Sunday Best – July 6, 2025
This past week I was lucky to be surrounded by some caring, committed humans who were all seeking reflection and connection and maybe, possibly, meaning. In one conversation a mention was made of poet Joy Harjo’s comment that in tumultuous times – which may indeed be all times – we are called to fly a little.
On a long desert road trip that followed, I found myself singing along to top hits of the 80’s (obviously), and wondering where all of the saxophones in pop music have gone. (Woodwinds 4-eva!)
Lo and behold, these two dots are connected.
The saxophone is so human. Its tendency is to be rowdy, edgy, talk too loud, bump into people, say the wrong words at the wrong time, but then you take a breath, all the way from the center of the Earth, and blow. All that heartache is forgiven. All that love we humans carry makes a sweet, deep sound, and we fly a little.
– Joy Harjo, in conversation with Krista Tippett
Dear ones, whether our lives feel steady or swirly,
whether through saxophone or spirit,
may we all find a way
to fly a little.
Sunday Best – June 29, 2025
It’s very interesting to me,
this dual citizenship
between the stars and the stones.
I’ve just finished the quietly glorious Aflame by Pico Iyer, where he references this comment from the abbess of a Zen center. “You can’t live on Everest – you have to come back and do the dishes.” The view from the mountaintop might be sparkly and splendid, but it’s in the day to day routine of living – sometimes boring, sometimes downright tedious – that the deepest roots can take hold.
I’m most intrigued by the glimmers we get that unite the stars and stones. A quiet birthday spent with loved ones. A pat on the knee during a bumpy flight. A flash of cardinal in the evergreen.
Dear ones, whether today is starry or stony, let’s rest safe in the knowledge that they are infinitely, intricately intertwined.
Sunday Best — June 22, 2025
One of my dear friends has a custom of sending handwritten postcards, and each one arrives as an unexpected delight. There’s something so tangible and personal about handwriting, and increasingly rare in our digitized world.
This week I visited an exhibit of Seamus Heaney’s work, full of texts so familiar they feel like my hometown. And yet, seeing such well-known words in his own hand brought a spark of tears to my eyes. There’s a directness to ink on paper that collapses time and space, and opens up some more essential connection.
Dear ones, we are not all poets, or artists, or even correspondents. Sometimes all we can offer is a quick text or a glance across the table.
But however we can, let’s say the things that keep us just a little softer.
Let’s keep the further shore in sight.
Excerpt from The Cure at Troy,
by Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave…
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Sunday Best – June 15, 2025
Yesterday I read the news, full of stormy troubles near and far.
Yesterday I studied a peony as it exploded into bloom.
Yesterday I witnessed a class of beautiful brilliant graduates stepping into their lives.
Yesterday I dined with dear friends.
The news was full of dread and fear.
The rest was full of love and hope.
All of it vital.
All of it true.
Dear ones, let us take it all in, the painful and the perfect.
Let us fill our lives with joyful effort.
***
There is no greater gift than to be blessed by our own loved ones. Father’s Day is complicated for many, and yet we have all been fathered in some way – by family and friends and teachers and coaches and books and music and rivers and mountains. I am one of the very lucky ones who has a dad who taught her how to change a flat tire and how to offer a proper handshake and how to navigate life with resilience and honor. If you have ever cared for anyone or anywhere or anything with this kind of devotion, thank you. Your love improves our world.
Sunday Best – June 8, 2025
Have you ever reconnected with a long lost friend and been astounded all over again by how lucky you are to have known such a person?
Some of our luck is lived out day to day, ever visible, and some of it rests in the background, quietly compounding across the years.
Dear ones, may we recognize our great good fortunes, the luminous webs of connection that set our lives aglow.
May we shine for others in return.