Today, home and parenting, I have been thinking a lot--thinking about the past year, the year to come, and summer days. I've been thinking about my age, my failures, and my goals.
What is my purpose? What is my goal? What do I long to achieve?
I've been playing with these notions in writing and action throughout my life. Mostly propelled by needs of all sorts, I've pushed forward to learn, love, nurture, advocate, explore, seek, get along, and understand--always trying to put the puzzle pieces of life into an order that looks good and feels right.
As I ponder broad and deep, I typically come back to the same three goals: to love my family, to teach well, and to live a good life. My goals aren't big and glamorous, but consistent and close at hand instead. Simple goals to write, but not so simple to do well as doing our best by those we love and serve is work that's rich, deep, and often challenging calling forth the best of who we can be.
I choose to write too, to tell my story. Why? I write to forward my vision and lend my witness to life's triumphs, challenges, and typical days too. Life isn't always easy, yet there's great grace to experience in life too. Lending our stories to each other, both good and not so good, helps each of us travel the road with a bit more wisdom, care, and focus. Life isn't quite as challenging if you know someone else has tried that before, encountered a similar obstacle, or forged ahead with a dream like yours.
The best we can do is care for one another with as much compassion, empathy, and understanding as we can muster. That will make a good world, the kind of place we all hope to nurture. Agree?
