Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know that I am breathing out.
Breathing in, I see myself as a flower.
Breathing out, I feel flesh.
Breathing in, I see myself as a mountain.
Breathing out, I feel solid.
Breathing in, I see myself as still water.
Breathing out, I reflect things as they are.
Breathing in, I see myself as space.
Breathing out, I feel free.
~Thich Nhat Hahn

It is taking a lot to breathe these days Or at least it is taking intentional effort on my part to do so. With the world whirling so fast and in such a chaotic fashion, I find myself actually holding my breath quite often. Never a good thing. Which may be the reason that this poem by the beloved Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, floated to the surface of my consciousness earlier today. I actually didn’t remember whose words they were but knew that I had to find them to see if they were speaking to me as I thought they might be. A quick scan of my book shelves unearthed this gem. Ahhhh…

These words along with a particular image have been bringing some solace to my days. I shared the image below with some friends on Friday saying how it seems to represent how I feel., how I am trying to be in the face of it all. The image is of a statue found in Savannah, Georgia one of my favorite cities. The statue gained fame for being on the cover of a book later made into a movie: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. At one point it stood in a cemetery there and featured prominently in the movie. It had to be removed and placed in a museum after the movie as it was feared it would be damaged by over-interested visitors. Its original title is simply Bird Girl and the way she holds out her arms, two vessels balanced by her straight body and ever so slightly tilted head seems to create the posture I find myself wanting to take. 

Breathing in, I hold all the turmoil that swarms around. Breathing out, I gaze out at the beauty of my summer garden. Breathing in, I wonder at what seems to me the drive to divide people into categories that are dehumanizing, are not only unkind but also unjust. Breathing out, I marvel at the kindness that I encounter ever day from friends, family, neighbors, strangers. Breathing in, I grapple with despair and fear for what seems to be happening to our country, our world. Breathing out, I look with awe at the faces of the babies, the toddlers, the children that weave in and out of my life. Breathing in, I read or hear words that are mean and cutting and even cruel. Breathing out, I read poems and stories so filled with beauty and inspiration that my spirit is given to floating above my body.

Bird Girl reminds me that I, that we, live in a both/and world and that to live wisely, sanely, means to hold all the beauty and the terror in our outstretched hands…every day…every moment…with every breath. When I gaze on her slightly bent head I imagine what that bend means. “Really?” she might be saying. Or “Look at this.” Or even “Please.” My need to create a story for her is pretty strong.

Perhaps all that bent head is portraying is the truth that holding that balance is difficult work. Sometimes sorrowful work. Almost always courageous work. And then just when it all seems too much to bear, a tiny bird lands on one bowl and sings there a song so beautiful, so pure that hearts are broken open at the miracle of it. 

Breathing in…breathing out. Both. And. So it goes. So it goes.  

Intention. I have been thinking about intention over the last weeks. How to live intentionally, kindly, sanely, in the midst of all that is churning in every direction in our country and the world. I have been trying to come to some inner understanding of how it is best for me to be aware of what is going on without giving in to despair and fear with the uncertainty that grips us.The word intention keeps coming to my mind as if placed there by an outer force and I have decided to pay attention to it. 

Mulling over this word, intention, I was reminded of the author and poet Ross Gay who wrote a book of essays called The Book of Delights. One year on his birthday he decided that he would write a short essay every day for the next year about something that delighted him during the day. He is a writing professor and set this intention for himself amongst all the other writing and teaching that must have filled his life. Krista Tippett has interviewed him and he talks about how the intention he set…to watch for and experience delights…seemed to actually give rise to even greater delights. Sounds like a pretty good thing to me. He has since published another book, The Book of More Delights. It seems that delight must breed delight!

During April which is National Poetry Month, I set an intention to write a poem a day. I stayed pretty loyal to the daily practice though some days I wrote only a haiku. Still a poem, right? And though none of the poems were good, what I found was that the intention had me thinking more poetically. I would notice something…a flower or the smile on someone’s face…and short, descriptive phrases would pop into my mind, a snippet of a poem. It brought a kind of gentle lilt to my day and made my mood lighter.

