What a glorious day Saturday was. The sun, the warmth, the hope.

Still. I wonder, what now?
Is this the new normal?
There have been too many times now in my 9 years old’s life
that I have had to navigate around
the telling of the news of these tragedies.

He is scared.
He is too young to be burdened by this.
Help me move to the positive.
Help me feel okay about bringing my children into this world.

What I told my son, is that there are more good guys than bad guys.

I know there are more intelligent people than those with limited views.
I know there is more kindness in people than hatred.
The bad guys will not win.

So I think, this is why I have children.
To increase the good guy ratio.

We need to be present in our families
We need to sow love where there is hate
We need to cherish all life on earth
We need to keep hopeful in these times of despair.

We are the good guys. We will win.
Please help us stay good, stay true, and be strong.

Amen.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
– W.B. Yeats

READINGS:

1. Our first reading is from Edward O. Wilson’s book, THE FUTURE OF LIFE. His prologue is a letter to Henry David Thoreau. He wants Henry to know that his book, Walden, has reached “across five generations” and still speaks to us today. And he mourns the fact that Henry “left too soon,” but “your restless spirit haunts us still.” Here’s an excerpt from Dr. Wilson’s letter to Thoreau:
Dear Henry,

I understand why you came to Walden Pond. You chose this spot primarily to study nature. But you could have done that as easily and far more comfortably on daily excursions from your mother’s house in Concord Center, half an hour’s walk away, where in fact you did frequently repair for a decent meal. Nor was your little cabin meant to be a wilderness hermitage. No wilderness lay within easy reach anyway, and even the woods around Walden Pond had shrunk to their final thin margins by the 1840′s.

To continue reading Awe, please click here

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“A human being is constantly ‘under construction,’
but also, in a parallel fashion, always in a state of constant destruction.”
– Jose Saramago

READINGS:

1. Our first reading is from Paul’s letter to the Romans, chapter 12, verses 6-8. I’m using the New Living Translation:

God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if your gift is prophecy, speak out according to your faith. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If it is teaching, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, devote yourself to doing so. If your gift is leadership, then lead with passion. If you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. Use your gifts with no strings attached.

2. Our second reading is from a talk given by Dr. Richard Farson at the Cusp Conference in 2008. The Cusp Conference is about “the design of everything.” It’s based on the idea that everything that exists has been designed – by people, by nature, or by some other force. The conference brings together architects, innovators, visionaries and explorers from the arts, sciences, technology, business and design – so they can bounce off each other and see what comes out of it.

To continue reading Under Construction, please click here

The flowers we know sleeping beneath the soil
are just starting to show their tiny heads,
and the garden promises to come back
slightly different in a hundred ways than it was last year.

What a gift it is for us who get to experience this season of rebirth and renewal.
My prayer is that we hold on to this feeling all year long –
the feeling that we are on the brink of something,
that this moment is new and unique,
and will never repeat itself,
that we can remake our world with a word, a glance, or a vote.

By the time the leaves that emerge this week are full grown and then wither away,
the children will be nearly a year older,
another summer stored in our collective memories,
and the world will be changed in ways that we can’t imagine today.

In this moment of anticipation and promise,
may we take nothing for granted,
be our best selves for each other,
and wonder at the many small miracles that this year will bring.