One-Stoplight-Towns

I’m celebrating the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Manchester this week. Coming from a major metropolitan area to a small town of 5,000 takes a little getting used to. I am adjusting. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just different.

The "Right" Discussion

Being 'right'. 

For most of us, this can be an uncomfortable and sticky conversation. But let's do it anyway.

An article was posted and hit my newsfeed today. My earliest reaction wished it had not.

The title reads, "I Texted My Friend For Years After She Died. Then I Received A 5-Word Reply That Left Me Shaken." (That's one wordy title if you ask me. But you won't because you already know how much I ramble.)

This posting is a true confession of sorts. I followed this writer into raw and painful emotions right alongside beautiful I-will-never-forget recollections. 

A Snob Learns About Gratefulness

Several years ago, I was being considered for a position on the Board of Directors for a nonprofit organization serving children in a depressed area of the city. I was told to write a ‘short bio.”  (Well, good luck with THAT!)

Anyway, the results were tabulated, and I was elected. They took me in even though this sentence was part of the submitted ‘who I am’ document.

“Beyond the basics, you’ll find that I am a self-proclaimed coffee snob.  I prefer “discriminating consumer”, but accuracy demands the “s” word.  It’s not that I won’t drink “sawdust-in-a-cup” at times, but I may make every effort to convert those who regularly partake in this disturbing practice.  You’ve been warned.”

Well, that was then, this is now.

One Dream

I Have a Dream Speech.

Of course, you know about this one, right?

Reverend Martin Luther King spoke to thousands at the 1963 March on Washington. We are typically reminded of his words on the MLK holiday in January of each year. A full transcript can be found here.

But about a month ago, the email subscription I have to the Center for Action and Contemplation introduced me to another speech that begins with the words, “I have a dream.”

“I have a dream,” God says. “Please help Me to realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be more laughter, joy, and peace, where there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing. I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family.” Desmond Tutu