A true poet, Molly Fisk, wrote this lovely reminder entitled ‘Against Panic’:
You recall those times, I know you do, when the sun
lifted its weight over a small rise to warm your face,
when a parched day finally broke open, real rain,
sluicing down the sidewalk, rattling city maples
and you so sure the end was here, life a house of cards
tipped over, falling, hope’s last breath extinguished
in a bitter wind. Oh, friend, search your memory again –
beauty and relief are still there, only sleeping.

Reading her words and Ross Gay’s reflections on delight have instilled in me the intention to pay more attention to those experiences of gentleness and beauty that are the gift of every day. As I did one morning this past week when I sat at my local coffee shop and watched the sunlight pour into the window illuminating the lovingly planted flowers that were waking up again and directing their faces toward the new day. What lessons were they holding out to me?

There is much in our world over which we have little control. We do what we can…contribute, have conversation, contact those in office, learn as much as we can, make our voices heard, vote, and, if you are praying person, pray. I do not want to give myself to the intention of despair. Instead I want wake every day and set an intention to search for what brings beauty and relief to a fractured, hurting world. Perhaps if we all search our memories we can wake that spirit of hope together. 

“You belong to the world, animal. Deal with it.”
~Carrie Fountain

Last week William Anders, died, and left this Earth. He had actually left the planet before but as an astronaut on Apollo 8. Anders was the photographer of the photo we now call ‘Earthrise’, the first color image of our home…the place on which we live, travel, work, disagree, war, create, reproduce. The photo was shot on December 24, 1968, a day when those who celebrate would have been knee deep in Christmas preparations. Yet, this photo stopped many of us in our tracks and we paused amidst the baking and the wrapping to glimpse the beauty of this whirling blue sphere floating in space.

In listening to people talk about the experience of seeing this photo for the first time, someone said it was a time that changed how we saw the Earth. This is true, of course. But still others, myself included, would say it changed how we saw ourselves. As humans. As those hurtling through the Universe. As those who are so tiny in the grand scheme of things. As those who are sharing this place…no one more, no one less, all vulnerable, all connected by the very fact that we swim together in this amazing blueness.

The year the photo was taken was 1968, and though I was just a young one, I knew that we were living in troubled times. Our country was embroiled in a far-away war that was tearing our country apart. Protests raged on college campuses and at town centers. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. were assassinated. The Civil Rights movement was at the forefront of headlines that, thankfully, resulted in the Civil Rights Act. Families disagreed about all this, my own included. The Viet Nam War remains the only thing my father and I ever argued about. There was distrust and turmoil everywhere. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

And into all this arrived this photo which reminded us that we are all in this together, connected by land and water and gravity that holds us all from floating into the skies. It provided, for those with eyes to see, a profound lesson in humility, in compassion, in reverence, in awe. Some say it helped to strengthen the young environmental movement and gave birth to Earth Day. Yet its lessons continued and continue, to elude us. The blindness to human connection and the threat that division brings is still rife on this beautiful planet. As people we so easily forget or choose to live in denial of all that binds us together. 

Anders death precipitated this amazing image being in the many places we now receive news. Like it did in 1968, it was sandwiched in between the many ways we struggle and are prone to chaos. I was reminded of a poem written by poet Carrie Fountain. It begins:

You belong to the world
as do your children, as does your husband.
It’s strange even now to understand that
you are a mother and a wife, that these gifts
were given to you and that you received them,
fond as you’ve always been of declining
invitations. You belong to the world. The hands
that put a peach tree into the earth exactly
where the last one died in the freeze belong
to the world and will someday feed it again,
differently, your body will become food again
for something, just as it did so humorously
when you became a mother, hungry beings
clamoring at your breast, born as they’d been
with the bodily passion for survival that is
our kinds’ one common feature. You belong
to the world, animal. Deal with it…

Seeing that floating Blue Marble once again gave me pause to ask myself how I was dealing with it. Do I take my gravitational walk each day with an awareness of all those others grounded by the same force? Do I send them compassion? Do I hold all those fractured places, those equally fractured people, near and far in my heart? Do I do everything I am able to honor those invisible lines of connection that I share with my fellow Earth travelers? Do I guard our one common feature…survival? It is the work we’ve been given and mostly I fail but endeavor to try.

