Blog

Best Dog In The Field

It’s a circle of life thing.

I’ve been writing quite a bit in the last few weeks about new beginnings, about seeds pulled from their origin to fall and prosper on new ground. About the need to prepare yourself in all that you do, so that when opportunity plucks you from the place where you’ve grown comfortable, you’re ready to prosper and find the blessings waiting in the new place where you land.

At the end of it all, the time of the reaper comes. The winter descends, and your time in this life comes to an end. Hopefully, when that moment arrives, you’ll look warmly at the many opportunities that you were able to seize, and have few regrets over fertile ground you missed out of fear or uncertainty. You’ll smile as you move from this life that you’ve lived as the gift it’s been, and embrace the transformation into something much larger.

Early last week, I mourned the passing a year ago of a dog that was among the dearest and most devoted friends I’ve ever had. Colin and I hunted many fields together, until his eyes and ears failed him, and it became too risky to take him into the field any longer. I strive to be half the man he thought I was, and I hope to have a tiny fraction of the devotion he showed toward me. He lived many years past his prime, and in his final months I carried him up and down stairs. In the end, he suffered a stroke one day while sitting in my office, and I held him in my arms as I helped him pass from this life onward.

Colin never missed a chance to hunt. There’s no doubt in my mind that he could read my thoughts most days, and knew before I ever went to the gun cabinet when it was that we were going to the field to hunt. His enthusiasm for the thing he was born to do – find, point, and retrieve birds – defined every moment of every day for him. I have no idea how the mind of a dog works, but I can tell you that if they have any capacity for thought and reflection, he had no regrets at ever missing an opportunity, at ever passing up the chance to revel in Creation.

I took a friend hunting once. He watched Colin leap from the back of the truck, canvas the field like a fiend possessed for any scent of feather, pound through the thickest of brush in the hopes of finding a hiding place, never ready to stop. He shook his head over and over, saying he’d never seen such obsession and absorption in the joy of a task in his life as the experience of watching Colin succumb to the complete rapture of the hunt.

At that moment when I leave this life – hopefully someday far in the future – I hope to look back over my life, and be satisfied that I succumbed completely to the rapture of the many moments that the path of life presented to me. I hope that I’m satisfied that I allowed myself to obsess over and allow myself to be absorbed in the joys and blessings that surround me with every step.

I was reminded of mortality again at the end of last week, but that’ll need to wait until my next post. For today, I’m remembering my friend Colin, and wishing him happy hunting in that next place where he’s become…

Loss Of The Commons

Common Decency, Common Courtesy, and Common Sense – critical to the survival of a culture. While the definition of each of these might vary slightly culture to culture, I think there’s some foundational common ground.

As a culture, we seem to have lost our bearings with regard to this 3-legged stool that supports a culture. When it happened I’m not sure, but it feels like it’s been rapidly accelerating over the past 30 years. We’ve lost the ability to allow any disagreement into our dialogue, as we no longer have an understanding of how decency, courtesy, and sense can guide us to learn from one another when we disagree rather than hating and hurting one another.

Common Decency

The desire to treat our fellow human beings with respect and compassion. The willingness to forego some comfort or profit in order for another to be more comfortable or to feel some small gain. This notion of common decency is foundational to most religions. In the case of my own religion – Christianity – the entire religion is based on the teachings of a man who gave himself completely to not only teaching these principles, but to demonstrating them in the life he led.

But these principles seem hidden in our culture today, don’t they? There will always be mean-spirited people who lie and cheat and bully others, but a culture founded in common decency will shun and banish those people. How is it then, that people like Limbaugh and Hannity and Orielly and Beck and Olberman survive and thrive on the airwaves of our public square? How is it that Americans continue to shop at stores like Walmart who strive hard to assure that good jobs aren’t available in America, both by continuing illegal and immoral practices to assure that American workers can’t organize, and by producing every product they can overseas in countries that consistently support labor practices that most of us would consider slavery, child abuse, or worse?

