Category: Sunday Letters

Imagine that I’m up in the attic of this old, wood frame house of mine. Dust sparkles in the light filtering through the shutters and I’m going through the contents of an old foot locker that I haven’t opened in years. I pull out a manila file folder and open it to find pieces I wrote over a decade ago.

I don’t know what led me to this discovery. But later, when I asked myself what it was all about, an inner knowing came to me. It was so I could share two of the pieces with you. Consider them little gifts of thanks to you, just because.

The first one is called “Grace in Rocky Places.” It goes like this:

Few places are totally barren or wholly devoid of hope. Life pushes itself through the smallest cracks, takes root in the most unlikely places.

Eventually, the longest winter gives way to spring. The darkness gives way to light.

Be at peace.

You, who are not made of rock, are filled with more possibilities than you know and have eternity in which to fulfill them.

Keep faith alive in your heart; hold fast to your aspirations. Regardless of appearances or circumstances, life will make a way.

*              *              *

And the second one is “A Blessing for Your Journey.”

May your pathway open into sunlight and stepping stones show you the way.

May the waters be placid around you, the breezes mild and the weather fair.

May each step you take enlarge you, expanding your vision, your courage and faith.

May you dare the unknown with confidence and find loveliness wherever you go.

May your heart speak thanks for every grace offered, and your hands reach out in kindness to all you meet along the way.

May you hear the Great Yes whispering all around you and breathe in rhythm with its song, knowing that it sings for you, and of you, for you are one of its own.

*              *              *

It’s good to rummage around in your attic every now and then. I’ll be wishing you a week of interesting discoveries.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Peter H from Pixabay}

This is one of those little hometown stories you don’t hear much any more. It’s about my neighbor’s son-in-law, Shawn.

Shawn worked as a meat cutter at the big chain grocery store up the road a couple miles. He’d always nod and smile when he saw me. But ahead of his job, the passion of his life was his membership in the township’s Volunteer Fire Department.

Last winter, Shawn took ill and was diagnosed with one of those “turbo-cancers” that have sprung up in the past couple years. They develop quickly and affect different areas of the body simultaneously or in rapid succession.

Shawn fought it valiantly. But last Tuesday the doctors said there was no more they could do and sent him home to die surrounded by his family.

The family set up a bed for him in the living room where he could look out the front door at the neighborhood. There was something special coming, they told him, they wanted him to see.

A few hours later, as a light rain fell from a pale sky, the sound of a fire truck’s siren ripped through the air, followed by another, and another, and another. Trucks had come from departments all around the county. One even came from E. Palestine, Ohio. Shawn hadn’t been able to fight the fire the night of the derailment last winter, but his wife went, fighting along with the rest of the department.

The bond among fire-fighters is strong. They came this night to tell Shawn they loved and respected him, to honor his years of service. The red and white lights of their trucks glistened in the rain as they drove in a slow parade all around his block, sirens wailing.

Shawn watched from his bed, smiling. Two days later, he was gone.

My heart goes out to the family. They’ve been through the wringer the past couple years. But it never got them down.

I was thinking about Shawn and his family yesterday when I came across a short story called “The Black Telephone.” It’s a beautiful little story and worth a read. In one part of it, the story-teller’s pet canary dies. He’s just a little kid at the time and the death confuses him. He goes to a wise older friend. Here’s the excerpt from the story:

 I asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?”
She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Wayne, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.”
Somehow I felt better.

I felt better, too. For a minute, I imagined a grinning Shawn giving rides to smiling children and puppies in a big shiny fire truck up in some corner of heaven.

You know, it can be a tough world. There’s a lot of pain and sorrow here. Remember to be kind. And when you lose someone dear, take comfort in remembering that there are other worlds to sing in.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Bird Image by Steven Iodice from Pixabay
Firetruck photos by Bob Spann}

I’ve been enjoying my gardens this week. Because I live surrounded by woods, I lack the sunshine to grow anything that requires more than an hour or two of sun. But the shade-lovers I have, and a few precious flowers, are doing splendidly. So are the so-called weeds that grow among them, the wild ones who traveled up from the meadow below or ambled down from the wooded hillsides that surround me. The raspberries, the phlox, the chamomile, the yarrow and forget-me-nots and buttercups and ferns.

