My heart. It burns, hurts, hopes, desires, seeks. For something good and right. If what we’re doing here, as people, kids, teens, adults isn’t about story – about adding to, creating a better narrative – then what?
I believe it viscerally to be true. Do you? We each are meant to be a significant part of something bigger, better than any of us.
But when we strive for excellence, for self, without cause, what?
When we make it about what we can get, and not about what we also can give, what?
When we doubt our gifts and abilities, what?
When we believe we’ve failed too many times, that it’s too late for us, what?
When we fail to commune with our neighbors because we’re too committed, when we fail to believe and act on the truth that it is good and right and essential to be good and right with one another, what?
What, friends, are we doing here? Are we choosing and encouraging one another along a path of purpose, skills and dreams applied meaningfully, for the good of self and others, collectively? I have all too often set my foot upon a common path of self – self-gain, self-drive, self-pressure – and all too often have pulled my children onto the same path. Does that path make me, them, feel alive, hopeful, part of something amazing and fulfilling?
A friend of mine said it best, sitting across a table from me years ago: We need to give ourselves permission to believe there’s a better way.
Ironically, I think the better way might, possibly for the first time in history, be partially behind us. We might possibly be the first generation that cannot, by solely going forward, give more, better to our children than we had.
How many of you, if you’re honest, would love to give yourselves and your children a neighborhood, a community, full of people who live, play, gather and care for one another? Who have/make time to sit on a porch, around a table, at the town green – to talk, laugh, share, cry, comfort, care for one another? Who know you by name and ask about that thing you’ve been dealing with, offer help and guidance?
We are innately drawn to this because it is the heart of humanity… believing in each other and belonging to one another. It is story. It is what is good and right. And it is the very thing for which my heart burns, hurts, hopes, desires, seeks.
If not this, then what?
May we give ourselves permission to believe there is a better way… and that it’s found in telling a better story, together.
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