Warning: This is hard and I need you to survive…

All of my life has been about beginnings and endings, commencement and completion. I have been driven hard and fast by goals, the urge to prove the naysayers wrong and the socially supported outcomes based “Get’er done” mindset.

I have chased this dream, overcome that challenge and pushed through whatever was in front of me and in the name of what really? We do all of this stuff that we call living and to what end? Many years ago, one of my early seminary professors; Dr. Rick McCall posed a question to his Liturgy class in the context of understanding the sacred intent of our actions. Today that question returns to me; “Why do this?”

As I sat quietly by her bedside early this morning, I realized a quiet truth; that life will trick us into believing that chasing the dreams is the stuff of life and the reason that we are here. Well, I have learned the most important part of anything is neither the beginning nor the end, it is it is the isness and allness of everything in between. Every breath is an opportunity to inspire another. It is what stirs us to action pushes us to keep going. It is almost as if I know how to keep going because I have witnessed others carry on through both hell and high water.

I find my help in knowing that if I am going to do something extraordinary with my life, it has to not be for or about me and or my success or failure. My life has to be about helping others discover, kickstart, jumpstart and set their purpose for being in motion. This is how I survive! So in turn my survival is linked to all others around me and their survival is linked to mine. Loosely translated, we need each other to survive.

No more will I spend a single moment of focus on starting this, completing that or checking of these boxes so that I can do this or that. My life’s purpose is bound up and wound up into the moments in between here and there, or as Iyanla once named them; “meantime experiences.”

If you are not careful, you will miss the goodness of others because you are far too focused on the endgame, some forgettable outcome or the illusion of the finish line. The real Truth for me, is my life has never been about me, it’s always been about you, all of you, those of you who dare to read on beyond my words and into your own story of being and becoming. I am here collecting my thoughts and writing these words not just because they are therapeutic for me, but for those of you who dare to live on, go on, love on and fight on. Yes, you!

There was my life before today and there is my life right now. I am not sure why this is such a pressing thought today, but is share it with in love.

My closing thought comes from a quote that is etched on the surface of soul that came rushing through my tears as a reminder of what matters most.

Excerpted from President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, at Rice University, Houston, Texas

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

#doitanyway #inthistogether