I have to admit it; I love weeds. Without any help from human hands, they do pretty doggone well. And personally, I confess that when I watch them grow, I think they have more fun than their cultivated cousins.

They seem freer somehow, less constrained. And let’s face it; they’re definitely hardier.

I think when nobody’s around they laugh. I think they just plain like what they are, that they don’t take themselves too seriously.

They grow lightly, with no silly need to be something special. They just pop out their leaves and buds and flowers and berries according to whatever pattern nature provides, schmoozing with their neighbors, making the best of whatever resources happen to be at hand.

And somehow it all turns out beautifully.

There’s a lesson there, I think. Maybe it’s that we ought to be more careful what we label a “weed.” Maybe it’s that you don’t have to be all fancy in order to please. Maybe it’s that old advice to bloom where we are planted – and to do it with abandon and joy. I don’t know. I just know that they delight my eye and make me smile. And these days anything in this world that can do that is just fine with me.

Have yourself a happy little week. I hope you happen on a weed or two, and that it makes you smile.

Warmly,
Susan

It’s not “official,” but there’s no doubt that summer has arrived in the area—full force! People greet each other in the morning saying, “It’s gonna be a hot one.” And their words prove true.

It was too hot yesterday to do much of anything outdoors, except to savor the sun and the luxurious green, and the constantly changing sky-show overhead. For a while, I found myself drifting back in time to my childhood summers.

Remember how, when you were a kid, you’d stretch out in the grass watching the clouds and see a whole menagerie cavorting across the sky?

Remember how the fire-breathing dragon would morph into a pony or bear?

Oh! The stories that could fill the sky on a summer afternoon!

Funny how it’s always the clouds that catch our gaze, and not the endless blue on which they float, isn’t it? How we’re built to see the figures and not the infinitely deep and mysterious space in which they float?

It’s how we live our lives, fixing our gaze on the thoughts and memories that drift by, on the stories we make up to give shape to the passing events. It’s how we create meaning for ourselves, and from that meaning, how we make our decisions. Imagination is a powerful thing.

But every now and then, it’s good to remember to notice the sky – the deep, formless context in which we live our lives, the space from which all our thoughts and perceptions arise, the infinite consciousness that teams with the invisible life force that powers our very being.

The dragon in the clouds seems so real as we stare at it, imagining its fire-breathing snout, its wide-spread wings, its sharply clawed feet. But moments later, it is no more; it dissolves into the mystery of sky.

Our problems are like that, too. Our interpretations, our plans, our dreams all seem so real. And then they are gone, and new ones come to replace them. But we ourselves remain, because we, at our core, are more sky than cloud. We are the vessels through which the story-clouds, the dream-clouds, are created and experienced and lived. We are the meaning-makers, dancers in the mystery.

May you dance with joy, and spin wondrous clouds as you go.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by giografiche from Pixabay}

“With my luck,” a friend began, “I’d trip and fall and break my leg.”
“Well, you know,” I said teasingly, “our thoughts create our reality. Be careful what you wish for.” We both laughed.

But it’s true. If you go around thinking of yourself as a clumsy fool with terrible luck, life is likely to accommodate you. Remember that phrase I mentioned a while back, “What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves.” That’s really how it works. There’s a host of technical reasons why and how it happens. But the bottom line is that it does.

The proofs the Prover brings aren’t always literal, of course—although they can be. I wasn’t suggesting my friend would actually fall and break his leg. It’s more the essence or quality of our thoughts that the Prover proves.

The other day, I heard a guy put it this way, “When you do low vibrational stuff, you get low vibrational people and situations in your life.” I think that says it pretty well. And “low vibrational stuff” includes the thoughts we think, our self-talk, our mental movies.

When you find that you’ve fallen into a pity trap, or get mired in boredom, anger, sadness, or fear, one of the quickest ways out is to check what you were thinking then choose a different line of thought. Ask yourself what’s good about the moment and see what comes up. If you’re really bummed and your brain tries to tell you that nothing is good about the moment, tell it, “Well, besides that, what’s good?” You are, after all, conscious enough to remember to check your thoughts. And that’s a good thing in itself.

Another good thing is that we always have alternative thoughts available. Whole hosts of them! We just have to keep asking what’s good and move in its direction.

