Balance, Balance, Balance ...

When at times the hurts of our world become so great that they hurt us all, an individual time of respite can become a necessity.

It's not like trying to make everything just go away, and it's not ignoring what's going on. It's more like the 're-charging' some of us need to avoid getting 'peopled out' and withdrawing from society altogether. A stitch in time, so to speak. 

So yes, I'm aware of Nepal, aware of Baltimore, aware of China and Ukraine and France and and and ... 

I'm not avoiding it; it's in my heart and on my mind even as I stitch away on the Character Collections or get ready to begin art projects or sit down to put the next part of SONG into words.

Everything is part and parcel of everything else.

And life is indeed a balancing act.

A person has to keep his/her own balance internally as well as physically and intellectually. It's the only way to become/remain strong enough to do what you have to do to help with the circles outside of your own self - family, community, region, nation, world ... it's all bound together. 

Those of us who seek peaceful solutions are perhaps doomed to failure. 

Perhaps there is no peaceful solution to anything. 

Yet seek we must, try we must - and succeed at some far distant point we might. 

If we just give up, our future generations may not even realize that there ever were any such things as peace, as freedom of choice, as personal integrity and accountability, as justice tempered with mercy ... as loyalty ... as unity... as faith ... you can add to this list ... please do.

Sometimes it feels as though it's all at risk - or lost already.

Most of the time, however, it's pretty easy to find the good that remains in our world. The people who care, those who step up to the plate when need be.

Yes it might well have to get worse before it gets better - but the 'better' is by no means going to have to spring from out of nowhere. It hasn't gone anywhere - it's right here within each and all of us and stronger than any of us probably have any idea about.

So when it feels as though it's gone from bad to worse and is heading for the worst, let's not forget our own inner strengths - we can, if we will it, use them as the force they are and in the ways they are meant to be used.

Find a way to the good we share instead of focusing on the differences that divide.

We are all of us more alike than we are disparate.

There is so much more to share than to fight about.

Take a little time, as much as you need, to think about what we share rather than what divides us. 

Difficult as it may be to believe, all things considered, those are the things that truly matter - and we might have a tough time remembering that sometimes. 

Still, what we share really does matter more than whatever it is that's dividing us. Lots of folks don't think so ... but a lot of us do think so, and our Voices really do matter. 

Someone has to balance out the rest of it, right?

Sez one lonely little Voice in the middle of nowhere.