On Dec. 20, 2012,
one day before the Winter Solstice, longest night of the year, the world,
according to the Mayans, ended. The next morning found me still sitting here
watching the rain, just as I am today. Lightening and thunder are predicted,
but no meteors or Armageddon. Yet today’s rain is distinctly different from
rain before the End of the World for me personally, because my world did end in
a way on Thursday. And I would like to imagine that it also ended globally in a
way too.
On a personal
level, Thursday was the day that I realized that I am going to financially survive
putting all my children through college. For many years I have wondered about
this and my struggles to creatively manage challenging finances have been
stressful. But on Thursday, I made the second-to-last payment on my youngest’s
tuition for the spring semester and he will graduate in May. I know exactly how
much tuition I still owe, it’s not much, and I know I can pay it.
On Thursday I also
received a deluge of emails requesting my services as a grant writer in the
coming year. There is a terrific grant for Native tribes to establish their own
tribal justice systems and I secured this grant for a consortium of local
tribes last year. This year, in fact this past week (as the grant was announced
for 2013), I confirmed that the consortium (again) as well as three other
tribes want me to write the grant for them right after the new year.
Additionally, an old college friend of mine just started a new job this past
year and she brought me on board with the company as a contractual grant
writer. They are throwing lots of excellent work my way. Suddenly, I am in high
demand and am actually turning down work because I can’t do it all. Usually this
is my slow season, but not this year. The upshot is that instead of continuing
to borrow money, I began to pay off my debt on Thursday. I have a long way to
go in that direction, but I have picked up the shovel and started to dig out of
the hole. My world ended in an incremental significant way and a new world began
for me on Thursday.
That was the
personal. Here is the global. I have a ceiling fan in my bedroom (stay with me
here). There is a switch on the fan to change the direction in which it spins.
In one direction it blows the air down. In the other direction it sucks the air
up. When I flip the switch, the fan slows down to a halt and then slowly begins
to spin in the other direction, picking up speed. Do you know where this is
going?
I would like to
imagine that on Thursday the world reached that point of stoppage and began to
spin in the other direction; that in some unaccountable, imperceptible,
mysterious manner, our headlong rush to destruction as humans on the planet
stopped spinning in that direction and began to spin in the opposite. “You may
say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one” (John Lennon) – I still
believe this could happen. What if? What if
Thursday really was the End of the World and we are about to start
digging out? About to enter an age of peace, reconciliation, nonviolence,
respect for and sensitivity to the cultures of others, good stewardship of the
planet and our natural surroundings, justice, fairness; in short, a world that
allows the human spirit to shine with all the potential within it. What if.
It is not too late
to change the planet. Let’s start. Do whatever small actions you can in your
life to make that change begin. Envision it. Visualize it. Create it. Manifest
it. Here is my thought for 2013: Be
more transformative than adaptive.
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