Another short blog post, but this one is to direct you to a little more to read. This month’s issue of Friends Journal includes my short story (or possibly more of a prose poem) entitled “Good.” I think it’s timely for Thanksgiving week because it’s all about reminding us how incredibly good and beautiful Creation actually is. We should absolutely be full of thanksgiving for the bounty of harvest and resources that help us thrive, but also more broadly for the whole miraculous interconnected web that makes everything thrive. This should also prompt us to understand that when that web of creation is torn, when parts of it can’t thrive, we all fail. So please read my story, feel gratitude for the blessings of this world, and renew your commitment to manifest all that love in caring for it all: the natural world, our fellow humans, our interconnectedness, our responsibility toward the future… It is all worth giving thanks for, and it’s all worth working for.
The illustration in the middle of the story is one of my block prints made a while before I wrote the piece, but obviously exploring the same ideas. You can read this previous blog post about the making of that piece: Behold, It Is Good.
Yes, there’s been a bit of a theme over the last few blog posts. That’s something of a coincidence, since some of these things have been in the works for months and months, but I’m also leaning into it since I myself certainly feel the need of it right now. I suspect that a lot of others need it, too. If you’ll be getting together with family this week I know there may be some fraught moments. I know some of you may have interactions that are painful, depressing, offensive, enraging, and exhausting. But please just try to remember that Love is always there to support us if we can just tap into it. And it is Good.
[Pictures: Friends Journal, November 2024;
Behold, It Is Good, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2021 (originals sold out).]