One alternative that I find puts things in perspective for me is a little paragraph by author and public speaker David Icke. He says the trick to freeing ourselves from something we’re experiencing is not to identify with it.

“You are not your emotions, or thoughts, or the things your remember, ” he says, “or all the sensations your physical body is registering. You are the one who is feeling the emotions, listening to the thoughts, remembering the memories, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling. Those are the things that you are experiencing. They come and go. Whatever comes and goes is not you. You are a vehicle for all that is, and was, and ever will be to use in its endless explorations.”

If that’s the case, why not choose a different line of thought, different things to say about yourself, a movie that turns course and runs in a more empowering direction?

It takes practice, of course. Some of the ruts we get stuck in are pretty sticky. But every time we choose to look for the good the moment holds, for its opportunities, for its invitations, we get better at it and stronger. We catch ourselves sooner, before we slide all the way into our habitual pits. We start to discover that it’s freeing and fun to be in control, to remember we’re explorers in a universe of possibilities, that we can choose to nudge our paths in new directions, to step into a brighter, truer reality – even if we take only one small step at a time.

Wishing you a lifetime of endless discoveries of the good.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay}

“What I don’t know I make up,” I used to tell people as a kind of joke. I left it up to them to figure out where fact gave way to fantasizing.

I was listening to some talk about ChatGPT this week. “What is ChatGPT?” you ask. (Here’s a good description.) Basically, It’s an online tool that’s sort of like a cross between an unimaginably vast library and a great personal assistant. A big bevy of those First Adopter types are praising its capabilities. It’s passed the bar exam, scored well on the SATs, and developed detailed business plans, for example. It’s fast and smart. You’ll be hearing about it more and more, I’m sure.

Well anyway, it turns out that when ChatGPT can’t find an exact answer for you, it, too, will make stuff up. And it’s very good at it, I hear. The Artificial Intelligence developers label the phenomenon “hallucinating.”

I thought that was an interesting word choice. When I make stuff up, I think of it as imagining. But what’s the difference when it comes down to it? Regardless of which term you give it, it’s a story our brains fabricate, both the living and the machine kind.

Personally, I thought it was a bit eerie that a language tool rooted in Artificial Intelligence would make things up. Why would it do that? It doesn’t have an ego to defend, after all, or emotions to sort out. It’s not trying to entertain. Maybe it’s a technique it uses for problem-solving. That’s one of the purposes our own story-making serves. Fortunately, ChatGPT doesn’t hallucinate anywhere near as much as we humans do. It’s more of a cut and dried here-are-the-facts kind of operation. We, on the other hand, are living in our dream worlds, our story worlds, more than we’re not.

To borrow the AI developers’ term, we’re usually living in a hallucination. There’s not necessarily something wrong with that. It’s the nature of the human mind (and maybe machine mind, too) at work. It’s a way of figuring things out, of looking for solutions.

What separates us from the machine, though, is that we can turn our attention away from our imaginary stories and focus on the here and now, with all its colors, and tastes, and sounds and smells. We can feel the air moving through us and around us. We can notice our bodies and adjust them at will. We can respond to the action around us. We can decide to play a different movie than the one that we were engulfed in minutes before. Or we can go back to it. But in the meantime, if only for a moment or two, we can be here, consciously alive in the midst of a living, mysterious world. And isn’t that amazing? And isn’t it amazing that we can be amazed?

Wishing you a week where you abandon the trance repeatedly to rediscover the mysterious reality right before you.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by ThankYouFantasyPictures from Pixabay}

When I saw the tiny maple leaves, just emerged from the tip of a branch, I thought about watching one of those time lapse movies. You know, the ones where you see a whole day sweep by from sunrise to dusk in a mere minute or two.

I imagined a little maple seed, the kind that twirls to the ground on helicopter wings, settling into the soil, sprouting, enduring a winter, coming back taller and stronger each spring until one day, it stood before me, a proud little sapling, unfolding its bright new leaves. Soon it will produce helicopter seeds of its own, and the story will go on and on.

The thought reminded me of an exercise I learned once where you traveled back through the history of something to appreciate all that contributed to its presence in your life. If you were eating an apple, for instance, you could trace it back to the store where you bought it and think about all the people who were involved in operating the store. Someone ordered it; someone sold it to the store; someone unpacked it from its crate and set it out for display.