You belong to the world. I belong to the world. Blessed be the memory of William Anders who showed us how precious our Earth home is. May we deal with it with as much care as we would offer our children, our grandchildren, the children and grandchildren of all our fellow travelers. And to all those with whom we walk this day, may we spin more graciously as if the very world depends on it. Because it does. 

“Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence,
you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is.
Where they come from never goes dry.
It is an always flowing spring.”
~ Rumi

Fragility. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the fragility. It may have started with the daffodils and the tulips. Watching them do the work that must be so difficult…waiting, pushing, reaching, blooming to welcome the springtime. Then there’s the lily-of-the valley in their tiny, whiteness sending the sweetest smell, the first true smell of what will be, into the days of May. And yet, now, for the most part they are all gone. Their fragile beauty is so fleeting. They have been replaced by the brilliant purple and yellow irises who demand our attention with color that dazzles the eye and fills my heart with a reminder of how fragile life is. Each of these blooms have been batted about by the rains that seem to be a daily occurrence and the accompanying winds. And in a few short days, these harbingers of the season will also be gone. Their delicate petals will fade and fall away. It seems a terribly fragile existence.

This rumination on fragility may have started with the flowers. Yet it didn’t take long before the thoughts of how easily things can be broken, can be lost, moved quickly to the human ones we all know and those we hear about across our world. It seems there are so many fragile places, so many broken people that are calling out for hope and compassion, near and far. It is difficult not to become despairing or, worse, retreat to a place of choosing not to see, not wanting to be confronted by it all. The wars that rage across the world, the children wounded, killed, displaced. The abuse of power by the few aimed at the weaker tears at everything it means to be human. How to hold it all?

Of course, even those of us who do not live in war zones also know this fragile nature that weaves our living together. An illness arrives. An accident happens. A dream is shattered. A mistake is made. A senseless act is committed that alters everything. Our lives can change, as they say, on a dime, with no warning, placing the tragedy of surprise in our lap. We would do well to walk around with the message:” Fragile. Handle with Care.” emblazoned on our foreheads.

Fragility is part and parcel of us all. In the face of this, we would do well to savor each moment, each breath, each encounter with another, each glimpse of the glory of Creation that is offered every day. In saying this I am preaching a sermon to myself.  With such knowledge, I want to be comforted by the words of the 13th century poet, Rumi. Perhaps his own life was being visited by turmoil when he wrote: “Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence, you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is. Where they come from never goes dry. It is an always flowing spring.” Perhaps Rumi was also preaching a sermon to himself.

In the days ahead, I want to hold onto his words with all my might and do this until I believe it down to my core. Fragile beauty, yes. Grief that comes with loss and brokenness, yes. Yet a heart-deep knowing that there is a river that runs below and within it all that never goes dry and offers an ever-flowing stream of the hope that is spring. 

May it be so.

There are places that can surprise you even in your own backyard. Last weekend I attended an event that I had no idea existed. The Shepherd’s Harvest, held at the Washington County Fairgrounds, was a ‘harvest’ of all things sheep. There was sheep shearing. There was sheep herding with the amazing sheepherding dog that followed verbal commands of his owner that were unintelligible to my human ears. There were spinners and carders and row after row of people whose true love was clearly wool. Colorful bags of brightly dyed wool waited patiently to be purchased and spun. For those who did not want to exert that effort there was equally brilliant yarn begging to become a sweater for winter’s chill. People…lots of people…roamed the aisles looking, touching, searching for the perfect weight and color to call to their creative heart. 

If you were lucky enough to be there on a warm and sunny Saturday morning, I was the person roaming around with the look of wonder on my face. The questions rolled around in my head. Who knew so many people in this part of the country raised sheep? Who knew so many people were drawn to all the arts associated with wool? How have I not known about this event, these people before? Over and over, I saw women standing and knitting as they talked to interested folk never seeming to miss a beat or a stitch. As someone who has tried over and over again to knit, this seemed impossible to me and I was in awe of them. 