We make decisions every day with our wallets – our continual vote in the marketplace. Every time we allow one of these abusive, lying, cheating bullies to appear on a TV that we watch, we cast a vote in favor of what they represent. Every time we make a purchase at a Walmart, we cast a vote in favor of what they represent. We have absolute power to simply set our jaw, and make them go away by refusing to support them and what they represent.

Yet we don’t. Why not? Our refusal to take a stand against these practices makes us complicit in their actions. Certainly supporting the concept of reasonable wages will make our prices rise, but the America I grew up in had the decency to allow my neighbor to make a living wage rather than force him to live in poverty so I can pay a little less for some trinket I might want to buy.

The lying, cheating, bullies are out in force right now as we run up to our election. Will we continue to swallow their pill of dishonesty and lack of common decency, or will we set our jaw and vote with a conscience rather than with our selfish greed?

Common Courtesy

I had dinner with a friend not long ago, and our conversation meandered around to courtesy. As common decency has crept further and further from our relationship palette, so courtesy has become less and less important. Courtesy is an expression of care, concern, and respect for another person. Extending a courtesy to another person is an open hand that lets them see the respect you have for them.

My daughter went through a period when she refused to let me open doors for her. She’s a strong-willed and intelligent young woman, who seemed to see having a man open a door as an expression of weakness on her part. As she’s grown up, I’ve noticed that she not only lets me open doors for her, but will actually pause slightly to give me the chance to open it. She’s come to realize how much it means to me when I’m able to express my respect for her by opening the door for her, and she’s learning to give this gift to me more often. She’s every bit as strong-willed as she ever was, and becoming more intelligent every day. And she’s learning the art of courtesy in a culture that’s working hard to keep her from doing so.

I should mention also that my daughter is teaching me a thing or two about courtesy as well. Although I really don’t care a bit about fashion, and have nearly zero fashion sense, I’m allowing myself to learn from her – how to identify “cute” shoes, what colors go together well, etc. I do this not because I really care about cute shoes, but because these are things that are important to her, and by learning from her, I give her a gift and a courtesy.

The courtesy that our children display is a perfect reflection of what we have taught them about how to express care, concern and respect for other people. How our generation behaves is far less important than how the next generation behaves, and the common courtesy we teach them has a very big impact on that behavior.

Common Sense

Common sense was, at one time, the true measure of a person. If a person has all the education in the world, but lacked basic common sense, s/he was considered to have little practical knowledge. If a person spewed rhetoric that couldn’t stand up to the rigors of logic, s/he lost all credibility.

It was important that a person be able to sew a button on a shirt if necessary, or to understand the most basic principles of how to put something together or to apply common repairs. This represented common sense, and the ability to understand things and solve problems. Today, such things have come to represent “common” labor, and fewer and fewer people can do these things. Worse, they’re often proud of their lack of common sense, making it clear that they don’t have the ability to perform these basic tasks, apparently unaware or uncaring of the lack of common sense this displays.

In the words of Teddy Roosevelt, “If a boy has not got pluck and honesty and common sense he is a pretty poor creature, and he is a worse creature if he is a man and lacks any one of those three traits.”

Lest anyone sense any taint of sexism in this statement, the reader should also know that in the year 1913 – well before there was any sense of gender equality in our culture, TR also said, “Much can be done by law towards putting women on a footing of complete and entire equal rights with man – including the right to vote, the right to hold and use property, and the right to enter any profession she desires on the same terms as the man.”…”Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man it should be paid as highly.”

The decline of common decency is directly related to the decline in common sense. It’s the loss of the common sense required to discern truth from fiction that’s allowed the ascendence of the liars, cheats, and bullies that are paid so much money by the media to spew their distortions and half-truths. The lack of common sense keeps us voting for people who spoon-feed us honey while destroying the orchard, and keep us spending money with multi-national corporations who are destroying the fabric of our economy.

