Dew on a cabbage leaf in the shape of a heart - Carrie Newcomer
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Hi Fellow Travelers,
I’ve been spending a lot of very good-for-the-body-and-soul time in my writing room this summer. I wanted to share a demo with you of a new song called “Dropping Keys”. The song explores the power and experience of forgiveness—for ourselves and for others.
One of the great lessons of my own life has been developing the ability to hold my own history with more kindness and tenderness. Anyone who has lived in any kind of relationship to others (individuals or communities) is going to make many large and small mistakes—even a few catastrophic ones. I believe one of the important tasks of becoming ourselves, is finding a sense of grace for doing the very best we could with what we knew at the time. Parker J. Palmer calls this process “befriending” our mistakes. I love the kindness and responsibility contained in that phrase. Befriending allows us to learn from everything we got right and everything we totally missed. It allows us to put a gentle arm around our past and present self and walk a bit more companionably into whatever comes next.
The song is not meant to be Pollyanna. Befriending doesn’t mean that everything that happened was ok or right, because everything wasn’t ok or right. It just means that we are alright now — more healed and whole, more able to resource what we’ve learned through this befriending process.
I hope you enjoy the song.
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