This is a theme that’s been growing in my mind. Like those bulbs buried all winter in the dark, the other day it finally sprouted. I’d been watching people hoard, criticize, ignore, demand, and blame leaders, especially politicians. Fear and anxiety can spread across the world faster than a virus. I struggled daily trying to figure out my role, to come up with a spiritual vaccine I might offer. What could protect us from losing our better selves in the face of this crisis?
Every day I leave the Triple F Ranch to enter the world of academia. In academia I spend a lot of energy in conversations about language, perception, and communication. I do a lot of critical thinking. In between classes I take forays into my writing life where I think about poverty, and justice, and hope and Jesus (and coffee and kids and fiction and memoir and Guideposts devotions). And sometimes I come home with a headache.
Those dudes were resourceful and hardworking. And they essentially had taken a pile of something nasty and cleaned it up. No huge, sweeping gesture, no dramatic production. They had just done what they could do. Rolling the mess into little balls and taking it away.
I simply have to write about this cool thing that happened, because it’s one of those most beautiful kinds of stories that bring hope into the world. And if your committee meetings or Facebook feed or nightly news are anything like mine, you could use one of those stories.
When I started writing this blog, I set myself the goal of two entries per week. I thought that seemed reasonable. And I met that goal pretty well for awhile. Then life happened over the past ten days, as it tends to do. And like running, that other pesky discipline that keeps me healthy, blog writing went straight out the window.
I’m a mother, teacher, writer, seeker. I could tell you I started this blog to make a difference in the world--and it would be great if it does--but that’s not really why I started it.
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