Better Together

A group of friends and I do this thing we call high/low when we get together, catching each other up on the best news and the hardest challenge from the previous week. Today as I think about that, I can't even imagine where to start.

I think my low and the high are surprisingly intertwined around the complicated emotions of the funeral of our friend Andrew, who died in the prime of life. It was devastating, on the one hand. But as I looked around me at the 700+ people who gathered to celebrate his life on Saturday morning, and then watched a fleet of Massachusetts State Troopers work heroically to get our funeral procession safely through the tangle of intersections, rotaries, and traffic tangles between North Cambridge and Jamaica Plain/Boston (I think that alone restored my faith that miracles are still possible), I was struck by how well Andrew lived to give rise to such a celebration in a mere 38 years. Powerful stuff.

And the theme of this celebration, as friends from different years of his life spoke, wasn't huge professional accomplishments or daring feats of bravado...it was relationships. Andrew changed the world by spending time with & enjoying the people in it.

(I'm going to type it again--in bold--so when I scroll back over this I'll remember:
Andrew changed the world by spending time with & enjoying the people in it.)

The song that opened Andrew's funeral summed it up: Jack Johnson's Better Together.
I sort of knew this was true before, but now I'm convinced.



Speaking of which...

1. Today is the first day of 40 Days of Faith, 2010...so if you're looking for a hope infusion, check it out here!

2. Today also marks the beginning of launch month for my new book, A MAZE OF GRACE: A MEMOIR OF SECOND CHANCES. As I've mentioned before, pre-orders are a huge help to an author's career, so if you're so inclined, here are easy links to help you order from Amazon, and IndieBound. Thank you!!!

Here's to life, better together :)