The fact is over the last many years I have been fascinated with sheep. I have a love of the places where I have mostly encountered them: the fields and pastures of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. I have no idea how I came to this heartspace. Their gentleness and their contemplative presence seems to draw me in and bring a calmness in me that I treasure. To find people closer to where I actually live whose days are filled with the presence of these wooly creatures created such joy. Watching the skill and strength it takes to shear a 200 pound sheep makes my head spin. (Pun intended.) And watching women, young and not so young, sit quietly behind a spinning wheel pedaling and forming yarn from fluffy wool nearly made me weep.

Since that Saturday I have thought often about all the opportunities to be witness to things you had no idea were just around the corner. If I hadn’t heard this event advertised on public radio I would not have known that somewhere…someplace…there is a community of people who come together to join one another is the celebration of what are really ancient arts. They have chosen to continue what people have done since they first realized that the fluff that covers that four legged one can become something more. And it took off from there. Sheep. Wool. Yarn. Clothing. Creativity. As with so many of the things we see as ordinary, things we take for granted, there is a connection that goes deeper and can transcend time. 

For awhile that morning I slipped into a world that was unfamiliar to me. Walking among the people and the animals I found myself allowing the news that had sounded from my radio on the way there to fall away. Instead I felt connected to something kinder, gentler, something that seemed to speak of a greater truth, a deeper wisdom of how the world really is. It was a blessing of sorts to be there and to imagine a time when the whole of the world could be more like that. 

The ancient Scots in the collection of blessings and hymns, Carmina Gadelica, offered these words for those who shepherded the sheep:

May the herding of Columba
Encompass you going and returning,
Encompass you in strath and on ridge
And on the edge of each rough region;

May it keep you from pit and from mire,
Keep you from hill and from crag,
Keep you from loch and downfall,
Each evening and each darkling;

The peace of Columba be yours in the grazing,
The peace of Brigit be yours in the grazing,
The peace of Mary be yours in the grazing,
And may you return home safe-guarded.

Yes…like the sheep and the shepherd may we all return home safe-guarded.

“We sat in silence, letting the green in the air heal what it could.” 
? Erica Bauermeister, The Scent Keeper

Green. It is, hands down,my favorite color. All the many shades and hues of it. I think it has always been my favorite. I have probably one too many green coats and I am always drawn to any sweater whose threads create a green warmth. And in my part of the world the amount of rain we have received has given rise to greenness everywhere they eye lands. On a drive along the Wisconsin side of the river over the weekend, I could have been lured into believing I was in Ireland if there had only been more sheep and stone fences. My eyes were very, very happy! I am sure the farmers are also happy as they have been enduring a severe drought over the last springs.

The color green spells such promise…of beauty, of growth, of the longed for summer days that will be here before we know it. Green heralds the bounty of our gardens and of the Midwestern fields that will soon be sporting stalks of corn and rows of soybeans. I have been watching as the trees in my neighborhood begin to leaf and I marvel at the varying greens that each one offers to the world. Driving across the Mississippi River as I do every day, I focus my eyes on the ever increasing palette of green that paints and frames the now burgeoning water. From chartreuse to kelly and on to deep, forest green, the picture unfolds.

Every Sunday I sit in the sanctuary of the church I attend and look up at the stained glass windows that tell stories of faith of the Christian household. I love this community and this church building for a myriad of reasons but one is that each week I am graced by the looming presence of a green faced Jesus. It is one of the first things I noticed about this church when I began attending. This central figure in the front of the sanctuary has a green face, green hands and green feet. It is subtle but green nonetheless. I love this for so many reasons. For one, I am reminded of my Celtic ancestry and the Green Man that plays a central role as a harbinger of the season of spring and the rebirth of all things. Like my green coats, I probably also have too many of these wild, leafy-faced fellows gracing my walls. While I do not know the intention of the artist who created this window, I love this green faced Jesus because he reminds me that this faith household that I have chosen and who has chosen me when I have been unable to choose it is an ever-unfolding, ever-growing pursuit to make meaning of what it means to be human.A pursuit that spans the ages with all its changes and complexities 

This pursuit walked into the spotlight over the last weeks. The church I have loved since I was a teenager chose to give itself to that unfolding, that growing. The church I was drawn to as a young person because it stood for justice for all people and worked for peace and solidarity during the Civil Rights movement and the Viet Nam War, finally opened the doors to  officially include all people. By removing harmful language and practices toward our LGBTQIA siblings, the United Methodist Church opened its heart and its doors to the greening power of love. And while this does not mean that all people are in total agreement, the process has allowed for there to be enough room, enough light, and enough nurturance for new things to grow. 