Like every culture, ours is held up wholly by the 3 pillars of civilized behavior – Common Decency, Common Courtesy, and Common Sense. I question how much longer we can stand as these pillars erode around us. The power to rebuild them and make them strong lies completely in our hands. Will we pick up the tools and start to repair the extreme damage that’s already occurred.

Seeds and Journeys

If you’ve been following my last few blogs, you know that this is the time of year I’m particularly fascinated by the finches working the seeds out of the Rudbeckia and Echinacea seed-heads in my garden. Bobbing and swaying at the end of the stalk, they’re undeterred from their attraction to the seeds tucked into the drying seed-heads.

Many of the finches working tirelessly in my gardens this time of year are migratory – stopping to visit my gardens as they journey south. The seeds they coax from my garden are catching a ride through the air, beginning a journey south. They’ll fall on new ground, and find root in new soil, and transform themselves into a new plant in the season of warmth that’ll be coming soon.

It was a beautiful growing season this year. The Rudbeckia grew well, working hard to create buds that would transform into flowers that would attract bees, in turn transforming into ripe seed-heads to attract birds. And now, the garden has done all it can do, and the seeds are handed off to the finches. The journey toward transformation begins.

I saw my oldest son off on a great adventure this week. We flew to LA together, then shared a few beers at the airport while we waited for our next flights. When we parted – he for his gate that would take him to off to Southeast Asia, and me to my gate that would take me up to San Francisco to work for the week – we hugged each other and said goodbye, then walked our separate ways. I stopped after a few steps, and looked back to watch him walk away, till he turned a corner and was gone from my sight. I turned, and walked toward my gate.

I was glad I’d kept my eyes dry as we said goodbye, but I wasn’t able to keep them dry as I walked to my gate. The wet eyes came from pride at the bright and hard-working man he’s become, from shared excitement over his coming adventure, a little from the worry that every father must feel, and just a tiny bit for the loss I feel already at having him so far away from me.

All he’s done in his life to this point has been preparation for this adventure. Like the Rudbeckia plant that worked hard all summer to prepare itself for the finch, he’s worked hard to prepare himself for this moment of transformation. As I write these words, and the finches carry the Rudbeckia seeds south to new soil, his flight across the Pacific takes him to new lands in far-away places, to take root emerge again as the ongoing evolution of who he is becoming.

How often do we look at the life we lead and the seasons within that life as a continuum of growing seasons – where part of each season is the preparation and ripening of our “self” for our next journey of transformation? When the finches come looking for the seeds of transformation, will we have prepared them? If so, will we hand those seeds over and open the doors to new soil, or turn our heads down and hide from the opportunity to take wing and become again?

NOTE: Thanks to Tony Pratt for photographs


Jesse’s Adventure Begins

Jesse and I shared a few beers at the Red Carpet Club at LAX last night, then he got on his flight toward Hanoi, and I got on my flight to San Francisco. I really enjoyed myself, but must admit saying goodbye was tough.

My kids are all adventurers. Seems that each year, one or more of them is embarking on an adventure of some sort to one corner of the world or another. I love that about my children – that they are so confident and adventurous, that they embrace learning and becoming, that they face the whole world with a smiling spirit and outstretched arms.

Whenever each of them leaves on an adventure of one sort or another, the father in me always worries – how can I not? I always mourn just a little for my loss as they venture away from me. Most of all, the pride inside of me always overflows at the adventure they’re becoming, and the way they embrace life.

But this one’s a little different for me. Seems that each of these emotions I’ve come to expect is particularly amplified this time. Maybe it’s the combination of distance and time – a year’s a very long time! But fortunately, all the emotions are amplified, so with the greater worry and loss comes even greater excitement and pride.

I watched him walk away down the concourse toward his gate. Such a strong and confident man, showing little fear as he approaches the portal to the next him. I suppose I’ll carry that image with me for a long time – the image of him reaching the end of the concourse, and turning that corner out of my sight.

