O memory of painful time,

Are you seed or stone?

A dark and deadly tomb,

Or seed with life to bloom?

Only if I say, “I want you,”

Will I really know.”

O sprouting seed, are you angry?

At the dark and choking dirt?

What grates your tender shoot,

And blocks your chosen route?

Only if I say, “I forgive you,”

Will I really know.

O tender shoot, are you bargaining,

Demanding sun before you grow?

Or would you rather as the sun

Pour warm love on everyone?

Only if you say, “I forgive you first,”

Will I really know.

O roots, do you wander depressed

Searching in drought for tears?

Or do you need more sun?

To dry the tears that run?

Only if I say, “Forgive me,”

Will I really know.

O golden wheat, can you accept 

The gifts of pulsing seed?

Are you wheat or golden bread?

Are you bread or Christ instead 

Only if I say, “Thank you,” 

Will I really know.

Unless a green or wheat

falls to the Earth and dies 

it remains alone, 

but if it dies 

It bears much fruit. 

John 12: 24

By Matthew and Dennis Linn

Please read the following stanza 4 or 5 times, preferably out loud.

O memory of painful time,

Are you seed or stone?

A dark and deadly tomb,

Or seed with life to bloom?

Only if I say, “I want you,”

Will I really know.”

(Poet Unknown)

I’m caught (enriched, inspired, motivated) by “seed or stone.” Will you, will I, respond to life-challenges and permit them to make us hard, angry, lifeless, indifferent – and be as stones?

Or, seed?

Tomb or bloom?

I’m choosing seeds.

What about you?

Big victory today. 

My new SA ID and passport are in hand. I applied for both several months ago when I was visiting for a week. I went to an Home Affairs location in the late afternoon and was overwhelmed with the service.

This morning the line was at least 100 strong (and that was outside the building).  

Anyway — they’re secured.

I’ve witnessed several times over the years that Safricans tend to greet each other as long lost friends once they assemble at the departure gate for the flight home.

Dulles International’s Gate 8 became a reunion of sorts as South Africans of all ages merged after their separate but shared experience of ‘Merika.

I heard the chatter, even joined in. 

“Whole neighborhoods with no fences or even security,” says one. 

“My sister doesn’t even lock her house,” brags another. 

Then, after the 14 hour flight, I found it rather beautiful when “Drift Away” played on the walkway speaker system and several over-tired travelers sang along as we entered the airport building.

I confess I did a little “wanna get lost in your rock and roll” myself.

Perfect flight, warm welcome at immigration, and now to get a little rest.

Talked my ear off. And, I loved it. And, well, I confess, I did my fair share, too.

[I can hear Morey in 10th Grade English yelling at me for starting not one, but two sentences with “and” and I whisper mind your own business.]

Topics covered: insurance industry (he’s off to Rhode Island); having a new grandson (he has one); adoption (he’s adopted); rearing boys (he has two, both of whom are “launched”); Memphis (a city he associates with fabulous memories and he met his wife there, one son was born there); car trips, Sedona, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, to name a few……

I told this fabulous interesting man a few things too.

As my mother would sing, “a stranger is just a friend you do not know…..”

On a practical note Dulles is huge and it’s not uncommon to land at a gate that’s miles from your next departure gate. Not this time. Landed at C21 and departing from C8…….. just down a short drag.

Heading to South Africa I stopped at the bookstore in Concourse A before my first flight and saw Malcolm Gladwell’s “Talking With Strangers.” 

I decided against it.

This was for sheer care and concern about whomever would be seated next to me on the long-haul from Dulles to Cape Town ‘cause if I sat with someone reading a book with that title I’d go into immediate oh-no-please-don’t mode.

It’s not that I won’t or don’t talk to strangers but when you have to read a book about it it’s likely you’ll want to get your money’s worth and practice on the first one you see and before you’ve even finished the book and haven’t gotten to the when-not-to bits.

Oh, I know, people have met their Dreamboats on flights and are ever so grateful for Pan Am’s delay between Idlewild and Fort Myers 45 years ago when the stranger to whom they chatted is now still by their side.

I know it happens.

Most encounters are short-lived and, thankfully, benign.