The medieval mystic Hildegard of Bingen wrote of ‘viriditas’, the greening power of the Divine. In a cautionary note she also wrote, “Now in the people that were meant to be green there is no more life of any kind.” Writing for her time about situations I know nothing about but were holding her heart captive, she called out to the people of faith to open themselves to the greening power of the Universe.

The people who were meant to be green. It seem to me that each spring the Earth harnesses that ‘viriditas’, that greening power of the Divine and we once again see the rebirth of all that was dead and dormant. And every now and then the people who were meant to be green make the choice to be just that…green and growing…green and unfolding…green and open to the promise of new life. All change is difficult and making large, systemic steps toward a new way, a new life is almost always full of pain and uncertainty. 

Yet that urging toward greening is at the heart of who we are as people and at the heart of how the world moves. The green-faced Jesus looking out at me reminds me of this every Sunday and I vow once again to try as best I can to be a part of it. As Hildegard also said:” The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.”

And so we move on…

Not long ago my older son said something that has stuck with me and I have been mulling over. Holding up a card I had received he said: “Mom, you do know that there is going to come a time when people are not going to be able to read this.” He was referring to the words written in cursive that covered the paper. He then told me that there were times when he struggled a bit with cards or letters I sent him written in my own hand…in a pattern taught by my elementary school teachers…in what I later came to know as the Palmer method.As a pint sized version of myself, I remember looking up at the letters that scrolled along the blackboard, their fully formed alphabet in uppercase and lowercase. As a young reader and writer they seemed a goal to attain, a mark of growing up, of being on my way to higher learning. Being a child who wanted to not only write but who was drawn to the beautiful I sought to write like that with loops and swirls that made ordinary letters soar above towards something larger.

Cursive has fallen out of favor these days. Neither of my children learned it and only now use it for their signatures. Printing is the way of writing and computers are the instrument of stories and papers handed into teachers. I am not saying this is a bad thing. There is a clarity in those boxy words for sure. But I was very heartened by a story I read a few weeks ago in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about two students from greater Minnesota who had won prizes in a cursive writing contest. Zaner-Bloser, an Ohio based company that markets curriculum to elementary schools hosts a national handwriting contest. Reading about the winners made my heart swell! 

Last year while volunteering at the local elementary school helping students with reading and some writing skills, one of the children asked me:” Would you teach me how to write fancy?” It took a minute to register what she was asking. Cursive!She wanted to learn to write in cursive. Of course, I was elated to do this since we had some extra time and we continued the practice after our regular lessons were finished. I loved that, at least to her, cursive was fancy.

As a young child I would spend spare time simply practicing ‘writing fancy’. I would pretend to address envelopes in my ever-evolving script. The pinnacle came when I discovered my Mother’s books on shorthand and a whole new world opened to me. I would hunch over the kitchen table copying jots and tittles whose meaning was lost on me. I just liked making this other kind of ‘fancy’ writing.

Recently a friend was at my house and we were making some plans for a project we were creating together. She is someone who does mixed-media art and she showed me this page from an old diary. On the page the writer had written in lovely cursive and then…just in case someone had found the diary…had switched to shorthand for the juicy bits. Seeing this on one page was so satisfying. 

I have no idea what the ultimate fate of cursive is. Many things that once were out of fashion return. I can hope. But for now, I salute Caden Baun, a fourth-grader from Lamberton, Minnesota who is headed to the National Handwriting Contest. And also,10-year-old Zita Miller of St. Anne’s Academy in White Bear Lake who took a top prize. 