I must confess that one of the “amplifiers” this time is news we just received last week from some dear friends of many decades. They recently lost their son, who was not much older than Jesse. Of course, all across the world – every hour of every day – folks are leaving this life and moving on. But when it’s someone you know, and have known for so many years, who loses a grown child, it opens a dark and fearful place inside your soul. I think it’s natural to want to cling just a little more tightly to your own kids – to hug them a little closer – to worry just a little more.

So the image of Jesse turning the corner will stay with me, and I’ll worry just a little more than I usually do (though my kids would say that’s not possible…) The loss I feel already at having him so far away from me is strong and probably won’t get any better soon. But I’ll focus more keenly on the adventure he’s having, and I’ll look forward to emails and skype time.

And when I finally see him again, I’ve no doubt I’ll feel an amplified sense of wholeness when I hug him and feel he’s safe and close.

Cool October Drizzle

Having a bald head has its pros and cons.

It’s nice in the summer, as there’s no heavy mop of hair hindering the cooling ability that the head offers. It’s also nice at the end of a shower – one quick pass with the towel and my “hair” is dry!

Generally, cold and rain fall into the “con” category. That same heat-transfer capability that’s so nice in the summer is a real problem in the winter – I’ve got an arsenal of different thicknesses of beanies that I wear all winter to replace the nice insulating hair that left me some time ago.

Every now and then, though, the cold rain feels pretty good on my bald head. This morning was one of those occasions. We’ve been without rain for so long, and celebrating the chilly drops dancing on my head as I walked this morning was a pleasant reminder that autumn is rushing down on top of us. The sense of impending change that permeates the air in the fall exhilerates me.

I’m sure if I had to endure cool drizzle more than occasionally it would start to weigh on me. Enjoying the rain this morning, I thought of my daughter, as she considers graduate school in Seattle. I spent a desperate lifetime in Seattle one November and December, and don’t think I’d do well with the dark drizzle. But then, if you know it’s just the way things are, maybe you get used to it? I’d worry about her for sure…

It continues to amaze me – even after all these years of living – how much the person that we are is affected by the weather around us. One more of those “place” things that I love to think about…

The Seed and the Journey

American Goldfinch - David Ko

I love watching finches pulling seeds out of ripened seed-heads. They’ll sway with the stalk as it moves under their weight, displaying amazing balance while pulling seeds from the blackened and drying head they cling to.

There are many seeds that only germinate if they pass through the digestive track of a bird, or at least germinate much better if they pass through that digestive journey. In fact, I’ve heard stories of plants that have gone extinct after the bird that feeds on their seeds goes extinct. (This may be enhanced legand, but it certainly seems feasable, so it makes for a good story either way.) Then there’s the story of certain forest trees whose seeds only germinate in the heat of a forest fire, essentially assuring that when the forest does burn, they’re the first plants to germinate in the newly cleared forest, where there’s plenty of light. (This one is well-documented.)

We see this cycle of life everywhere around us – this ripening of a seed, which then becomes the next generation. As a parent, I find great joy in watching my children on their journey of ripening, growing far beyond what I could have imagined when I watched them first sprout. And see them now at an age when yet another generation will soon begin to sprout from the ripening that life now shares with them.

But this process of ripening, journey, germination, and start all over again isn’t something that only exists at the macro level of the passing of one generation to another. Within the life we lead, we should look for places where this cycle is trying to emerge as part of our larger journey through life. We’re not meant to slog along, one step in front of the other, never looking up. We’re meant to mature within each season that life shares with us. Only through this maturing process can we ripen into the fruit and the vessel that’s capable of producing the seed of what we are meant to become next in this lifetime.

The journey of your life to this point has produced the seed of what you can become next. You’ve weathered many storms, and learned quite a bit to become what you are today. But what you are is only the vessel to deliver the seeds of what you can next become. Becoming the better you – the one that your soul and your energy is meant to become next – happens when you let go of the seeds and let them germinate.

