Tag Archives: Grace

This Is How It’s Done – Redux

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“If we cannot reconcile all opinions, let us endeavor to unite all hearts.” ~Nicholas Vansittart

Four years ago, in anticipation of a victory by Hillary Clinton and the expected resistance by Donald Trump to accepting defeat, I posted a message very similar to the one below.

Though my confidence in a Clinton victory was unwarranted, here we are four years later with a Trump unable to accept Joe Biden’s win. So, with a bit of editing, I once again share these example of men who exhibited grace and civility in the face of painful loss.

After an election season that showed us new lows in human behavior, a similar gesture by Mr. Trump would go far to restore civility and begin to rebuild unity after four years of strife and acrimony. It would also strengthen our precious but weakened democracy.

The likelihood of such a gracious act is about equivalent to me fitting into a size 8. It would require on Trump’s part a temperament able to look beyond his mirror to a nation in pain. It would require that he cared about someone, or something, other than himself.

Still, this reminder of how good men lose graciously may assure us all that goodness will ultimately prevail. Continue reading →

Press Pause

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“Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.” (Rollo May)

Attribution: By zenera (http://www.flickr.com/photos/zenera/37026266/) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons[As we approach the most important election America has ever faced, amidst a global pandemic and critical cultural tipping points, I am revisiting and reexamining some of what I consider the most important elements of kindness, as well as exploring them in context of where we are today.]

I first wrote about the power of the pause in the earliest days of this blog. I marveled at how something so simple could have so much influence on our attitudes and our interactions, and so much power to change us and our world. Instead of responding instantly with knee-jerk reactions to presumed slights or insults—which generally escalates a situation—if we can cultivate the habit of pausing, we can produce the outcome we seek, and not perpetuate bad behavior or exacerbate an adverse encounter.

The pause offers us the gift of grace.

Rather than being an empty space, it is an expectant moment, filled with promise and possibility. It’s up to us, in that fleeting gap, to decide what comes next.

In that brief pause we can ask ourselves: Continue reading →

Hello in There, Redux….

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Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go

~John Prine, Angel from Montgomery

John Prine, Wikimedia Commons

I was saddened to learn this morning that the great John Prine died yesterday, another casualty of the coronavirus. I have loved John Prine’s music since I was a teenager. His voice is as piercing as his lyrics, illustrating why Rolling Stone proclaimed him “the Mark Twain of American songwriting.”

I wanted to link back to a post I wrote in 2016, which talked about my very favorite Prine song, “Hello in There.” It describes the isolation so many elderly people feel in our society, and it’s particularly poignant today, in the midst of COVID-19, as isolation confronts us all in different ways. I hope you’ll follow the link and listen to Prine’s song and then think about who in your life, or in your neighborhood, could use a “hello” from you.

Thank you, John Prine, for your songs and your spirit. https://ayearoflivingkindly.com/2016/08/18/hello-in-there-hello/

 

Hit the Reset Button

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“The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust)

I’m not big on making New Year resolutions (What’s she talking about, Leonard? Doesn’t she know it’s nearly April?). But what I do try to do at the beginning of each year is think about who I want to be, what I hope will be different, and what I want my life to look like at the end of the year. Then, I set my monthly, weekly, and daily intentions with that vision in mind.

It’s very organized and kind of nerdy (and maybe a tiny bit OCD). It works for me.

But, here at the end of March, 2020—a month during which the world changed in ways that were unimaginable a short time ago—I find it’s time to rethink my priorities and reset my intentions for the emerging brave new world (which, I hope, will not resemble the one imagined by Aldous Huxley).

I wonder, as we hunker down—giving colossal thanks to those on the front lines who cannot hunker—if it would be healthy and wise to take some time to think about who we will be and what the world may look like once the coronavirus pandemic is behind us. Continue reading →

My 2020 Vision

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A year from today, may we look back and say, “We’ve made the world a kinder place … together.”

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions in the traditional sense. I prefer to think about the year ahead and what I hope will be different at its end, and then set some intentions to help bring about that change. That’s how this blog was born five years ago, and ultimately how the book, A Year of Living Kindly, came into being.

This year, as I ponder the year ahead, I think about our planet, our values, and our interactions with one another. I think about the epidemic of incivility now swirling around us, and the pandemic it will likely become in the contentious months ahead.

I want to “be the change,” as Gandhi counseled. To do that, I’m recognizing that I need to step up my kindness. I need to: Continue reading →