Thank you for your hard work and perseverance and congratulations on keeping ‘fancy’ in the world!

April is National Poetry Month. I have never known who makes these proclamations. It is not that have anything against the celebration of pretty much anything, it is that I have wondered who decides. Of course, many, myself included, think every day, every month, is a time to celebrate and lift up the gift of poetry. I am in at least two groups that use poetry as the organizing element. We gather. We read poetry. We reflect on it. It is a gentle way to spend a couple of hours. I imagine the same hours could be spent in a lot less significant ways. 

Over the last days I have been taking a moment to reread and rest in some of my favorite poems while also delving into some new to me. I came back to one by Wendell Berry that I have loved for some time. Here is the poem I love which I shared with one of the groups I mentioned the night before Easter. The actual title of the poem is Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front:

…So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Now I am not smart enough to do any analysis of this poem or to guess what Berry’s intentions were in the phrases he chose. I only know the lines that call me to myself, to question my own intentions and to marvel at the power of this often overlooked literary medium. For. that reason alone, I am thankful for April and its attribution as poetry month. I mean, how can a person not be pinned to the mat with things like “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” and “Love someone who doesn’t deserve it.” And most of all…”Practice resurrection.”

What does resurrection look like? And how do we practice it? Every person will answer that question differently at a variety of times in their days, in their lives. But as I shared this poem with my friends I also shared a photo of an azalea bush I was witness to in Wales last May. At that point in my travels I had seen an array of sacred places dedicated to all manner of definitions of resurrection. But this bush…this enormous, beautiful, colorful bush grown beyond imagining…was a brilliant symbol of life in its fullest form. Brought back from winter’s rest, this bush-turned-tree shone forth into the world with such beauty and vibrancy that it stopped all who saw it and called to them to come and stand in its presence. In the past someone planted an azalea bush…not a sequoia as the poet writes…yet its growing and living again and again allowed others to “put faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees.” Perhaps the practice comes in not only the rebirth but the noticing.

April is not only a month for poetry. It is also a time when the Earth calls to us to practice…practice resurrection in the hope that we will continue to plant and to notice each and every day of our precious lives. May it be so…

“Because even the smallest of words can be the ones to hurt you, or save you.” 
? Natsuki Takaya

There is a saying many of us were probably told when we were young either by a parent or a teacher: “Sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” At some point we quickly realize that, while the intention may have been admirable, the words were simply untrue. Words have the power to hurt or heal, manipulate or move, comfort or confound, soothe or scar. How we use words is so on my mind these days as our lives seem to be flooded by a near constant barrage of cavalier statements by world leaders, politicians, and others that take to the bully pulpit that social media has become. 

Recently I began to make some mental connections about all this word play while doing my gig as a volunteer at the airport. I wrote about this new pastime a couple of weeks ago. During my time there the words I say most often are: “Can I help?” This question is posed to someone standing, staring at a screen on the wall or in their hand. They look everything from confused to exhausted to frightened. When I say those three words…”Can I help?”, I have most often seen their faces relax, their shoulders drop from their ears and they give themselves over for at least a moment to receiving someone’s guidance, someone offering a quick bit of help that will move them along in their day. For me, as the one who asks the question, it becomes a quick interchange of humanity that lightens my own heart and fills me with a sense that, at least in this instance, I can do something to help a fellow Earth traveler. Of course, this kind of help does not come close to being help they may need in other parts of their lives. But for now it is a pretty good thing.

This led me to thinking about the other ways in which certain words, certain phrases, have the power to make an impact. “Welcome.” is a good place to start. Doors are flung open wide when someone offers this greeting. Who knows what could happen?  “I’m sorry.” is another that can make all the difference in the world. And then there is “I forgive you.” How many people are waiting to hear just those three little words? And, of course, there is the pinnacle of three words…”I love you.” Something we all long to hear. Over and over again.

All these words, though small and ordinary, carry the gift to shift situations, circumstances, lives. And when those words are prefaced by someone saying our name, allowing it to form and come to life on another’s tongue, that is the proverbial cherry on the sundae. Saying our name says:”I see you. I care about you. I want to connect with you.” Hearing our name spoken in a caring, compassionate voice is like honey dripping from the mouth of the Holy.

