Addendum to Who Me? What?

Resources

I meant to include in each posting a few resources that were helpful to me at that point in the journey. I forgot to add them the first time, so this an extra blog post containing a few items that gave me hope at the outset.

Stories have been a favorite way to learn and to teach.  The Moth (a national storytelling program featured on npr and online) has a new book called The Moth Presents Occasional Magic:  True Stories about Defying the Impossible.  The stories are from many perspectives and cover many situations, and they certainly have entertained me and given me hope.

Music always inspires me.  I listened over and over to Sara Thompsen singing “Deep Peace.”  You can find it on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb-FAOe396U .

There was also a blessing written by Jan Richardson from her book Circle of Grace which I shared with many people early this year because it seemed so appropriate for activists and others discouraged and in despair over politics.  As I was learning that I had cancer, it seemed relevant to some of the experiences of myself and others in this new reality, and I read it often.

Blessed are you

who bear the light

in unbearable times,

who testify

to its endurance

amid the unendurable

who bear witness

to its persistence

when everything seems

in shadow

and grief.

Blessed are you

in whom

the light lives,

in whom

the brightness blazes—

your heart

a chapel,

an altar where

in the deepest night

can be seen

the fire that

shines forth in you

in unaccountable faith,

in stubborn hope,

in love that illumines

every broken thing

it finds.

Jan Richardson