The seed itself needs to go on a journey first – it needs some catalyst to help it to germinate. It’s probably different for each of us. For some of us, the seeds our life has produced will germinate best right where they drop. For others, finches will pull from us the seeds we cling to as they migrate past us, giving us a chance to germinate far from where we are today. For others, the heat of some fire is required to break open the seed.

I suspect in most cases, we don’t even know what needs to happen. We probably feel a ripening within us, but cling to the old vessel that we’ve been to this point, afraid to release the seeds of what we need to become next, afraid to let those seeds travel whatever journey they need to travel in order to germinate into the best “next iteration” that we can be. I suspect this is the source of a lot of the depression that we see and feel around us each day.

Are you feeling a bit “ripe” these days? Feeling a bit anxious about what’s next? Feeling a bit underwater or over your head? Feeling a sadness that’s hard to explain?

Maybe it’s time to let the finches take the seeds where they need to go, or let the firestorm scar and open the seed. Maybe the vessel that’s you has worked hard to produce the seed of what you need to become, and now you need to let the seed take its journey and germinate. There’s an even better you that can only emerge when that seed is allowed to take that journey – release it and follow it. Become the better you that you’ve laid the foundation for. Whatever you do, don’t fall down onto the cold damp fall ground and let the seed go to waste.

Embrace it.

Celebrate it.

Release it so you can emerge again – an even better you!

The October Garden

Seed-heads ripen and stand dry on the dead stalks of the Echinacia and Rudbeckia in the garden. The tops of the grasses turn golden as they dry in the autumn sun. The Agastache and Mexican Sage are the last strong flowers in the garden, and with the first hard frosts they die back as well.

To the untrained eye, the garden in autumn represents “the end” of the season, but to the seasoned gardener, the autumn is really the beginning of the next season.

Woody plants cut off nutrients and water to their leaves, as they conserve the energy they’ll need for the upcoming bloom – right after they take a nap… Hardy perennials shed their tops and curl up in the energy of their roots, preparing for the explosion of new growth that’s soon to come – right after they take a nap…

Goldfinches on Echicacia Heads

This is the height of the gardening season for the birds. Goldfinches line up for a place on the drying seed heads to pull morsels out for dinner, beginning the life of new plants that the seeds will produce thanks to the help of the birds. The last of the migrating hummingbirds dine on the Agastache and Mexican Sage, helping them to begin their new year further south. My bird feeders empty twice as fast this time of year, as they’re shared by a few remaining summer residents, most of the new winter residents, and a few migrating guests.

It’s easy to look at this time of year as a time to cut everything back in the garden – to “neaten it up” before winter. But this is a time when the garden needs to stand and prepare for the coming season. Cutting some plants back too fast can trick them into thinking they need to send up new growth now. The multitude of birds depend on the heavy growth that remains in the garden as protection from hungry predators, as well as depending on the seed-heads on the plants as they die back to provide a good diet. For the forbe eating birds, the heavy growth also provides a higher likelihood of some high-protein bug-snacks.

I’ve been moving through a “cleaning out” stage in my life recently. I make weekly trips to the Goodwill store with bags of stuff that it’s time for someone else to have. I’m trying not to go too fast, or to make rash decisions. While it’d be easy to see this time in my life as an “ending”, where it’s time to clean things up as the kids have moved on to their own lives. I choose instead to see it as only the beginning of the next growing season. I need to move slowly through the cleaning process and keep the garden healthy. As the winter moves along, I’ll need to continue to cut things back in their time, and keep the garden as healthy as I can for the next stage of this new growing season.

Happy gardening. Enjoy that standing grass and the seed-heads as the birds enjoy the meal. Look forward to the snow that’ll keep the roots warm as they’re curled up for the winter. Keep checking those closets and corners for stuff that it’s time somebody else took off your hands…

Jude’s New Blue Wheels

An update on my new bicycle wheels:

They arrived a week or so ago. They’re really quite beautiful. I moved them across to the bike, and have done just a little riding on them so far. Besides being beautiful, I LOVE the way they feel and handle.

