I don’t
know which David Orr penned the following, but whomever he is, I really love
the sentiment:
The
planet does not need more successful people.
But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers,
storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to
join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with
success as our culture has defined it.
Amen. And Amen again. But saying it, and tattooing it on my hand or
forehead for everyone to read, means nada, nothing, if I don’t practice it
myself.
For too
long I worried about achieving success, acclaim, admiration, fame, and well—even
a best seller. I suspect age brings us
up short when one day we come face to face with reality and say to the cute
person in the mirror “You know, that probably won’t happen in your lifetime!” There’s a moment of grief, then
acceptance. Or it was like that for
me.
The
oddest thing happened, however, when I surrendered those kinds of
ambitions. Instead of climbing toward my
dreams, somewhere along the way I decided maybe, just maybe, it would be better
to start living out God’s dreams instead.
Forget mine. Mine are powerless
anyway, gone in a flash. God’s dreams
are bigger than that. I realized I could
simply do my part, no more, no less.
Depending on the day, and my shape or form for the hour, I can choose to
be a peacemaker, a healer, a restorer, a storyteller, and a lover of every
shape and form. Most days, if I choose
to do the right thing in the moment, I can live well in my place, whatever the
circumstance. It’s when I get out of my
place, typically projecting myself and my ‘stuff’ into the future, that I get
into a dither. Thank God, in God’s patience
with me, someone or something comes to snap me back out of that and into a
humble reality.
Sounds
so easy on paper. It’s not, in
practice. But we keep practicing. And practicing. And some days, we get to glimpse a success or
two. Makes it all worthwhile!
That’s
the view from my desk today, mental tattoos and all.
Grace
and joy,
Julie
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