One last phrase. My dear, beloved husband who left this Earth too soon always said that all people really want to hear is:”Everything’s going to be okay.” This is what he believed children, teenagers, adults want to be told again and again. In sermons. In speeches. In classrooms. Across kitchen tables. “Everything is going to be okay.” While it may not be what we want or what we hoped for, in the big scheme of Everything, it will be some kind of okay. For those in situations around this whirling planet who are living under unimaginable terror and pain, perhaps it is up to the rest of us to work and pray and vote to make this statement come to life. The Sun and Moon will rise. The seasons will move from one to the other. Someplace in all that there is an ‘okay’ living for us to hold onto.

Over the next months there will be many moments when it may seem as if the fraying will threaten to undo us. Perhaps then is the time when we each can say to at least one other person: “Can I help?” “Welcome.” “I’m sorry.” “I forgive you.” “I see you.” “I care about you.” “I love you.” 

“Everything’s going to be okay.”

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” 
? Lao Tzu

There is a bit of the wanderlust in me. Traveling is something I seek, something I crave. It doesn’t have to be to far off places necessarily, though that is wonderful, but can be a short trip just hours away from my home. Someplace I’ve been before or someplace yet to be discovered. I know people who are contented to be in one place and who never desire to venture far from their home. In some ways I have envy for that way of being. Others still have a myriad of reasons that traveling is impossible even if their hearts are pulled toward other places. But I’m always up for a trip…to any place.

This deep nudge toward travel has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. And I have been blessed to be able to scratch that itch when it happens. I love what being able to travel has brought to my life. The chance to see how others live, how they have created beauty, what they value, the food they love, how they gather, how they worship, what infuses joy in their lives…all these have enriched my own way of seeing and being in the world. I come back from nearly every experience changed in some way. As the author Henry Miller wrote:” One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”  And that gift of seeing with new eyes is one I am so grateful for. 

A few months ago I did training to be a volunteer at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. I have always loved airports and the opportunity to spend time in this beautiful one has opened my eyes to new glimpses of the vast world that spins around me. My work is to simply be present and to help people make their way from one place to another. I answer questions, try to calm anxieties, point people toward their next flight or the car or train they need to catch. In those encounters I sometimes get to hear some of their story and then silently bless them on their way. And in some way I get to travel vicariously through them. I leave the airport at the end of my shift full of their excitement and energized with this chance to walk alongside a stranger for a short leg of their journey 

Increasingly it seems to me, the need for encountering other humans whose lives may be different than ours is in short supply. Mostly we tend to surround ourselves with those who look like us, think like us, pray like us, vote like us. At the airport all this melting pot of people gets stirred together in the lines and the gates and the baggage and the anticipation of people’s ‘what next’. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” writes Mark Twain. I have found the wisdom of this American sage to be true both in my own travels and in witnessing to the travels of others. What most often rises up is kindness and a genuine hope that we are all traveling together in some way. 

Every time I go to volunteer I am reminded of the opening scene in the movie Love Actually. Do you remember it? The voice of actor Hugh Grant is heard over scenes at Heathrow Airport of people reuniting and greeting one another as they arrive from their flights. His words point out that when the Twin Towers fell the words shared by people calling family and friends were ones of love and not hate. In the film the individual scenes at the arrivals gate is multiplied over and over until there is a full screen of people expressing delight and welcome, love and joy. 

I get to see this nearly every time I volunteer. Of course there are sometimes frenzied, crabby, even exhausted people every now and then. But they are not the norm. Most people have faces reflecting anticipation of what lies before them…a vacation, an interview, a life change, a new grandchild, an adventure, a loved one, a surprise. Or at least that is how I see it. I hope  my face reflects back to each person that it has been a privilege to have my life brush against theirs for this one moment in time. I hope our encounter makes their journey just a little bit gentler. I’d like to think that they will arrive at their destination knowing that someone noticed them and felt gratitude for what we shared.

In case you have forgotten…or never saw that scene here it is…