Friends, on this solstice weekend, I send you a favorite reading.

Wait Without Hope, T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

 

Dear ones, 

Here’s to the darkness and light.

The stillness and dancing.

The faith, hope, and love of the waiting.

This year’s book list is running a bit behind, but here are a few favorites recently shared with my team. With more to follow!

The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Mad Farmer Poems, Wendell Berry

Co-Intelligence, Ethan Mollick

The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut

The Corporate Life Cycle, Aswath Damodaran

Each year, there comes a day with an inevitable conclusion: it’s time to get the winter coat out of the closet, the one that is Really Warm. As I snuggled into its puffy splendor, I was reminded that I spent most of last winter with a breeze blowing right through my middle, thanks to a missing button. Somehow across all those chilly months, I couldn’t find time to replace it.

Following an extended search for my sewing kit, I finally tended to the long-neglected repair. It took all of ten minutes, and now I’ll be toasty warm all season.

Dear ones, in this hustling bustling time, full of urgent demands,

What might need tending?

What might need mending?

Whether friendships or well-being or buttons,

May we bask in the warmth that follows.

This time of year in Boston can seem endlessly dark. Not depressing, or dire – I mean actually dark.

It is dark when I go to work. It is dark when I return. 

It felt like midnight when I stomped down the pitch black street the other day, though it was probably only about 6pm. As I turned the corner, I was blinded by a gorgeous swirl of color. The church I pass almost every single day hosts a treasured array of Tiffany windows, but somehow I’d never seen them alight from the inside out.

What glories I’ve been passing by, lying in shadow on sunny days. 

Dear ones, our dark seasons can be hard.

But sometimes, maybe,

the dimming of one light allows another to shine forth.

Tonight I attended a concert that did not go at all as planned. The lead singer was ill, and there was a last minute scramble for substitute musicians, which left the audience a little deflated. Several folks left before the performance even started, leaving the small venue feeling even smaller.

Friends, it was magnificent.

Four musical geniuses showed up together, whole hearted and generous and willing to go wherever the music led them. Each song had an unrehearsed unfolding to it, surprising even the players themselves as it developed.

Dear ones, sometimes our most careful plans unravel.

When they do, may we gather, humble and courageous.

May we be met by others who cheer our progress.

May we weave a glorious world together.