Thankful for my community cyber and physical ...

I will start this with a thank you ...

Thank you to Pastor Blake, to Katie, to CandyGirlFlies, to Rev Audrey, Tia and to the other bloggers that I read regularly and who today offered a much needed and much appreciated breath of fresh and hopefilled air into my world ...

I feel like I've just thrown open the windows after a LONG and DREARY winter, and have had a refreshing breeze roll through ... I did THAT physically in my home a few days ago, and I suppose today I did it in my heart and mind as well ...

I can't put my finger on it, but today I feel a profound sadness ... it may be the headlines filled with the suffering and carnage of Boston, the Middle East, Texas and elsewhere where lives have been so tragically and so needlessly shattered ... it could be the constant stream of raw emotions I seem to be encountering lately ... or it could just be the stress of going in too many directions all at once ... Whatever it is, it is tiring and it has worn away at my optimism to the point where I truly wonder if being hopeful is nothing more then a foolish undertaking in the face of what seems to be an increasingly mean and nasty world ...

But then, I visited my blogger friends ... Blake and his poetic words of beauty ... Katie and her sharp NYC observations of life ... CandyGirlFlies (one of my long standing friends) and her humourous and pointed reflections of life's fullness ... and Rev Audrey a former classmate and colleague who inspires me with her candor and her questions ... my list goes on ... I have several favourite blogs - but this will suffice ... As I read their words, and reflect on their observations and journeys I feel the dreariness lifting ... I find myself smiling, even amid tears from time to time ... and my heart reclaims its hope.

Hope is a precious thing ... even when we think we've lost it ... it comes back stronger than ever.

Today, despite the sadness and the heaviness in my heart ... I have found the glimmer of hope I needed and yearned for ... and it came (like this should surprise me) from the hands (or more appropriately the keyboards) of my friends!!

Onward and upward as they say ... Hope is not only alive - it is what motivates us to face challenges and to engineer and experience TRANSFORMATION!!!