Be Kind....

I woke with a troubled spirit. A couple of difficult conversations over the weekend were still fresh on my mind, and I lay in bed for a half hour, hoping they would either sort themselves out or blend into the background of my morning. No such luck.

Morning prayers didn’t calm the storm that was brewing in my soul.

Two cups of coffee didn’t help, either, and it was way too early for a drink, although I really wanted one. Badly.

As I began to be frustrated that my morning of writing was being eaten up with these thoughts, I remembered that I’ve got a friend.

Okay, I’m blessed to have more than one friend, but not many to whom I entrust my darker side. Showing your messy stuff to others is risky. They might judge you. Actually, they will judge you. Or you might hurt them. Okay, you will hurt them. It’s just part of being human that we don’t treat each other perfectly.

So I picked up the phone and called my friend. One of a few who really have my back. And thirty minutes later my spirit was lighter, my soul was cleaner, and my thoughts were clearer. No judging happened. Just a compassionate exchange of listening and understanding, sprinkled with wisdom.

Some of my Orthodox friends would say, “Oh, of course you're having a hard time... it’s Lent,” meaning that we are often faced with more struggles than usual during this season. If that’s true, I feel like it’s been Lent for several years now. And I just decided last Monday that this was going to be a brighter, happier Lent, remember?

Whether or not you participate in Lent, everyone has to get through another Monday, and then another week, and then another month. Or, sometimes, like Richard Brown says in The Hours:

“I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that...”

I hope you’ve got a friend. If you don’t have a friend, I hope you’ve got a cat. And I hope someone is kind to you today.