Three Unexpected Ways to Meet the Moment
These days, when I’m making dinner or doing the dishes, I’ve been bellowing, “This Little Light of Mine” at the top of my lungs. Or I'll crank the Bruce Springsteen live version up good and loud.
It’s an antidote to fear; it gets me out of my worrying mind and into my heart, which seems to be a little more generous, interesting, creative than my head.
So in this time when there is plenty to fear, and plenty still to love, believe in, and work for, here are a few off-the-beaten-path ways we can meet this moment.
Those Little Connections
At the bakery, I was using a gift card. Can you read me the code at the bottom? the cashier asked, it’s a bit long.
It was indeed a bit long. And for some reason, I thought of actor Richard Dreyfus doing a dramatic reading of the iTunes End User License Agreement, which is also a bit long.
So I did an unsolicited dramatic reading of the 16-digit code, taking a few drawn-out pauses for emphasis and then bringing it home with a big flourish.
The cashier stared. Then he grinned. That keeps the day interesting, doesn't it? he said with a chuckle. And he stuck an extra sticker on my box of cookies.
Something I’ve come to understand is that we humans are always looking for signals that our communities are going to make it through, going to be ok. And the more I can hold that in awareness, the more I realize these little connections can be acts of assurance, of love, of grace.
The world may be burning, but in this moment, we gave each other water.
We don’t know the future, but these little connections can fortify us to meet what comes with a fuller heart. Which is an essential ingredient for getting us through to the other side.
Thanking the Overlooked
There’s a refrain I often hear from folks I work with: “My legislators are good on this stuff, so there’s no point contacting them.”
I get it, I say, but there’s another part of the story that’s worth telling.
Then we look at some tough data together.
In 2024, 10% of Congress retired. While you might think good riddance to bad rubbish, I can tell you I worked with some of those members and they were decent, kind, working to do right by their constituents and country. In 2026, nearly 11% of Congress is not running again. And I’d bet that number will only rise.
Public service is no picnic these days. Gratitude helps keep the good ones in the game. And it can help shift our gears from fear to love.
Here are a few ways to say thanks!
Caring for the Soul
When Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh heard that the U.S. had bombed Bến Tre during the Vietnam War, he wrote these few lines:
I hold my face in my two hands.
No, I am not crying.
I hold my face in my two hands
to keep the loneliness warm—
two hands protecting,
two hands nourishing,
two hands preventing
my soul from leaving me
in anger.
I’m not sure what the soul is. But I do know if we lose it, that can’t be good. Soulless has never been something to aspire to.
I’ve been thinking about grace recently. “Grace happens in spite of something,” wrote Paul Tillich, "it happens in spite of separateness and alienation. Grace means that life is once again united with life, self is reconciled with self.”
Grace also has a habit of showing up when it’s least expected and most needed.
En route to the Raleigh-Durham Airport, I was in a multi-car crash. Mere seconds after impact, nearly every person in the crash was running to strangers’ cars, banging on windows and yelling, “Are you ok? Are you ok?” Fortunately, the only thing that was hurt were a bunch of fenders.
At the end of a nail-biter of a soccer game, the losing team’s coach was the first out on the field to wholeheartedly shake the winning coach’s hand.
A friend was having a crushing day. In the midst of it, her car wouldn’t start. She white-knuckled the steering wheel for a moment, then turned to me, her whole body surrendered to everything she didn’t ask for. “You can start your day over at any point,” she said almost reverently.
Grace, I suspect, returns us to ourselves. Which is to say, Returns us to our souls.
In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King wrote about the difference between a thermometer that "recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion” and a "thermostat that transformed the mores of society."
There are a lot of thermometers reflecting the panic and fear of this moment. But we could use more thermostats who set the temperature: who help to dial down the panic that can paralyze us and dial up the love that can transform us.
We could do that.