Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is tricky this year. Everyone is making tough decisions about how and where to celebrate. It's a year when connecting virtually will be more important than ever. Our last post encouraged everyone to Be Kind-Rewind! Did anyone try it? I did. It was difficult. I tried to write cheerful messages to friends with different political perspectives and I kept getting stuck. Every attempt sounded trite or awkward or random or forced or just plain bizarre. And then I started thinking, what am I really trying to say? I'm trying to say, "Thank You" for being my friend... "Thank you" for being part of my family... "Thank you" for your contributions to the world... This is what I appreciate about you. And then I thought, "THANKSGIVING!" Suddenly, it made sense. Here's what I wrote... Happy Thanksgiving, ____________! This Thanksgiving, I just want to let you know that I’m very thankful for you. I’m thankful for the way you... I’m thankful for all of the times we.... I’m thankful for how you... I'm thankful for... I’m thankful for YOU. -------- Each message/email I sent started with this thank you format and then, at some point, I included something like this... -------- This Thanksgiving message was inspired by a Purple Living Room Project blog post: http://www.purplelivingroom.org/meet-in-the-middle-blog/be-kind-rewind You and I don't talk about politics much, but I get the feeling that we might have different opinions on some issues. In a year that has been so politically divisive, it feels important to come together and share what we appreciate about one another. Do you know anyone with a different perspective that you’d like to connect with this Thanksgiving weekend? You’re welcome to copy this message, adapt it, and send it forward. Thanks again for everything you bring to the world... Happy Thanksgiving! So that's what I've tried.
I've sent versions of this message out to several people in my life. It feels good to focus on gratitude and it's wonderful to connect with friends I haven't seen in a while. I'm planning to send many more of these "Thank You" messages over the coming Thanksgiving weekend. Do you want to give it a try? Consider making this message your own! Share it with your friends... let them know what makes you THANKFUL for their friendship. This Thanksgiving weekend, even though we need to stay socially-distanced and apart, let's take a few steps together and lift each other up. We can all be thankful for that kind of appreciation and support. Happy Thanksgiving! -Jen @ Purple Living Room
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Happy World Kindness Day!
It's exactly the kind of day we need right now. We've elected a new president, but not everyone is ready to move on. While we wait for the legal challenges to play out, the name-calling online is getting even more toxic. (Who knew that was possible?) It seems like a good time to remember those stickers that used to be put on rental video tapes back in the day... "Be Kind, Rewind" Can we take a moment to rewind our relationships? Can we rewind back to a time before our political polarization reached this fever pitch? Before incendiary tweets? Before bitter facebook retorts? Before social media put a divisive spell on us? Here's an idea for World Kindness Day 2020... Can we check in with our friends and family who have different political opinions? Can we let them know we're thinking about them? Can we tell them why we value their friendships? Can we share with them what makes them unique and wonderful? Can we tell them that we care about them? Can we REWIND and BE KIND? Let's try it together! Let us know how it goes... Share your experiences with our Purple Living Room Project Facebook community here... We promise to keep the comments kind! Independence Hall
is often called the Birthplace of America. The Declaration of Independence and The United States Constitution were debated... and debated... and debated... and eventually signed here. There were many different ideas about how to create this American Experiment. Vastly different ideas. Many loud voices. These voices came together to create one nation. E Pluribus Unum Out of Many, ONE The 2020 Election shows that we still have vastly different ideas about how our nation should be governed. Whatever happens in the coming days, as votes are counted and contested and recounted, let's remember that The American Experiment is in our hands now. How will we move forward together? E Pluribus Unum Halloween 2020
finds our country in the middle of a particularly scary political season. There's plenty of fear to go around... Fear of COVID-19, Fear of economic uncertainty, Fear of climate change, Fear of election results, Fear of political unrest... Fear of each other. The impending presidential election is making many of us, along all parts of the political spectrum, anxious. It's easy to let ourselves spin out of control with worry. Let's not let ourselves get tangled up in each other's sticky social media webs of misinformation and insults and distrust. Let's try to keep our fears in check through this election week and then focus on weaving a different kind of political climate in the future together. I went for a walk on the beach today at sunrise to clear my head. So much noise in the lead-up to the election... I was looking for a way to replace the buzz of the internet with a more natural sound. Along the coast, all I could hear was the reassuring rhythm of the waves. Crash, pause, crash, pause, crash, pause... While I let the sound wash over me, my gaze turned to the ground... Hearts everywhere! Some whole, some broken, some small, some large... All together in one beautiful carpet of green, punctuated by purple... The purple flowers were all closed when I arrived at the beach, but as the sun rose, they gradually began to welcome a new day. Bit by bit, they opened to the warmth of the sun... And then, as I watched and waited, I thought I saw a tiny bird... but then realized it was a giant bee. A sturdy beach bee dutifully pollinating the purple flowers. It had large wings to navigate the strong winds... Can you find it? The bee was confident and undeterred... and successful. The stretch of green hearts and purple flowers up and and down the beach was a testament to its labor... Here we are, friends...
