It seems that social media can invite and sustain connections we would never have the time for. For me it seems like a perpetual high school reunion and with others, an endless stream of “what’s up?” Some will share of the real, the relevant and the right now. Moments ago I responded to a friend’s essay about her relationship with her father and her healing after a lifetime of hurt, abandonment and struggle. It got me thinking…
It is often an interesting exercise to go back to old journals or “essays” and read the reflections in the throws of hurt and then to discover that the hurt was it’s own gift, as it was necessary and preceded the healing. That now, with time, no matter how hard one tries, it is not possible to conjure up the hurt once again, as it is truly gone or placed in the new context of current life.
I wrote in a poem after crying for the first time in 17 years following the passing of my father… “To hurt to heal becoming real as walls come tumbling down. To know you’re loved for what’s inside, life’s joys can then be found. And in your weakness you’ll find your strength and in your pain your hope. All failure builds into success provided you learn to cope…”
To those who have the courage to embrace the fullness of life’s experiences and your response to them… Trust. Be present. Go there and be still, even should it overtake you. Invite the support of others. These are your emotions, your thoughts, and ultimately the thread to your life lessons, discoveries, and healings. Hope will flow from this.
Know that whatever is going on wants to introduce you to you. Keep reflecting. Keep writing … as with my friend’s “essay,” it first blesses you and then if humbly shared, is a window for others to gain perspective and hope for their life’s journey.
This is the season for graduations. I often deliver commencement addresses for school graduations, yet graduations happen for everything from school to dance to sports to scouting. Kids in elementary school are getting ready to leave a familiar building and faces to move to a bigger school and new friends. High School students are throwing caps into the air and leaving the security of home to pursue a future that wants desperately to reveal itself and be created and college grads are making there way into a quickly changing and re-valuing job market. Parents are graduating to empty nesters and teachers are saying good-bye to an empowered group of young people only to turn around and receive another group into their care and instruction.
Graduation is often seen through the lens of something completed. It’s a good-bye. A stage of life, a class, a level of accomplishment celebrated as finished. It should be! Take the time to acknowledge, embrace and celebrate the achievements, all the effort and dedication… and the person you became in the process. Then Commence to what lies before you. It’s as much a hello as good-bye.
Commencement means to begin. A commencement address is paradoxically a presentation about new beginnings at a time of finishing something significant. The passing of a test is honored with a new test… the rest of your life. The celebration of the greatest of accomplishments is the exact same moment where you are most poised on the threshold of what’s next. It’s a new possibility, a blank page or canvass waiting for your creative gifts of expression. Your choices express your passions, define your destiny and create the pathway to your future.
To commence is to begin with vigor that which draws you forward. To remove the anchors of past mistakes, set aside any baggage or failures and for that matter successes and take with you only the wisdom of each of the experiences and most importantly the person who you became in the process.
Your dreams and vision will define your next steps. They will introduce you to the new questions that need to be invited, asked, explored and reflected upon. Your hopes will give you the energy to take you forward. Your desires will attract new mentors and teachers into your sense of purpose and if you are aware, proactive and secure, you will let them join in.
As you commence, let me suggest you avail yourself to those who may share your journey with you and to those who may be open to come along side of you to help you champion your future. Focus on the possibility tomorrow brings and act today on your commitment to a future you believe is worth exchanging your life for. Make choices that celebrate your values, vision, passion and sense of purpose. This will give greater meaning to the accomplishments and new relationships as well as the struggles and temporary failures that lie before you.
Commence into next leg of your journey. Your future wants to introduce itself to you. Who you become in the process of pursuing your future will be it’s own gift. Trust the journey. Choose wisely. Commence into who you are destined to be. May today be a new beginning and may tomorrow be your reward.
The cafeteria is being remodeled at the Bangkok Orphanage. The kids are gathered in the courtyard, where we just serenaded them with song and play. One member of our group, Jana Stanfield, can sing and the rest of us are simply stumbling choral backup dancers. Next, lunch is brought to the children in baskets and trays. We help in passing out food.
