In the face of the hugeness and mystery of the Grand Canyon, I experienced the relief of surrendering to the unknown. Could I learn to receive my real-life moments “at the edge” with even a smidge of the wonder and awe that I felt on the edge of the Grand Canyon? I really hope so.
The Christian season of Lent began this week. Rather than taking on a discipline or giving something up, this year I am feeling called to spend these 40-days pondering mortality - others' and my own. While that may strike you as bleak, I believe that living with an awareness of death (another way of saying this is an awareness of the fleetingness and fragility of life) can make living a sweeter and more tender experience.
I hate messing up. I hate it even more when I "get caught" making a mistake. I hate it most of all when my mistakes splash on others. Yet making mistakes seems to be an essential part of the human journey. In fact, mistakes are not obstacles on our journey to becoming good people. They ARE the journey to becoming better people.
My daughter planned a ski weekend for her birthday and we were thrilled to be invited. Yet I wimped out and chose not to go skiing. When I made my choice, I thought my fear of falling and hurting myself was keeping me safe - but it was really holding me back. Now that I understand this, I have to figure out how to choose differently next time.
Happy New Year! This year a single word is my New Year’s resolution, my intention for 2026, and my word of the year. The word is YES. You could say I came to this resolution the hard way and I'm grateful that I did. After years of challenging, painful, and scary life events, I have learned that these events themselves are not what causes me the most suffering. What sucks the life out of everything is my resistance to what is happening. So, mostly because I have learned the hard way that NO cripples the soul, I am all in as I greet this new year with a resounding YES.
"It's me. I'm the problem. It's me." Taylor Swift has a point. 99% of the time, fighting what is happening to us causes more suffering than what is happening. If we can stop resisting, rejecting, and refusing whatever we fear, a surprising peacefulness washes over us. We find ourselves free to live our way through it - which is always much less awful than worrying about it was.
Do you remember the Twilight books? I've never forgotten when Bella says, “Without the darkness, we’d never see the stars.” This month when the hours of daylight are outweighed by darkness, it's good to remember to look up and count the metaphorical stars shining in the moments of your day to day life.
We all have them - moments that forever demarcate before and after. In these defining moments, we have a choice. We can cling to what was - working desperately to get back to normal. Or we can choose to be curious - wondering about the possibilities of what lies ahead. It is a choice that will make all the difference in the way we experience our lives.
Death can feel like an eraser. Not only does it erase, but death changes everyone left behind. Because their lives and deaths changed us, our lost loved ones continue to make a mark on the world through us. Because we live on - laughing and crying, dancing and mourning - they live on in us.