Here is a poem that was popular in the 1960s. Maybe it was overused then and became trite. But I always loved it. It was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann, so it is 99 years old. Yet I still think it applies today, and I still derive much peace from its words. I think the world could do well to follow its wisdom.
So, to start 2026, here is the poem Desiderata. Happy New Year….
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
So today is the last day of 2025. And on that note, an especially gentle touch as we go into the New Year. I will be resuming regular postings in the next day or two. But for now:
Today’s Gift Quote:
“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have the right to be here.” – Max Ehrmann from Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” – Michel de Montaigne
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
“Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is relax.” Anon
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
“There’s no need to be perfect to inspire others. Let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfections”.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
“Even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there.” – Stephen Chbosky
Brene Brown
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
“You are allowed to say no. You are allowed to rest. You are allowed to take a break.” Anon
“It’s not your job to be everything to everyone.” Anon
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
In taking a break from my writing, I sometimes find that the subconscious has other ideas and instead presents something for me to “chew on” and then write about. And what it presented is exactly the mind frame I will be using as I move into the part of this memoir I call “Descent into Hell.”
But I also realize that this post may apply to life in general. So, on this Christmas day, I share the gift I received from my subconscious:
How and why
do I get up every day,
when I want to stay under the covers
so I can avoid the heaviness of the writing yet before me?
Yet I still get up
and write the next piece of my life,
even the ugly, shameful, not-so-together parts.
Why?*
And why, when the day is done, do I feel
even a slight bit better,
satisfied,
more peaceful,
sometimes even transformed?
And despite the struggle,
always feeling grateful for the process?
In a word,
despair.
I have been reading a book, A Midwinter God: Encountering the Divine in Seasons of Darkness, by Christine Valters Paintner. In the chapter on “Grief as Holy Path,” I read:
“I have come to recognize and honor a deep despair that resides in the shadow part of myself, the shadow being, of course, those things about ourselves we don’t want to embrace. And yet the journey toward our own wholeness is precisely about naming our shadows, welcoming them into the inner rooms of our being, and listening for what they have to say to us…I have found that resisting despair only magnifies the weight of it.”
The author goes on to say that she fears “that others will try to step in to offer me hope as an antidote. I have an ambivalent relationship to the word hope–too often I think we use that term as a way of trying to circumvent the necessary process of facing our own dark emotions.”
She observes that our culture is so quick to tell us to move on, get over it, or do anything to avoid facing the pain. Yet there is a cost to that, a harm done to someone when we ask that of them:
“We do violence to others by trying to move them to a place where we feel much more comfortable.”
Instead, she recommends a different path.
“The heart is meant to be vulnerable, malleable, broken open by love…Our sorrow is so uncomfortable, we want to transform it as quickly as we can into joy….to return to how we were before the ground beneath us opened up. But transformation comes only in our presence to what we are feeling and to express our emotions, to let the wild river flow freely. This is the gateway to transformation.”
I felt such relief and appreciation when I read her words. So often in my life, I have heard the exhortation of others to move on, to get over it, or to “not dwell on those things.” And those words would feel like another knife jab into the wounds already there.
At this stage in my life, I finally understood I needed to face things, write them, feel ALL of the emotions, and see what wisdom they had for me.
But the dilemma was how to deal with the pain and heaviness in going through that process. How to face it each day?
One day, I wrote a line on a note card: Start each day with a prayer?
But what prayer?
I remembered the words of that nun who taught the effective living seminar so many years ago at the Cenacle retreats. She talked of speaking to yourself through affirmations. That if you wanted to achieve something, heal something, then write a statement about it, and repeat it over and over to fuel you and move you forward.
I felt I was onto something with that.
But, again. What affirmation?
The answer came out of my morning meditations, and how they evolved over the course of these months. They presented me with the word “despair” as my answer. And from that word, the prayer eventually evolved.
From my current journal:
Accepting despair
welcoming it in your life
agreeing to walk in its world.
That has been anathema in our culture.
We are to deny it is there,
refuse it a space at our table,
pretend that if we just slap a smile on our face,
everything is fine.
Yet it’s not.
At some point, you need to just call it like it is.
No running.
No “cheering it up.”
No putting lipstick on a pig.
Just say it as it is,
make that clear, unwavering statement of
What do I feel?
Really.
So it started as:
“I am angry, afraid, impatient, and ashamed.”
That was the truth,
and there was almost a relief in admitting that.
No cheeriness enforced by a world that won’t look at shadows.
But it wasn’t enough to just state what it is.
If I repeated that every morning,
that’s all my reality would be.
No, there had to be something more to it.
It wasn’t enough to state just “What is.”
I needed an affirmation of
“In addition to what is, what else can be?”
That’s when two words came to me:
“Even though.”
Even though,
acknowledges what is, and doesn’t deny you the
right and time to process your pain.
But it does also create a bridge to something else, too.
So I started again and wrote:
“Even though I feel
fear and anger,
fatigue, impatience,
despair and shame,”
That was accurate.
Felt better.
Because it allowed for more than what currently is.
It also gave me permission to look for,
and feel I deserve,
something more.
Something like, “What else can I have…what else do I want?”
So I thought,
what feels possible,
desired,
reachable.
What else would I let me have… if I could?
What would that look like, with
no promises.
No false hopes.
No Pollyanna sunshine or sickening sweetness.
Just….
What would I like to be?
Even if I never quite get there.
So I wrote again:
“I am healing and loving.
relaxed and hopeful,
patient and kind.”
And suddenly,
I felt….good.
Hopeful.
Possible.
These were the gifts I would give to myself,
and they might be possible,
even just a little bit.
So, “even though” I felt one set of things
and it was a relief to embrace them
as part of me without putting me down for it,
I was also no longer denying myself
the chance to have something else, too.
I was accepting despair yet not refusing hope.
Even small shifts each day over a lifetime
is enough,
and makes my life
valuable
beautiful
peaceful.
Enough to make it worth my while to get out of bed,
face the day,
write my truth,
and celebrate ALL my emotions.
So now I have my affirmation for each day…my “what is, AND what do I want” statement. And whether it is for writing this book, altering some habit I don’t like, or tackling a new challenge, this statement fits me for all seasons.
And I have “despair” to thank…Despair, which may be just another word for “surrender,” a surrender to one’s truth, which then makes room, also, for one’s possibilities.
Regardless of your belief system, religion, or lack of, as a writer, I have ALWAYS loved the poetic, melodic, soothing strains of these lines from the St.James Bible for the Christmas holiday.
No matter what I believe or will in the future, the sense that there is goodness and goodwill to me from a force bigger than me, always comforts me:
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
My “gift posts”
While I am away from my desk, I will leave “daily gift posts” for all.
When I return, I will resume my memoir posts.
In the meantime, a reminder of the purpose of this blog:
This blog is my way of honoring what I lived through and had to do to reach “today” in as healthy a way as possible.
The posts here tell the story of the pain I’ve carried because my life was not whole.
It wasn’t whole because I’ve had so many questions and no answers. All I’ve had was the confusion of a lifetime, because so much of my life was in broken fragments I could not make sense of.
So this blog, which I hope to form into a memoir for publication, is my journey to find answers. It is my way to piece the fragments back together, see the whole picture, and find the understanding that brings healing.
While I write for myself, I am also writing to give to anyone else who wants it, an example of this kind of journey. It is not the only way, but it is my way.
And I write to bear witness to the pain of so many others harmed by abuse of any kind, especially for those who can’t tell their story…or those who didn’t live to tell their story.
Lastly, I offer it all here in the hope that it helps another not to feel alone as they do their own life’s work.
Soul Mosaic 