Two weeks from the 2020 election. A nation of fragile hearts, punctuated with a few islands of purple thought. Whatever the outcome of this crazy election, we are going to need purple thinking to chart a path forward that will include all of the precious hearts in our nation. It takes persistent bees to keep pollinating purple thought in these challenging times, but we can do it. Buzz, buzz, buzz... This week, we mourn the loss of another American hero... Ruth Bader Ginsburg Her work as a Supreme Court Justice was grounded in an important principle... You can disagree without being disagreeable. Her endearing friendship with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia will be remembered as one of the great purple relationships in our nation's history. They modeled beautifully for us all what disagreement can look like. We CAN disagree without being disagreeable. Thank you for your service and your example, Justice Ginsburg. RIP, RBG This month marked the
100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. Of course, this did not even mean that all women were granted the right to vote. Universal suffrage would have to wait until much later... and we are still waiting for the vision of universal suffrage to be fully realized in our nation. Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of The League of Women Voters, had this to say about women winning the right to vote in 1920... The vote is the emblem of your equality, women of America, the guarantee of your liberty. That vote of yours has cost millions of dollars and the lives of thousands of women. Money to carry on this work has been given usually as a sacrifice, and thousands of women have gone without things they wanted and could have had in order that they might help get the vote for you. Women have suffered agony of soul which you can never comprehend, that you and your daughters might inherit political freedom. That vote has been costly. Prize it! The vote is a power, a weapon of offense and defense, a prayer. Understand what it means and what it can do for your country. Use it intelligently, conscientiously, prayerfully. No soldier in the great suffrage army has labored and suffered to get a “place” for you. Their motive has been the hope that women would aim higher than their own selfish ambitions, that they would serve the common good. The vote is won. Seventy-two years the battle for this privilege has been waged, but human affairs with their eternal change move on without pause. Progress is calling to you to make no pause. Act! Progress still calls on us to make no pause. We need to act together. We've just seen the DNC and the RNC share their visions of political leadership for our country. It's now our responsibility to VOTE. Countless Americans have worked tirelessly for the cause of universal suffrage. Many have given their LIVES so that WE THE PEOPLE can have the precious right to vote... PRIZE IT! Get ready to VOTE! This week, our nation remembers a true American hero, Congressman John Lewis. He used his life to light a path toward a more perfect union. He calls on us to continue this work. Here are just a few of his words to guide us... Black Lives Matter
demonstrations across the country and around the world have put the spotlight on a crucial question... What will we DO as a nation about the reality of systemic racism? We need Republicans and Democrats to unite and create purple policies that will bring us meaningful systemic change. There is no quick fix. Dismantling our nation's legacy of racism requires hard work and reflection and courage and persistence and vigilance and empathy and compassion and respect and LOVE. It's LONG PAST time for us all to STAND TOGETHER and DO THE WORK and BE THIS CHANGE. Slowly,
slowly... step by cautious step... We are coming out of our homes. We are seeing each other in the streets. We are coming back together! And as we move forward, we are also falling back into our old, familiar habits... "Why AREN'T you wearing a mask?" "Why ARE you wearing a mask?" "Why don't you care about public health?" "Why don't you care about civil liberties?" "Why don't you listen to SCIENCE?" "Why don't you listen to REASON?" Here's a question for us all... Why don't we STOP JUDGING and focus on CARING for each other? It is certain that we will not all agree about how to interact in our new COVID-conscious world. We're all wondering... When and where is it appropriate or necessary to wear masks? How close is TOO CLOSE... At the store? At the beach? At restaurants? On the sidewalk? On the hiking trail? When can we get back to normal life? We're all thinking about these questions... and we're all coming to different conclusions. What works for one state or one city or one neighborhood or one household, might not work for another. We're creating a new "normal" and we have to do this together. We have an opportunity to create these new norms with grace and empathy and compassion. We can do this! We can care SELFLESSLY for one another. Let's give each other a break and give each other encouragement and try to keep each other safe while we create our "new normal" TOGETHER. |
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May 2021
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