I downloaded this unattributed image from Facebook the other day. It got me thinking about a phone call I’d been on recently about strategic planning and the difficulty I sometimes have with projecting out five years, ten years, etc. It got me thinking about call, vocation, charism, what I consider Good Being, and making a positive difference. I went down the path of the sorry state of much of the world and my conviction that there are good people trying to counteract the negativity, the despair, the hopelessness, injustice, violence, racism, and all sorts of -phobias….and how I hope, by my word, action, and attitude, to be one of those people.

I thought about the peaceable kingdom and the beatitudes; about waking up and putting my feet on the ground and using my unique way of being in this world, my skills and abilities, desires and creativity, within whatever context I find myself, to offer a space, however fleeting the interaction might be, to someone else and have them know that they matter, they are seen, they are valued, deserve care and respect, and where there is room for me, there is room for you.

I thought about snowflakes and the accumulation of their unique crystal structures being enough to crack tree branches; I thought of them gathering on shivering windowpanes and turning it into a work of art; I thought of the moments that I bear in my heart, in my marrow, my being, when someone has gently, simply, openly, made space for me and how that experience has freed me to do likewise.

There is a need for broad and long planning—I understand that. Of course there is. Elections, in their own way, are about planning. Budgets, laws, organizational structures… all elements. Without planning, we risk an inward collapse which does no one any good.

What, though, binds these elements into the stuff of daily manifesting the good God witnessed in the process of creation? Love. Care. Making room. Making small positive differences, one person, during one moment of one day of a week in a year, at a time.

This, my heart needs to believe. This, I can wrap my head around.