Finding beauty and light

 I spent a bunch of hours the other day reading old blog posts on my original blog, Anne Marie's Musings.  I started that blog when I retired, thinking I would share leadership messages for use in the workplace.  It didn't take me long to realize that format was too limiting, and I expanded to just musing on life.

I wrote over one hundred entries in 2015, and over a hundred in 2016.  Then fifty-ish in 2017, twenty in 2018, and two in 2019.   I did greatly increase the number of entries in this author blog, but never to my pre-2016 volume.  What happened?

Lots of ingredients.  One ingredient was the increased focus on writing my books.  Another ingredient was lack of response.  But the biggest ingredient?  I lost hope.

I allowed the trajectory of the social landscape in America to steal my hope and steal my joy.  When I read my old posts, I see presenting the case for tolerance, for inclusion, for acceptance.  All my pontificating didn't stop society from moving in the opposite direction.

I was rejected by people who I had thought were my friends, simply because I wanted to continue to "love my neighbor as myself".  It turned out many people had rules for who deserved love.

I started only speaking of love and tolerance and acceptance through the characters in my books.  I wasn't influencing anyone else, so I just stopped trying.

But today is Easter.  The impossible has happened.  Christ is Risen!  As a Christian, I have to hope.  Hope is one of the gifts of the Resurrection.

I'm going to try harder to find beauty and light.  I am going to try to be more hopeful and grateful for the beauty in life.

I have realized that the harder you have to work to find the light, the more it illuminates beauty when you find it.

The only way to have a better world is to never stop trying to create one.  Keep trying my friends.  Every bit of light you add illuminates us all.