A friend of mine had been struggling with some physical challenges for a couple weeks. One day, she got a card in the mail from a woman who missed seeing her in their usual meeting places. “You are stronger than anything life can bring,” the card said. My friend smiled broadly as she repeated the words again. They were, she told me, exactly what she needed to hear.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a powerful story. It’s so simple and unassuming. And it has such heart at its heart.
That’s really what we all want, after all. More heart in our days. We just want to care about each other and to know that we’re cared about, too. We just want to be neighbors, with greetings to exchange and a hand to lend when its needed. We just want to give, and to be met with, simple honesty and good will.
That almost sounds like a description of a fantasy world, doesn’t it? A tale from some alternative universe. And that’s a shame. And how we ache for it to be our reality!
I confess that I sometimes despair that we’ll ever get there. Some days, when I look around at the world’s current events, I think I must have died and landed in hell.
Then I go out and feed the birds and look at the sky. Maybe I connect with a friend. Maybe I hear a story that makes me laugh. Maybe I just happen to notice the way the sunlight falls across the lawn. Somehow, something happens that invites me to shift my awareness, to allow my sense of appreciation kick in. And bit by bit I’m learning how delicious it is to accept that invitation.
It’s not that I relinquish my knowledge of the world’s problems. I simply allow my images of them to broaden to encompass the aspects of the world, and of humanity, that are positive, and beautiful and strong.
I visit a wide variety of places on the internet over the course of a week. Several of them are live shows with viewers chatting on the side, or videos that allow viewers to post comments. They let me see a wide range of attitudes and thought and cultural shaping. It fascinates me. Over the last little while, maybe six months or so, I’ve begun to notice a new idea take hold and begin to grow. In a variety of ways, I hear people from different camps and tribes starting to say that they’re done with pointing out and fighting against the things that are wrong. Instead, they’re going to put their energy into thinking about how things could be, and to live their own lives with those things in mind as their guides. I smile every time I see someone say that’s their new plan. I think it’s the best one going.
One day a woman who lived as she wanted people to live sent a word of encouragement to a friend she missed seeing. “You are stronger than anything life can bring,” the card said.
Isn’t that a wonderful story?
Oh, and always remember those words from George Elliot, “It’s never too late to become who you always wanted to be.”
Have a fabulous week.
Warmly,
Susan
Background Image by Beverly Buckley from Pixabay