Turn the Lights On

Saying hello and saying goodbye are part of the naturally occurring nuances in life. Some are more memorable than others. When I think of these customary greetings, I think of how a guest leaves your house: you follow them to the door, say goodbye, wave and then the door is shut. This is not profound, yet when I think of a guest coming into your home, you have to open the door before you can say hello. When I look out at 2024 from my proverbial cliff, I look at all that it has to offer and realize that I have a choice. I can keep the door shut, retreat into the sorrows of the previous year, become pond-water stagnant and never utter a greeting. Or I can choose to open the door, spread my arms wide and say Muraho! embracing all that is before me, believing that I will be stronger through it all.  Here is the story: Muraho, is how they say hello in Kinyarwanda, the language of Rwanda, Africa. Muraho is what I will be saying more frequently when my family packs up our entire house and mov

You're here and I see you. You look as you always do, awake smiling and alert. I see you. I see the dimness in your eyes and I know in that moment that there is a weight where your heart is struggling to beat. The effort to pump out oxygenated and refreshed blood to deliver energy and strength to your organs, your muscles and even to the brain that fuels your thoughts.  The weight is too heavy. It is there and it remains. Through good moments even, merely forgotten only to be felt again as the good moments fade and the stillness returns.  So heavy and draining.  It's not exhaustion and it is not fatigue.  It is a perpetual tiredness that drags like an anchor let down on a ship struggling to set sail.  Your lips are not parched; you are not thirsty. Your belly is full. Yet here you are in this state. Existing. Grateful, yet sad. Surrounded by people that make you happy and bring you joy.  Yet something is left unfulfilled.  A space that is empty and has been for a while. The con

Have you created your own kingdom?  Have you painted the canvas of yourself that you want others to see?  Carefully crafted in efforts to convince and show people that you are put-together, competent, capable, strong, able, dependable, clear-headed, desired, respectable...etc. Fill in the blanks.  What if it crumbles? And they see? All of it. Would it be the ruin of you? Or Would you finally be set free? "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, for ever. Amen."    Matthew 6:9-13

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ―  Rainer Maria Rilke   "You see this right here? This is where your visual field is reaching to and you need to be at least to here to drive legally in this state." The Dr.'s eyebrows were furrowed with her mask covering her mouth and nose as she looked up at me from the chart she was pointing at. The now familiar crease in-between her eyebrows seeming to soften just a bit. "But you probably saw this coming." "Actually, no. I didn't see this coming. This is a surprise." I respond. "I've known what my visual fi