Peace

With a somber heart.

I have learned to take time each day to celebrate our families, our communities, and the young people who give us their potential and opportunity to be our best selves.  I rarely take the time to celebrate the people who got me to this place — the poets, thinkers, creators, the enthusiastic, the hard working, the young, and, the inspiring. Celebrating achievement and contribution that is present is, personally, preferable to lifting memories.

Each day, I try to take a moment to meditate. I offer you Howard Thurman’s For A Time of Sorrow, that I have carried with me during the last few days, for any of your additional reflection:

I share with you the agony of your grief.

The anguish of your heart finds echo in my own.

I know I cannot enter all you feel

Nor bear with you the burden of your pain;

 

I can but offer what my love does give:

The strength of caring,

The warmth of one who seeks to understand

The silent storm-swept barrenness of so great a loss.

 

This I do in quiet ways,

That on your lonely path

You many not walk alone.

Finally, I will not be shaken from believing in the value of travel. I am humble when I kick it with people I have never met. Sure, it’s challenging and uncomfortable, but my life has been about spending time off the block; out of the neighborhood; in a new place. Travel reminds me of my size and, ultimately, transforms me. I think more when I travel – the more I think, the more human I feel.

Much strength.

Peace.