I’m glad I didn’t get the Gladwell book and I’m sure it’s as good as all his others but I couldn’t.

Just couldn’t. Sheer care for the man or woman with whom I’m about to sit just wouldn’t permit it.

Sorry, Malcom.

• Allowing each other to change, to acquire new, positive habits and attitudes. We say it’d be nice if this one would change this about herself and that one would change that about himself, but just let them try. Someone in the family will sabotage whoever seeks self-reinvention. Change in one requires shifts from all.
• Allowing each other to be refreshingly spontaneous, to grab hold of exciting opportunities, to seize moments of joy. We like the idea of all of that but soon enough others will rally to reign him in or get her under control. Mr or Miss Courageously Happy will find sharp curtailment from those committed to dim and dreary living. 
• Welcoming, permitting each other to take personal growth risks. Risks are encouraged so long as they are limited enough to be no risk at all.
• Letting go of the dream or the ideal and accepting reality. Despite our best efforts families rarely turn out as we’d hoped.
• Identifying the cumulative power of all of our combined family-yesterdays. This is to accept that generations of family history have the power to shape our immediate experiences and our tomorrows. Understanding we are not as autonomous as we may think is a hard pill to swallow. 

In a world where you and I and children are often told we can be anything we want to be, I’d suggest we all:

• Be kind to others, aware of others, and make room in our hearts for those who are less fortunate than we are, understanding that “less fortunate” may (or may not) have to do with money and opportunity. 

• Be assertive, be clear about what we need and what we will and we will not do while understanding that being assertive is not the same as being stubborn.

• Be generous with our time and resources by doing our part to empower others when and where it is possible. Promoting others ahead of ourselves almost always results in rewards that come in beautiful and unexpected ways.

• Be as prepared as possible for our daily tasks and for achieving our short and long term goals. Doing our homework will not only save a lot of time and energy and probably money, it is respectful to those with whom we will need to interact. 

• Be forgiving. Very few people – although there are some – intend to hurt others. May we offer a wide berth to the failings and frailties of others given that we may find the need for similar treatment from others. 

• Be inclusive with others by reaching out beyond our established circles and established routines.

Are you discouraged? Are you at the end of your tether? Looking for answers? Seeking questions?  

Look for the spark, the spark of life, it lies within, deep within you – and it is a good place to start when wrestling with discouragement. 

Finding answers, uncovering the antidote for whatever is at the heart of discouragement is not somewhere “out there” as an empowering truth hiding in a new, or old, book you are yet to discover.

It is not in some powerpoint presentation from a speaker you are yet to hear or on a social media platform seeking to solve therapeutic issues.

It’s not lurking to be revealed in some undiscovered podcast. 

The spark is deep within you.

It is located within you in the place where spirit meets soul, the ven intersection where thinking, planning and your longings, even confiused longings, overlap; the place where desire for worship and the need for vulnerability and transparency merge into one large inner-venue, the place we typically call Self.

The deep place – this beautiful and holy atrium within you – is not easily identified or accessed and yet it drives everything about you (and me).

Also, although it deserves full attention, it will, ironically, not be found in a hurry. Oddly, we are usually very familiar with this place in the inner-Person and yet can live long lives offering little or no attention perhaps in the manner an indifferent spouse may do in a failing flailing marriage.

The spark within the Self, the beautiful Self will not race nor be rushed, but while it is raced, rushed, scheduled, it is unlikely to turn from spark to a comforting, leading flame.

Want to find it?

Get a pencil, paper and a quiet place and sit, sit, sit and think and resist the urge to pick up your phone or check your email.

When you have calmed your inner-being, try to answer these questions: 

What do I really want?

What do I have to offer?

What am I really good at?

Do this for a few hours every week by lingering in this holy space and let the words flow into phrases until they find their sentences and let the sentences run free, unmonitored, released to declare whatever it is this deep place within you wants to declare. Do this for a while – days, weeks, months, make it a repeated retreat of habit – and there is a real possibility your anxieties and any sense of desperation will find inner-calm and your inner-spark will emerge and build into a guiding light to renew and refresh your life and connect you with things far more important than the distractions your phone and so much else, will persist in providing.