Jude Kirstein built the wheels for me. I’m sure I was a difficult customer for her, as I really couldn’t give her very good direction on the aesthetics of the wheels, and she really wanted that direction from me. I needed her guidance and “vision” about what the wheels could become aesthetically, and she needed me to approve and be OK with things before she’d build them.

I get that about the position that Jude was in – I really do. She runs a small business, and she couldn’t afford to build a set of wheels that I’d reject. We went around a bit, and I was clearly extremely conservative – feeling comfortable with black. While she suggested some other colors that we could do for the hubs, I was clearly resisting out of my lack of vision. Then, at the last minute, I asked my daughter for advice, and she recommended blue hubs and nips. Jude was going to do just plain black since this was clearly my comfort zone, but Anna pushed me out of that comfort zone just a bit.

I’m really glad we went with blue. The wheels are truly beautiful, and very classy. I’ll update my “review” of the wheels after a few thousand miles, but for now, I love the look of them and the feel of them, and I think Jude did a great job.

But the important stuff is the dynamics of how things came together. Since I lacked the vision to see what might be in the wheels, and Jude was leary of creating something I might not like, I almost ended up with really boring wheels. Thanks to Anna, we punched out of that really boring place to end up with beautiful wheels.

But, is there an even better set of wheels that live somewhere in Jude’s imagination, that could be on my bike right now?

How often do we allow our fear of disappointing someone else keep us from allowing the truly spectacular to emerge from our imagination? Creativity involves risk, and creativity that allows the spectacular to emerge requires truly great courage.

Creativity comes from the soul, courage comes from the heart, and fear comes from the mind. We need to find ways to quiet the mind more often, and allow the heart to clear the path for the soul.

I love the new wheels, with zero reservation. I’ll write more as I spend more time on them. But to young folks like Jude, listen to your soul, and let your heart fight for the truly spectacular that wants to emerge.

Awareness of the Unbeliever

The recent Pew study that found Atheists and Agnostics had greater knowledge of traditional religion (such as Christianity) than did Christians seems to surprise quite a few people.

See the study results here, but the summary is that folks were asked a series of 32 questions about religion. Nearly half of the questions were specifically about Judea-Christian knowledge of the Bible and Judea-Christian religion. The other half of the questions were a mix of questions about religion in the larger world, religion and the constitution, etc.

Folks who identified themselves as Christian did not do well on this survey. In fact, the folks who were the most knowledgable about religion were folks who identified themselves as either Agnostic or Atheist. It should be noted that those who identified themselves as Jewish were not far behind the Agnostics and the Atheists. Mormons scored well too. (I should note that it appears that Mormons are lumped in with Christians, so the Christian scores without the Mormon help would have been dismal…)

One other thing that jumped out at me: Those who said that they took Scripture literally – that they thought that the Bible represented the actual words of G-d – those folks scored significantly lower in actual knowledge, while those who did not believe the Bible should be taken literally scored significantly higher in actual knowledge.

Surprised? The results make sense to me. Folks who’ve gone to the trouble of thinking through religion, and have consciously decided to call identify as Agnostic or Atheist have probably asked tougher questions, and have probably gone through more analysis and study to arrive at their conscious decision. My guess is that if you were able to pull out the folks who called themselves Christian AND who’ve arrived at that identification through the same analysis and study would probably do as well as the Agnostics and the Atheists – they’d probably do even better.

On the other hand, if you accept Religion as something that just is, and you don’t ask questions about it, you probably don’t know much about it. In fact, you probably don’t see it as a problem that you don’t know much about it. You’ve decided to drink the kool-aid without questioning what’s in it.

The results point toward the need to dig in and ask tough questions of religion. Be willing to push against the places where there aren’t good answers. Accept uncertainty regarding where your questions may take you, and be willing to embrace the mystery of the places you might end up.

