6 November 2015

Connection:  The energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued;  when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.   ~Brené Brown

Day after day, I turn off the news, pierced through and discouraged by the reports of violence, loss, atrocity.  It is not the news I want to hear.

It’s cheap and easy to create drama and fear out of the world’s problems.  It’s much harder to face those challenges squarely, tease them apart gently and put our shoulders into rebuilding a better world.

I know it’s hard to do this, even on a personal level.  My hackles can raise at an opinion contrary to my own.  I can summarily discount someone I judge ‘conservative’ where I am ‘liberal’.  But, if I truly value community and not only society among the like-minded, I need to find the areas of commonality and connection.

Listening to the drone of ‘news’, it’s tempting to believe the worst about humanity.  Yet my personal experiences repeatedly belie that image.  My days are routinely bettered by others’ acts of kindness, by a generous smile when I least expect it, by the courage and caring of the world on 9/11, by a texted video of a mother and her children tickling, giggling, hugging.

Almost whenever and wherever, if I’m willing to open up my heart to the hearts around me, I find community.