This isn't rocket science, and I'm not the first to say this by any means, but why are we so determined to wear ourselves out?  For years, I brushed my teeth while ironing my clothes for work (yep, I really did... I'll give you a lesson sometime).  Cordless phones?  YES!  Now I'm not tied to a wall.  I can talk with you and wash the dishes or put away clothes! 
And... I'll never forget that horrific year of my brother's illness that led to a family crisis.  I didn't just try to be there for my brother.  I was there for both of my parents.  I tried (not very successfully) to also be there for my daughter.  And I missed very few days in my classroom of 18 at-risk preschoolers.  I thought I could do all of this.  I thought I was handling life from a spiritual platform.  But, alas, too much was too much.  The back finally called it and to bed I went.
Over this past week-end I went to see the film RACE TO NOWHERE.  If you haven't heard of this, do check out the website.  It clearly speaks of the adult need to not only wear out ourselves, but our children, too.  Oh, I believe in living life to the fullest!  I say on almost a daily basis two things:  I need more than one life, and anyone who is bored is participating in one of the deadliest sins.  Yes!  Let's be alive!  Let's explore and stretch.  Let's learn something new everyday.  Let's step up and serve those around us.  But guess what?  Let's also sit on the porch in the rain and listen to it.  Let's take a nap now and again.  Let's take the dog and the kids for a walk and name birdsongs.  Let's put down the lists and pick up that book that has something to say to our hearts and spirits.
How can we teach our children to listen to their souls if our example is to drown our own?  How can we tend what most needs tending when we are exhausted, over-extended, and swamped with frantic folly?  What really matters?  No.  What REALLY matters?
How can we ever expect (or hope for) systems to get healthier and serve better until each one of us finds our way to our own deeper callings and truths?  How can we demand systems to take the pressures off, to come back to humane ways of dealing with people until we each find our own balance and humanity?  Unless it makes sense in our own lives, unless we implement health in our own homes and souls, unless we are willing as individuals to look into our own faces and see the present need... we'll never be able to evoke the changes this tired, dear world is begging for.
Go now, my beloveds, and rest.

When I stepped outside this morning, all of me, every sense, every thought, every emotion was greeted by the hint of Spring.  I so appreciate the time in which to realize this, to savor this, to merge with the birthing that is taking place in nature.  My veins pulse a deeper purple.  My lungs breathe a clearer sigh.  My arms and legs turn to music, and my eyes glisten with tears that cannot help but surface in the majesty of this moment.  My life is not glamorous or glitzy.  There is very little money, very little room for much outside of paying the bills.  This is teaching me to go deeper.  This is enabling me to dive into creativity and ingenuity. And it's helping me to laugh, to delight in what just... is.   I made suet for the birds today since I didn't want to spend money on pre-made cakes, and it turned out... surprisingly well!  I relished creating this with odd and ends hiding in my pantry... goo sticking to my fingers as I mixed, such that I felt like a kid making mudpies again!  The chickadees and soon to be yellow goldfinch were chittering arias as I loaded their feeder!  It's okay.  We're all going to be okay.
After I cleaned up, I took the time to work on an upcoming mailing for World Day of Prayer.  A friend of mine has me send cards I design to two men in prison, and as I wrote their addresses on the envelopes, I imagined what their day looks like.  No opportunities to feed the birds or embrace bright colors or freely do the things they most want to do.  And then, this little card will come to them with a photo of a blue orchid, and it will speak to them of goodness and the power of beauty and prayer.  My hands create, and their hands will hold what has fed me.
I don't want to live my life easy.  I want to live my life real, authentic, open to what is loving and painful, barren and abundant.  And I want my life, my simple little life, to be fuel, to be grace, to be hope for anyone imprisoned by walls or systems or illness.  I want to be the intersection of winter and spring.  You can meet me here.  Come as you are.  Bring what you've got.  It's all good enough.

I am so thankful for young love, the entwining of hearts and bodies and souls... fresh, trusting, alive, in the now.  We can't get enough of each other.  We can't get enough of the beauty that is so close to our skin.  We drink and drink and drink for a thirst that is never quinched.  We can't wait to share our thoughts and dreams and sadnesses.  We yearn.  We believe.  We love the hope of a long future together.

I am so thankful for weathered love, the wrinkled lines impressed upon faces and memories that express the joys and sorrows experienced along the winding road of life.  We know one another as we know ourselves.  We trust our journey together and separate from one another.  We love our history as we once loved the fresh beginning.  And we take none of this for granted.  We still yearn.  We still believe.  And we still hope for a long future together.

I am so thankful for love as one who stands alone... the single people who cook small meals with great attention, who find loving connections through nature and cats and dogs and art.  We understand quiet spaces and solitude as burdens and as gifts that carve us out and open us up.  We reach out to others in similar lifestyles, grasping as only single people can, that relationships are everything.  We yearn.  We believe.  And we hope, for ourselves and for others, the grace to live love in all of its facinating forms.

What if we gathered up all of the young love and all of the weathered love and all of the single love and made a new government office called "The Only Way."  What if we took all of the excitement and energy of young love and all of the balanced, nurturing wisdom of weathered love and all of the quiet strength of single love into public schools?  What if we took passion and healing and attention to the hearts of misguided powerhouses?  What if we stood with our thirst and our history and our grace with all of those impoverished, all of those unheard and unseen, all of those beautiful souls lacking in love, understanding, or simple necessities?  What if young love and weathered love and the love of those who stand alone joined hands and decided to love the unloveable back to life?  What if we declared love rather than war, relationship rather than division, simplicity over confusion, and process and trust over competition and fear?

The essence of this life is always, ultimately about love.
Egypt, North and South Korea, Haiti, Austrialia, Afganistan, Gaza, Louisiana, homeless shelters, retirement homes, hospitals, airports, schools, government offices, insurance companies, rehabilitation centers, military bases, our own homes... the only way to find our way, to heal our way... is to show up and give what we've got.