This one little icon, tucked away in a crumbling church in South America gave me hope that women survive, and our stories of struggle and adventure are the evidence of the divine at work in our world.
...today, in this moment, perhaps one of the most radical things that I can actually DO is choose love. I can choose to embody love. I can choose to BE love and DO love and ACT love. In the sacred places, in the secular places, in my classroom, with my clients, in my friendships. I can choose to overcome the hatred with love. Because no matter who you are, no matter your faith tradition or sexual orientation or gender identity, and no matter your theology, love mobilizes, love listens, love changes, love softens, love moves, love heals, and in the end, love always wins.
It's funny because I have roamed the world looking for happiness. I have been to the ends of the earth and back hunting it down. I have literally traversed the globe. And when I turn down the panic long enough, and stop my stomping and yelling, I discover that happiness has actually been looking for ME all along.
I've spent so much time wondering why. Why did things go this way rather than that? Why a left and not a right? Why is the grass green and not purple? Could it have been different? Should it have been? Just a rocky pile of answerless questions that I pick up and lug around in the back of my mind.
I will never arrive. I will never wake up and think to myself, “well good, I finally made it…all the answers are found and I’ve just arrived!!” Never. It will not happen. I will never meet all the goals and check off all of items on the to do list and I will never feel like I finally made it (whatever "it" is). As disappointing as this may sound, it actually means that I can stop delaying gratitude and appreciation and rest and joy, and just be here now. This moment is my life.