Rachel Reiman became a favorite author in 2002 when I discovered her book “Kitchen Table Wisdom”. Not long ago, I caught an NPR podcast interview with her from 2001. She was retelling a tender piece of her family history first told in her book “My Grandfather’s Wisdom”. Her grandparents came to America from Russia to escape the slaughter of Jews. They escaped Russia with very few things from their lives there. As a result, once they found refuge, they experienced hunger as they had never known before. In the early years of their new life in America, everything was hard. But, when they were finally established and their lives were thriving, they were known for having the fullest refrigerator on the block. 

It was almost a family joke how full her grandmothers’ refrigerator always was. Her grandmother vowed to never again be hungry, or to allow any friend or family member to go hungry she also never took for granted the blessing of abundance. So, if you happened to open her grandmothers refrigerator and say, an egg, rolled out from within the folds of all that food and broke open on the floor, you might have have heard her grandmother say, “Ah! Today, is a good day! Today, we will have a sponge cake!”.

We are living in a rapidly changing world. In less than one generation, we have seen our lives shift dramatically from lives that could easily be seen as abundant, generous, safe and secure to lives on the brink or even over the edge of scarcity, uncertainty and despair. More and more, almost on a daily basis, I encounter people experiencing anger, fear and, what they classify as depression. 

I believe we are suffering a grieving of the world some of us feel we are watching slip through our fingers. I believe there is a collective sorrow among many people surrounding our country’s reputation on a global scale. I believe we are viscerally feeling the pain our brothers and sisters are experiencing in the recent fires and losses in California, in the meaningless and brutal shootings in our schools, our places of worship and all the other ways people from all over the world are seemingly being ripped from the lives of those they love. And I believe more and more people here among us in this valley are experiencing a sense of fear and helplessness that for many of them, is quite foreign.

There are a few sayings that have been around for a long time; most of us have heard them, many of us have used them. 

They are things we may have heard our grandparents or our parents say, things that didn’t exactly make sense to us but sort of rang with a truth that we may have chalked up to leaner times than we ourselves have ever personally known. In other words, if we thought about them at all, we may have not quite gotten it but we heard them often enough to remember them. 

One, is the idea that it’s important for us to think Globally and to act locally. At least in my life, that particular quote is fairly recent. I never heard my mother, father or grandparents say that. And it may mean different things to different people but for me, in my world these days, it has been a helpful reminder that the difference we can make begins at home. That’s not to say, that some people do not go to other countries, crossing oceans and vast expanses of landmass to volunteer their time for others in need; because I know there are people who do that. 

But many of us do not and because of the need being so great, for so many, we can begin to feel helpless to make a difference and we can forget, in our fretting and wringing of hands about the ‘state of the union’ and the ‘state of the world’, that meaningful change always begins slowly and steady and small. And it always begins, at home. And by “at home” I am referencing what we carry and hold and feed in our hearts. The old adage, “No use crying over spilt milk” means that the milk has spilled, the toothpaste is out of the tube, the egg is broken on the floor. What we can turn those sayings into, sometimes, are just lessons; lessons on being more careful or in understanding gravity or in remembering to think before we speak. And sometimes we can turn lemons into lemonade and broken eggs into sponge cakes. 

When our lives are moving along more or less as we expected they might and hoped they would and worked hard to ensure that they do, our reality feels pretty good. It feels positive. 

We know that there are wars being waged and most of us, whether we mean to or not, hear about tragedies and natural disasters and we may even occasionally brush up against them in our personal lives. But, not to the extent, or to the degree, that it feels like we are now, collectively, as a community and as a country. And in addition to all that is going on ‘out there’ many of us are also experiencing aging, aging into a time in our lives where looking at end of life becomes almost impossible to ignore. But fantastically enough, end of life, for once, is not the main focus of what I am going to talk about. One small side bar about that though is that I am hearing from people who feel that end of this life as we know it might actually be preferable to what we are creating in our living. I won’t say that thought is disturbing or frightening but it certainly gets my attention in a thoughtful and provocative way. And may very well be something to brush off and excavate at a later time.

So, here we are. And the world is crazy and the sky is falling and the planet is on fire and when she isn’t on fire she is flooding and cracking open and exploding and doing everything she can to get our attention. And it’s working. We’re scared. And, as all animals do, when we experience the trauma of fear, we have very primitive built in responses. We freeze, we fight or we flee. However, we are not primates of the most basic order. We have an understanding, as spiritual beings with thumbs and language, of the power of another choice. The understanding of the power of choosing to make it better by staying put and reaching out and offering kindness and eye contact and by exposing our most intimate vulnerability, an open unguarded heart.

I believe can change the tide of fear, hopelessness and greed. 

I believe we can focus our energy here, at home, by being more present to our immediate surroundings and less focused on the sphere outside of what it is we can actually touch through our daily living. We can be more present to our neighbors, we can look a stranger in the eye and offer a greeting of concern. I believe we can be more mindful of and more present to how we are with one another. I also believe, we reap what we sow; and I’m not talking about spinach and corn and root vegetables. I am talking about goodness and the power of being what we want to see. If we are marinating in fear, frightened of the future, angry with the present state of affairs, worried about the next hour; we will reap more of the same. The world really will reflect back to us, what we are sending out to it.

My mom used to make my siblings and me want to scream with her use of the Golden Rule. 

She was very big on the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Reap what you sow. Be the change you want to see. These are not empty missives. We are in a reflective relationship with the world. And when we are consciously mindful of being in charge of what we put forth, and what we choose to put forth is an offering of love, kindness, compassion, trust, hope and goodness then what is reflected back to us is the love, kindness, compassion, trust, hope and goodness we sent forth.

We can change the world. We can change it and we do change it, every day. One breath at a time. One kindness at a time. One moment of compassion, forgiveness and understanding at a time. One spongecake at a time.

In everything there is something of goodness. Sometimes it’s very well disguised and deeply hidden. And, still, it is there. In everything. Something of goodness. 

I believe it is time for all of us to dig out our rose colored glasses and wear them proudly and often and begin anew to see the world through eyes that look for the nuggets of gold and the silver livings in the shifting sands of time and disease and disaster. It doesn’t mean we get off scott free. It does not mean we will not suffer. And it does not mean we pretend that everything is all right. But our suffering itself can be meaningful and something beautiful can come from it.

Yes, our hearts break. Our eyes grow weary with tears and our bodies ache some days under the weight of all that is wrong and sad and unknown. But, we can choose to be better than all of that. And I believe if we are to survive, we absolutely must shift our thinking and control our brains and touch our neighbors and one another with love.

One person at a time. One voice at a time. One kind word at a time. One slight, small, unnoticeable shift at a time.