When I was growing up in small town Bristol, New Brunswick with my family having a long and shocking tale of trauma and tragedies I well understood the phenomenon that people are drawn to observing and discussing the struggle of others. Sometimes that is through the lens of compassion and mercy and sometimes it is through the lens of judgment and scoffing.

All through my life I have experienced bouts of both from others, but I am sad to say mostly it was the dark that I endured.
I have come to understand that it’s roots lie in  others lack of understanding of my walk, my truth and my light and that my origins were a low and humble path.

One often, that entailed great humiliations, defeats, rejections, loneliness, despair and struggle that is where I am grateful to say I found my strength, my love, my light, my compassion and above all my Way, my Way to give to others what I  most needed for myself.

In the life long practice of giving to others what I myself did not possess the mighty pendulum of life swung back and placed in me a depth, a channel that is beyond anything I have ever witnessed in another, a channel of momentum that rises me each and every day with a lively spirit, an open heart, and a great vigor to live this 24 hour period to the best of my ability.

I have had this intensity in my being every single day since the age of 21 years, nearly 27 years ago to the coming of the 16th day of February. Each year as I enter the week of reflecting on that date I give great thanks to the force that allows and encourages me to live each day with a grateful and abundant heart.
Amen
~Lori Ellis~McKinney (2017)