Good Morning, Great Creator!
Well, the weather’s been really great here – summer-like temperatures for over a week now. We have blue skies again this morning, with a chance of showers rolling in this evening and tomorrow. It looks like more seasonal temperatures for next week.
Yesterday, I wrote about the power we have to choose. And, personally, I invoked that power. Rather than create the to-do list needing completion, I chose to follow my impulse and inspiration. I’m quite satisfied with the results.
I had the opportunity to bear witness to struggle, courage, and heroic selflessness. All this, by attending an elementary school musical.
I’ve written before about what an opportunity the performing arts offer. To risk putting one’s self in the spotlight; either transforming into a character with personality and memorized lines, vulnerably sharing one’s voice or musical abilities, or revealing one’s self in choreographed movement – it’s an act of self-creation and self-expression, while letting what feels like the whole world watch.
For many of the student performers yesterday, I’m sure this was one of the most terrifying, most brave things they’ve done in their young lives. To them, this is Broadway.
When one student fumbled and lost his line, my heart hurt for him. What a bare, open moment.
Yet, he whispered to the on-stage narrator for help; who, without missing a beat, seamlessly folded the character’s line neatly into the narration. It was masterful.
The scene ends. The play goes on.
I watched as, off-stage in the darkness, the student who forgot his line wiped at some tears.
But, he was right back on-stage and ready at the start of the next scene.
And, after the performance, he gave the narrator a heartfelt “Thank you!” as they shared big smiles.
When we regularly practice risk, we expand the volume of our lives. We reach outward, we go deeper, and we climb ever higher.
In no other way does our world expand so pointedly and dramatically, except through this concerted effort and commitment to reach beyond our perceived borders.
You may believe that if you risk regularly, you will get knocked down too often; that you will get too hurt and broken. That you will become calloused, insensitive, and hardened; or else, you won’t survive.
In actuality, you will learn how resilient you are; you will see your strength and fortitude, how much you can endure. But, you’ll also practice your puzzle-solving and resourcefulness.
You’ll stop seeing risks as painful episodes to endure and survive, and instead see them as challenges to play with, as you practice and deepen your skills and self-knowledge.
I feel so blessed to have witnessed exactly the experience I had yesterday. The humanity, vulnerability, and kindness on that stage, and between those two hearts, spoke emotionally to me.
For me, the play within the play — each person’s vulnerability, and the opportunity to aid and support one another. Moving and beautiful.
These challenges are with us, and around us, every day – in our lives, and in the lives of loved ones and strangers. We are all in the play, each with our challenges and stumbles.
Watch for it and be open – to pick yourself up and persevere when you stumble; to not be too proud or too scared to ask for a hand when you need it; and to offer your own hand to another, when you are able.
We are all angels for each other, walking each other home.
Today’s Prompt:
A Risk List.
Make a list – one goal for this week, two risky goals for this month, two more risky goals for the next six months, and one Big, Risky Goal by this time next year.
Write them out, with their completion dates, and post them in a space where you will see them every day.
Love and Lessons, Everywhere around me. Thank you, my Dear Guides!
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