Our hosts invite us to enter the place where the children are cared for who are unable to walk and, in many cases, to even sit up. We remove our shoes as we enter, as the children are lying on mats and having lunch. The floor is their kitchen table. Let that sink in for a moment. The floor is their kitchen table. My spirit is thinking, I have so much and yet can feel so lacking. I am humbled.
What happened next, I did not expect, was not ready for, nor may never ever see again. Children with the most severe handicaps and limited capabilities, spoons in hand… feeding each other. They are unable to feed themselves, so they feed each other. With the little they have, they feed each other.
Charity, care, or compassion? Possibly it’s to simply meet the basic need of eating the only way possible. To forget themselves and to focus on another, they feed each other. The hunger is quenched and the human spirit is touched in the deepest of ways.
Take a look this short video and notice the smiles and ask yourself, “How may I feed another today? Where may I bring a little joy, hope, or show concern? Could it be that in doing so, my soul may the one that is actually fed?” In the background, Jana’s song takes on new meaning, “I want to be your friend, a little bit more…”
Visiting an orphanage takes you to places you don’t expect. It’s not the orphanage, the kids, the conditions, and the needs. It’s the places in your heart that become opened and exposed. First to yourself, and then, if you let it, to your companions. As you meet the eyes of a child, a connection is made. The only language the heart can truly hear is love. When in a foreign land, it may be the only way you can communicate.
Today we visited two orphanages in Bangkok, Thailand. The first was for kids with disabilities. We come as six friends and colleagues to see how we may bring some joy, if even for a moment to a child. Scott has toys, stickers and magic tricks. Jana brings her guitar and gift of song. Laurie is ready to lead the Hokey Pokey. Shari will demonstrate the three kinds of laughter. Mark will film and capture some magical moments and me… well I get to share a word or two though the translator and then loose myself in holding children who reach out for hugs or to be picked up.
We are careful ask how we may interact and the do’s and don’ts and protocols. It is our desire to strive to bring dignity to each moment. Yet, once within the orphanage with our gracious hosts from Hope Worldwide… Well it’s six friends and a group of kids.
So in we go for our first visit and within moments it seems that all is forgotten and children begin to coax us out of ourselves with their smiles and hugs. As the barriers of communication begin to quickly drop, so do the walls around each of our hearts. It’s our gentle prodding of our play coupled with their joy that meets across the atrium and within moments kids are reaching out for hugs and to be lifted from the concrete, into your caring embrace. Try to set a child down and they lift their feet as to say, “I can’t touch the ground, so not yet. Please, not yet. Just play with me in such a way that I get to be hugged.”
So this morning we both give and receive hugs for hello. The trinkets we leave behind are memories of the play and touch, the smiles and song, the laughter and the grace of connecting hearts… even if for just a moment.
It’s interesting that as we come to reach out, hoping to make even a small difference, they in turn give us a gift of opening our hearts. Often the waves of tears we experience are not about the conditions of the orphanage; it’s the condition of our own hearts being revealed. So you meet and know each other a bit… and yourself even more. Hugs for hello…
What happened next, I did not expect, was not ready for, nor may never ever see again. Children with the most severe handicaps and limited capabilities, spoons in hand… feeding each other. They are unable to feed themselves, so they feed each other. With the little they have, they feed each other.
Today we visited two orphanages in Bangkok, Thailand. The first was for kids with disabilities. We come as six friends and colleagues to see how we may bring some joy, if even for a moment to a child. Scott has toys, stickers and magic tricks. Jana brings her guitar and gift of song. Laurie is ready to lead the Hokey Pokey. Shari will demonstrate the three kinds of laughter. Mark will film and capture some magical moments and me… well I get to share a word or two though the translator and then loose myself in holding children who reach out for hugs or to be picked up.
