Making our Lives Available to Others: in Music, Stories, Poems, Songs, Art, Dance...

Whatever your medium, everyone has a story to tell...

I have been overwhelmingly blessed in the past week to hear many stories....Often I feel like a small child, sitting at the feet of Kings and Queens, when tales begin to unfold; something gets moved sideways in my body, it's like a cage is unlocked to the ears of my heart.....

A week ago today, it was over Sunday brunch sitting across the table from Barbara and Aubrey Nkomo, visiting from South Africa/ New York, sharing pieces of their poignant history as diplomats, visionaries, two loves who found one another at the United Nations. Daily in email I've been receiving snippets from my graduating high school classmates of 1987 (including potent reflections from Wendy, a friend with whom I shared a deep love for a man that took his own life.) Friday afternoon: I was blessed to hold space with George "Yerzy" Galonska, a Polish immigrant who fights fires in Minneapolis, collects sewing machines, and wants to meet mystics. That evening: it was the Cates Music singing stories into my soul and one divine Henry Allen who appeared and reminded me of what it is to simply RECEIVE.....

Oh! Now I could go on and on. But my job this day is to simply hold up more of Nouwen, quoted below, and remind you all of your gorgeous voices, hearts, spirits, that are simply waiting to pour out their own tales. Know there is no one right way, just that we are all called to give voice to these silences or hushed experiences within...Sing! Dance! Make your art! Tell your tale!

Love to you this day!

Melissa

Making Our Lives Available to Others

One of the arguments we often use for not writing is this: "I have nothing original to say. Whatever I might say, someone else has already said it, and better than I will ever be able to." This, however, is not a good argument for not writing. Each human person is unique and original, and nobody has lived what we have lived. Furthermore, what we have lived, we have lived not just for ourselves but for others as well. Writing can be a very creative and invigorating way to make our lives available to ourselves and to others.

We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.

-- Henri Nouwen