Tarot Cards, Hope, & Community

We are a people hungry for questions and listening, and people who will simply sit down across from us and have a conversation - especially at our most vulnerable times.

A couple days ago I was at my favorite local cafe doing some writing.  A woman came in and sat down at the table next to mine.  She was carrying an odd shaped box - obviously containing something very special.

A few minutes later a young man came in, looking somewhat hopeless and in need.  The two of them spoke and obviously were there to meet each other.  Was I about to eavesdrop onto a blind date?  Not so much.

Within seconds the mysterious box was opened and the woman placed a handful of mystical tarot cards on the table.  The man's hopelessness did a 180.  You could see the eagerness for answers in his eyes.

She poked and prodded in the most open-ended ways, that anyone might have been able to come to an equal amount of vague, future-conclusions this fortune teller conjured.

The whole meeting probably didn't last more than 20 minutes, but I saw a once fearful and lost man, leave with certainty and hope.

Now I don't believe that anything this fortune teller said or read, had any actual bearing on this man's future.  But what I do believe is that this man was at rock bottom and needed someone's ear.  He had her's (at a decent price tag), and in this act of human interaction, he once again was filled with hope of a future.

Perhaps the truth behind this fortune teller's ability, is her capacity to listen and offer hope (even if she's making a decent profit).  After all it wasn't that long ago that "professional mourner" was an actual thing...

Maybe this world needs more people that will journey with us in hope.  Maybe the woman sitting beside me needs the same, but isn't to the point of conjuring the dead.  Maybe in this age of technology, individualism, and cynicism, all we really need is each other.  We've been given the capacity to love and listen, and extend grace and compassion with limitless restrictions.

Let's try that.

Peace,
Ross

That's Just The Way It Is...

Over the past couple of weeks, I've heard this phrase over and over, "that's just the way it is."  Every single time, it's made me cringe.  There's so much defeat in that statement! 

In my opinion, "that's just the way it is" is a sentence of repetition, status quo, and death.  Instead, I see things as "the way it could be."  "The way it could be" is full of hope, renewal, redemption, and future.

This morning I came across an incredible video of a guy (Knucklehead), who was stuck in a life of "that's just the way it is," but instead, chose to live a life of "the way it could be."  His life is a victory dance!  Instead of letting life happen to him, he made it.

Enjoy!


Knucklehead - Director's Cut from Greg Brunkalla on Vimeo.


Peace,
Ross

Fast & Furious, Afghanistan, and Creativity

Creativity births more creativity.  It offers hope, regeneration, and future.  But what happens when we lose our ability to be creative?

Allow me to connect some dots…

The administration's failure in their recent Fast and Furious program exemplifies a hopeless and shallow creativity.  The DEA allowed guns to be smuggled into Mexican cartels, with the hopes that we could follow the trail to the drug lords.  Guns bring death - an easy (and very final) end to the problems surrounding drugs and violence.  But like all creativity, it breeds future.  And a future of death is no future at all.

But instead of new ideas, of long-term, difficult, ideas, the DEA opted for the immediate gratification of bullets to brains.

The same Taliban fighters we're fighting in Afghanistan today, we equipped and trained in the 80's.  The short-sighted and shallow creativity bred a future of violence.

Guns have been done before. 
Tanks have been done before. 
Arms trading is old hat.

Imagine a world where our creativity is truly creative.  In this world we might combat regions of war with plowshares rather than weapons of war.  But we must be willing to dream of futures that we've yet to experience.  We must risk it all on creativity.  We must risk it all on hope. 

Peace,
Ross