Before that, it traveled on a truck that came from a distributor who bought it from an orchard. The truck had a driver, who worked for a company that bought produce and delivered it to stores. And the truck traveled over roads that were imagined and engineered and built and maintained.

The apple was one of many dozens that came from a tree that thrived in an orchard, soaking in a summer’s sun and rain. And before that it was a blossom, tended by bees, growing on the tree that produced the seed from which it grew. When it ripened, someone picked it and placed it in the crate that was loaded onto the truck.

And now it was in your hand, and you would bite it and taste what how delicious it was and how crisp and juicy and sweet its flesh. And it would nurture you. You were the whole reason it came to be. You and the workers in the orchard, and the builders of crates and trucks and roads and grocery stores.

It’s a worthwhile exercise. It broadens your sense of the connectedness of things and leads you to appreciate the wonder of life’s endless unfolding. And in the end, it leads you to the big questions: How did it all come to be? Where did it come from? Why am I, a tiny life form on a small speck of planet in the midst of a giant and dazzling universe, capable of wondering why? And how am I so lucky to be holding this apple right in my very own hand?

Wishing you a week of sweet wonders, my friends.

Warmly,
Susan

_{Image by günther from Pixabay}

One of my friends posted a news clip on Facebook the other day that told the story of a shopkeeper who put up a billboard over her store facing the highway. In big, white block letters against a dark blue background, it simply said “You Are Enough.”

Now let me ask you something. When you read what it said on the sign, didn’t you feel a little relieved somehow? “You Are Enough.” It’s such a powerful reminder. It’s comforting and reassuring. And all of us can use some of that these days, given the perils and uncertainties of life. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the challenges facing us, by the daily demands, and by all the expectations, both our own and those we think that others hold up for us. It’s easy to worry that we won’t measure up.

Then here we are, cruising down life’s highway, and somebody’s put up a sign to remind us that we are enough.

I like how easy the message is to take, too. It’s not trying to flatter you into thinking that you’re some superstar or something. It’s not saying you’re the best. It’s just reminding you that you are all you need to be right now. You’re okay. The next moment that comes along might need you to be something different, and you’ll be enough for that moment too. Because that’s how versatile you are, you wonderful ordinary human being.

Once I heard somebody on the radio say, “Good enough’s the new gold standard.” The perfectionist side of me found the statement annoying. To me it smacked of “settling for,” of not doing your best, of compromising your standards. I generally lean more toward the “good enough is never good enough” side of the scale.

In real life, though, you rarely get to perfection. Few things or situations exist that couldn’t be tweaked for the better. And we have only so many resources available at any given time. So I finally came to realize that it’s wise to do the best you can from where you are with what you’ve got and then to brush your hands together in satisfaction and say, “good enough.” Sometimes I even laugh at my “good enough” stuff. It’s far from perfection, but it meets the requirements of the moment perfectly well. Just like me, “good enough” can be clumsy, or unfinished, or in need of a coat of paint. But it’s serves the needs and desires of the moment just fine, regardless.

The sign the shopkeeper put up over her store wasn’t fancy. But it got the job done. It said all it had to say. It was enough.

Accepting that you are enough, that what you’ve accomplished is enough, doesn’t mean you give up on wanting to be more, to do more, to do better. What it does do is let you is feel at home with yourself, confident that who you are, just as you are right this very moment, is okay. You are enough. In fact, if you look at the whole of you, you’d probably have to admit that you’re rather amazing all in all. But it’s okay not to admit it, or even to doubt that its true. Because you don’t have to know that you’re amazing. Right now, it’s perfectly enough to know that you are enough.

Claim that.

Wishing you a week strewn with good signs.

Warmly,
Susan

Saying goodbye to April is like watching the petals fall from the garden’s last tulip. It’s such a sad-sweet feeling. In case I haven’t told you, I am in love with springtime. It holds meaning for me on more levels than I could ever hope to tell.

This particular last day of April holds special meaning. For one thing, it begins the week when I will mark my 77^th birthday, which feels, I must say, like a significant landmark. Someday I’ll share with you some of the rewards you reap for getting this far. One of them is an awareness of the preciousness of life.

