Richness = Life + Connections

One of the best things about my current life situation is the focus on making contact, connecting, Seeing people and being Seen by them. For me, these are essential components of living authentically and they were key motivations for my career change. Getting from that Was to the current Is included a long period of soul-searching, brain-storming, and vision work. All I knew was that I needed to have my personal values and core beliefs at center stage, that my days of squeezing the Me of me in around the edges of my daily life were running short.

As seems to be consistently the case when I respond to the Callings that occur within my life, I have been blessed by the appearance of people who reflect elements of current exposition. Today included one such person, Laird M___. Laird distributes a monthly newsletter to a list of 200+ people. The subject? The goings on in his life for the previous month. Yep. That's it.

The newsletter began as a monthly letter to his daughter after she began college. He missed her and she was homesick, so he started writing to her every month, including the small details that make the difference between feeling close and merely being related. Her roommate asked to read the letters, saying that she didn't know anyone else whose father wrote letters. Word spread about the gentle humor and warmth of the letters and soon most of the women in her dorm gathered every month to listen to and/or read the latest installment themselves. As the years ticked by, some of the graduated--but before they did, several asked Laird's daughter to ask her father if he would be willing to send them each a copy of his letter each month.

And so he did. They shared the letters with other people who wrote to Laird themselves and asked to be included in the distribution. Ultimately, the list grew to more than 200 recipients and a local newspaper asked for permission to print each month's installment.

There's nothing special in the letters and everything precious is contained within their pages. I'm put in mind of Jan Karon's popular Mitford series. They aren't mysteries. There is no central plot event around which each book revolves. Each is simply a slice of life; the goings on in a small town over a given period of time. They are captivating. Laird's letters, though written without benefit of professional authoring or editing, are similarly captivating.

To prove it, the current letter follows. Enjoy!

~M

Copyright 2005 Seasmoke All rights reserved


March 1, 2005