To Boldly Go...
Updated: Sep 26, 2020
WHERE were you when the world watched the first private company launch and transport two Americans to the International Space Station in 2020?
This event will be yet another marker for how wild and crazy this year is turning out to be. While news headlines are peppered with so many troubling issues plaguing our world, it also includes some inspirational stories as well. Today is a particularly special day for so many reasons that I felt compelled to write this article and share it with you.
Our World Evolving
Our lives right now are still being turned upside down with the first pandemic of our century. Many people have lost their jobs and businesses and some even their lives. There is unrest in the streets as humanity grapples with the crimes that happen when anger, fear, and prejudice are expressed in action.
Simultaneously we watch as great minds make it possible to put men in space. If I weren’t living it, I wouldn’t believe it. In the midst of all of these happenings, there is a stark contrast of fear and joy.
To top it all off today is the day we celebrate the very beginning of Christianity. If this is not enough news to share, then we will need to check ourselves.
COVID-19
So, as we continue to track the coronavirus, we are watching what happens to our society and to our minds when a virus infects us as humans. Many people are realizing for the first time that we are mortal. For those who have not yet had to face their own mortality, it can be a very scary time. And for those of us who have faced it several times over, it can still be a time of uncertainty and cause fear, for ourselves and for our loved ones.
Fear can feel debilitating.
Science is making monumental achievements and moving at lightning speed to race toward a vaccine and treatments that can help us battle COVID-19. Celebrities, businesses, professionals, and ordinary people (even the non-essential ones) are finding ways to contribute to the support of others in ways that are innovative and wonderful.
Hope is always liberating.
SPACEX
While we battle a pandemic on the ground, our eyes are in the skies celebrating the accomplishment of launching the very first privately owned spacecraft. I am a huge fan of Star Trek (see title), Star Wars, and all things spacey. Yesterday my family huddled on the couch to watch the Dragon launch and orbit in space. In real-time. On our television. Today we watched it dock with the international space station. It is wild to think that I was only two years old when the first humans walked on the moon. And now I get to watch this! This one event gets me so charged up and gives me hope. I am a huge fan of all things science fiction, but it’s arguably even more exciting is to watch Science-Reality.
Space exploration ignites our imaginations. It makes us wonder about the limits and far-reaching opportunities to expand our ways of thinking about the future of the human race.
What else are we capable of doing with the right minds and resources?
SPIRITUALITY
Today is also a very significant day in the Christian faith. Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost took place seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the followers of Jesus who had gathered together in Jerusalem. The followers received the graces and gifts to be able to speak in tongues, or different languages, and perform many of the miracles that they had witnessed Jesus perform only a few months earlier. What happened on the first Pentecost continues to happen to Christians throughout the world today. That day is considered the dawn of Christianity as an idea and a religion.
The grace of God is available to all of us.
All Christians are still called to live in the presence and power of the Spirit of God. Furthermore, the gifts of the spirit, I was taught, are not for a select few. They belong to all of us and all we need to do to activate them is to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to shower His grace upon us.
Talents and Strengths
I believe that we are also given human gifts, often labeled as strengths or talents that we are meant to share with the world. Most of us can identify things that light us up. Things that others say we do well or that we must share because it is our thing, our gift. Artists, writers, singers, scientists, analysts; we all have our gifts to share with the world. The sooner we identify them and start sharing them, the more joyful our lives can become.
Can you identify three of your unique gifts?
What things light do others tell you that you excel at doing?
What do you love doing that makes you feel like time has stopped?
Fear vs. Joy
When I am in a place of fear and conflict I rely on my faith and spirituality to guide me. And my friends and family who love me. I have learned that I have a choice about where I want to hang out in my mind as well.
Do I want to hang out in the energy of fear? Or do I want to make a conscious shift to experience relief, peace, and ultimately Joy? I have learned that I have not only the power to make this choice but the obligation. I am responsible not only for myself but for those around me. Since I know we are One, then all of my actions affect others. My inner world is a contributing factor in how I respond to my world and things that happen to me. I must be the gatekeeper of my mind and my soul.
Choose Joy
One of the best remedies for fear and uncertainty, in addition to gratitude, is Joy. Some of the most popular definitions of joy are things like: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires; delight; the expression or exhibition of such emotion; a state of happiness or felicity; bliss; a source or cause of delight.
Whatever definition you choose I am sure that you have experienced some form of joy at least once in your life.
What things have you experienced that bring you joy?
When was the last time you felt true joy?
Where in your life are you longing for more joy?
Share Your Gifts with the World
I believe that each of us is called to bring our light, our gifts to the world in whatever ways are right for us. We have an opportunity to be a spectator of the news or to create it and shape our new world in ways that might even be beyond our current imaginations.
When we combine our unique gifts with the things that bring us joy...it is like rocket fuel. We might all be good at many things, but there may be a few select things that truly make us shout for joy. Find this combo and it will shift your life forever.
We all have the power to change lives.
I'm Bolding Going Where I Have Not Gone Before.....every day!
If you know me, then you know that I take my roles seriously but I do not take myself seriously. I am a mom, wife, friend, counselor, coach, citizen, Christian. I get to do what I love every day and it brings me joy. I am living on purpose. I am writing this on Pentecost Sunday because I am driven by my own sense of joy and excitement to share hope and joy with others.
Working in joy is not always a walk on a cloud, but that is not what joy is all about. The astronaut’s journey was not easy or even pretty at times. Go behind the scenes and you will see the great sacrifices they make and daily discomforts they endure. Yet they make it look fun and easy floating around in socks.
The early Christians, who faced ridicule and even persecution didn’t have it easy either. Even present-day Christians will tell you that our path is wrought with trials. No joke. However, joy is not the same as ease and comfort. It comes from the soul to sustain and delight, to lift up and create. It is more fulfilling than happiness and more easily attainable than you know.
So as we begin a new chapter in the next few days and months….
What will you bring to our world as we begin to open up our doors and our hearts?
How will you be a part of the greatest story ever yet to be written?
When you look back on this time, which joyful actions will you remember taking to improve and delight our world?
Another very important thing that I want all of us to realize. That we are not alone. We all get to play our part in this evolution of our species as humans. It is up to us to see how our story plays out....collectively.
I can’t wait to hear what beautiful gifts you have to share and to see how you choose to express them. I’m waiting. So is the world.