When spring began this year, I made a commitment to myself to savor every day of it. One day, as I was stepping out into a soft, dewy morning, I remembered the line, “See every day as if it is your first, or your last.” It struck me, and I thought to myself that this could be the last April I will ever see. (You never know.) And how I have reveled in her days!

Each one brought new life, new warmth, new color, the songs of returning birds, the start of the parade of flowers. It was as though the Great Yes itself was sending a visible supply of fresh hope into the world. Every single day. And how swiftly they have passed! Even the cold and rainy ones, despite my wish that each one held three times its allotted hours.

Perhaps it sounds silly that someone could grieve the passing of a month’s worth of days. But that’s how it feels, and I’ve known my share of grief. I heard a story once where a woman caught her husband deeply sobbing one day. When she asked what was wrong, the man told her that he just learned he’d lost one of his best friends. The woman told him she was sorry he was feeling such terrible sorrow. And he wiped his eyes and told her his tears weren’t tears of sorrow, but of happiness. “Happiness!” she said, surprised. He smiled at her and told her that only now did he realize how much he and his friend had loved each other, and what a joy their friendship had been.

My grieving over April’s going is like that. I’m so full of the joy that April gave me that I’m moved to tears.

I think that when we lose loved ones – or even cherished possessions or circumstances – after the initial shock and adjustments have passed, the grief that remains is deeply colored by memories and images of the things we appreciated and so enjoyed, as if we were storing them away for safe-keeping.

One of the most comforting things anyone said to me when, decades ago, I lost a son was, “You never get over the pain, but it finds a special place in your heart to dwell.” The pain, after all, is focused on ourselves, on our loss of the physical experience of someone or something in our lives. We hold onto it because it’s all we have left. But inside it, like a thousand-petaled blossom, are all the memories of that precious experience and of all the adventures and secrets and dreams it brought into our lives.

So I say farewell to April with a heart full of gratitude for her loveliness, and a tear in my eye at her passing.

And tomorrow morning, it will be May.

Wishing you days touched with tender beauty.

Warmly,
Susan

When I was surfing through miscellaneous videos this week I happened across one that said, given all the stress in our worlds these days, it’s important to give ourselves a little extra care. She recommended that we each do 3 things daily to care for ourselves, even if they’re only very small things.

That seemed like good advice, of course, but it brought to mind articles I’d see in magazines with titles like “10 Things to Do for Instant Happiness.” They’d list ten little things in an inane kind of way and you’d get a little smile from it and go on with your day. None of them ever said, “No, Seriously! Do these 10 things.” But maybe they should have.

Anyway, I thought it might be fun to see if I could come up with a list of mood-brighteners. I jotted down these:

* Spend a few quality minutes with your pet. Even if your pet is a plant or a rock.

* Go for a walk. Find a tree. Look at its bark, its shape, its leaves, its movement. Put your hand on its trunk and see what you feel.

* Watch a bird fly. Imagine what it feels like to fly like that, to see what a bird would see.

* Put on some great music and let it move you.

* Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself out loud three things you really like about yourself.

* Get a brief glimpse into the world of elephants from National Geographic on YouTube.

I was right. It was fun to see what ideas flew into my mind. (And finding the elephant video was pretty cool, too.)

But then I remembered what I wanted to focus on was the idea of doing three things each day to show yourself that you care about you. Seriously. In fact, I think consciously choosing to do just three things for yourself each day could be a game-changer.

I already do lots of things in a day because I know I’ll enjoy them. Lots and lots. I dive right into most days on the lookout for treats and surprises. It’s healthy to expect joy in life. But what if I decided to do something inspirational, or pleasurable, or beneficial with conscious attention to the fact that I was doing it for myself simply as a way of caring for me, of appreciating myself? What if I asked myself what I could do for me and then followed through on whatever idea came to mind? What if I took just a moment each day, one in the morning, one at noon, one at night, to do something that brought me comfort, or satisfaction, or contentment, or peace?

What if I made that a habit? What if I committed to doing it every day, no matter what?

I kind of like those “what if’s.” They intrigue me. I think I’m going to give it a whirl. How about you? Seriously.

Wishing you a fine week.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Neil Morrell from Pixabay}