I don’t buy that asking the questions will lead a person automatically to a lack of faith. In fact, I strongly believe that it’s the job of religion to encourage folks to ask the tough questions, and to help them to journey toward relationship with G-d. Because at the end of the journey most people will, in fact, find G-d. Sure there will be many who don’t find G-d, but I many people will.

Whether the person who took the journey ended up finding G-d or not finding G-d, it’s the journey itself that’s important. Agnostics and Atheists appear to be more open to taking the journey, although many might argue that they’ve predetermined that they’ll not find G-d on the journey. Sure there are some of those, just like there are some Christians who predetermine that they will find G-d.

I say, give it a whirl – step out onto the dance floor – take the journey!

Sensitive Fingertips and Social Grace

I’ve got a friend who lost the end of his finger a while back. They found it, and thanks to the wonders of modern medicine were able to reattach the tip to the finger – minus just a touch more than the width of a saw blade…

Talking with him a couple weeks ago, he was describing how frustrating it was growing accustomed to the new finger, now that it was healed and becoming “usable”. Seems that the nerve connections didn’t come back together well, so that fingertip has very little sensation. My friend says that he never realized just how much he depended on sensitive fingertips to get the most mundane tasks done in the day, not to mention the more demanding tasks. To add insult to injury, he’s noticed that it’s not only the inability to sense touch to do fine work that’s a problem, but also the inability to feel pain. He was doing some work in the driveway the other day, and when he got into the house, he noticed that he had banged the end of his finger up badly, and wasn’t even aware that he’d done it.

Seems funny, doesn’t it, that we miss the ability to feel pain? Our fingertips need sensitive touch in order to operate as effective tools, and they need a highly developed sense of pain in order to keep them safe – safety does not equal lack of pain.

I suppose if I didn’t want to use my hands as effectively as possible – just keep them in my pockets all the time – these things wouldn’t be so important. Wouldn’t really matter if they were able to work as highly developed tools, and wouldn’t really matter if they felt pain – I’d just keep ‘em safe by keeping ‘em out of harm’s way all the time. But then, I would have chosen to cripple myself by taking my hands out of play.

Listening to him, it struck me that the exact same principles and notions that apply to our ability to develop and leverage our physical assets, (like our amazing hands and fingers), apply to our ability to develop and leverage our social and emotional assets as well.

Negotiating the emotional perils of treachery, betrayal, and the other bumps and bruises that are part of the human social landscape, we’re sure to feel a good deal of pain now and then. But it’s all just part of developing that important social sensitivity that allows us to interact closely with those around us. We could keep our social and emotional hands in our pockets, so to speak, and avoid any risk of pain, though doing so would keep us from developing tender sensitivity that brings us together with others in this life – it would cripple us socially.

Last evening I got home from a fishing trip, and my Brittany Spaniel was delighted to see me. She laid down next to me, and was in heaven as I softly caressed the back of her head and all around her ears, occasionally letting my fingers lightly work their way through the soft curls on top of her shoulders. I thought of my friend, and was thankful to have the sensitive fingertips that allowed me to create the wonderful interface between myself and my dog. Her half-closed eyes made me think she was thankful too…

To some extent, we get to choose how much we’re willing to feel in life, but we don’t get to choose to feel only the stuff that “feels good”. Greater sensitivity allows us to build stronger and more effective tools for sure, but we’ve got to be willing to slog through the painful stuff in the process. The painful stuff reminds us of the strength of the tools we’re building, and as my friend discovered, the pain is often an pretty darned effective way of preventing us from doing real harm to ourselves…

Where in my life, I wonder, have I chosen to keep my social and emotional hands in my pockets – keeping ‘em safe – and subsequently missing wonderful opportunities to feel wonder and peace? I’m sure there are places where I’ve avoided pain by avoiding risk, but at what cost? How many soft floppy ears have gone unscratched?