J. Michael Dew

"I am so lonely, but I know there is a plan.  There must be.  I can muscle through my life until the next move is clear.  I miss you all so much.  I am alone for most of the time.  It's just me and the cats and dogs.  Nobody comes up.  Nobody stops by.  It's not like it used to be -- so full of life.  Perhaps I'll move down there with you.  But not now.  There is a plan, and I must follow it.  I must follow it even though it's too quiet around here."

As I was walking my three daughters to school, we all looked up and noticed that the sky was pink.  My oldest said that this meant rain.  My middle child agreed.  My youngest had a different opinion: "Maybe it will rain pink lemonade."  "Yes," I said.  "Wouldn't that be grand."

In Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, there is a scene that has stuck with me since I first came across it.   Frankl describes the horrid conditions of Auschwitz -- how the sky was gray, the tattered uniforms were gray, the snow was gray -- but off in the distance in a house on the side of a hill, someone turned on a light.  This one light broke through the grayness of his existence, and defying all that he was up against, gave him hope.

The world prompts us to get to know one another as members of a group, but I prefer to get to know someone on an individual basis.  We are so much more than whatever defines a group.  We are more nuanced than that, and it is in the nuance where true cordiality is found.