revolution up to the present. The assignment was to write an essay entitled “I Believe,” in which we were to discuss a few of our own personal beliefs and give our reasons for holding them.

Every now and then, I assign that essay to myself again, just to take a look at the beliefs I hold now and to examine them. You’d be surprised how interesting that can be – and fun! It’s very revealing.

But that’s not the main thought that I brought away from that Walsh interview. The idea that struck me most deeply was one Walsh shared when the host asked him what was the biggest piece of advice he could give people, based on his latest book. Walsh said he would tell people what he was told was the most important thing: “Your life isn’t about you. It has nothing to do with you. It’s about everyone whose life you touch and the way in which you touch it.”

Think about the implications of that thought. Imagine what it would be like if each of us asked, “How can I help? What can I do to make your life easier, more comfortable, more peaceful, more pleasant?” What if we looked for ways we could give encouragement to each other? If we set out to make the environment a healthier, more beautiful place? If we listened to each other more? If we looked more into each other’s eyes? If we looked for ways to ease another’s burden or to alleviate some of their stress? If we did our jobs knowing that we were contributing, in however small a way, to the well-being of others and took joy in that?

So that’s the thought I leave with you this week, the message that it’s all about every life we touch and how we touch it.

I wish you the insight to see what’s needed, and the generosity of spirit to give as only you can.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay}

“Congratulations on another day!” the radio host said. I don’t think I ever heard that before, but it certainly resonated with me. I deserved congratulations for keeping my balance so well despite a spate of disruptive events in my life.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t been online for a bit of a stretch. For years now I’ve been heard to utter, “Technology is so wonderful when it works.” This was one of those times when it didn’t. I was in Internet Connection Hell. But valiant knights swarmed in to rescue me, and they were fine, determined men, knowledgeable and most courteous. Still, it took many days to get to the root of the problem.

And it wasn’t just that. My cook top and washing machine died, too, all in the span of a couple days. Meanwhile, close friends were going through difficult personal struggles, and the horrific tragedy unfolding in Maui was breaking my heart.

In the midst of all this, I began to appreciate how valuable all my joy-warrior training has been. It allowed me to keep a perspective as unexpected circumstances pushed me from my accustomed routines. We do like our habits, especially the ones that let us go through our days with some order, efficiency and grace. It annoys us when they’re disturbed.

Still, I noticed, I was surprisingly unperturbed by fairly major interruptions to the usual patterns of my life. I recognized that they were posing some significant challenges. I would have to deal with the hassle and cost of getting service, repairs and replacements. Until I got back online, much of my usual work would have to wait. 

But I simultaneously recognized that being upset would only make dealing with everything more difficult. And I saw that understanding as a great gift, one that I had given myself by “walking the talk,” by finding and exercising the practices that lead to enhanced ease and joy. Instead of letting events devastate me, or hurl me into a pity pool, a heartfelt wave of gratitude washed over me for the peace and confidence I felt as, one step at a time, I navigated the challenges.

In a world where things frequently go differently than we wish them to go, it takes practice to keep a balanced perspective. Maintaining inner peace, which is what joy is all about, is a skill as much as an art, or a personality trait, or a product of a healthy upbringing. You need to practice it, to find ways to nurture and grow it. And that’s what the joy tools I find and enjoy sharing with you are meant to do – to help us learn to operate from a center of peace regardless of what circumstances surround us.

I’m always on the lookout for ways to build my joy skills. So when the guy on the radio said, “Congratulations on another day,” and it made me grin, I wrote the sentence down and taped it to my bathroom mirror as an experiment, to see what effects it would produce. It seemed to me a fine thing to say to myself at the end of the day – or at its start, for that matter. It wasn’t about accomplishing anything, or about being a certain way. It was just about being. Period. You’re here. Conscious. Experiencing. Despite all the odds. Congratulations!

My challenges were what they were, I decided, and the rest of the world remained as my laboratory and playground. Acceptance is always such a fine first step.

Then my curiosity kicked in: What would I do with the time I couldn’t spend as I normally did?

I pulled an old set of instructions from my mind’s files that said, “When you don’t know what to do, clean or create.” I decided to start by creating a list of things I could do with this sudden appearance of free time. After all, free time is a great gift when you think about it.

I’m pleased to say that I accomplished a host of worthwhile projects, and had fun doing it. Despite it all. One night while I was wrapping up a journal entry about my responses that day to my restructured world, I found myself writing, “Life is rich.” And so it is. And we get to live it.

Carry on, my friends, and remember to look for the good, regardless. Oh, and Congratulations on another day!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by QuinceCreative from Pixabay}