What brings us together

and connects us all...

Feb 01, 2025

"Love is the greatest gift one generation can leave to another.” ~ Richard Garnett

red and white heart balloons — Photo by Christopher Beloch on Unsplash

Photographs are beautiful reminders…moments frozen in time, capturing an event or a person and I love looking at photographs for just that reason.

They can bring back fond memories of a time in your life that brought you joy. They can also give you a glimpse into a time and place you never experienced but would have liked to…

This is a picture of my great-grandparents, Rhoda and John Cress. I love how gently her hand rests on his. Sometimes I wish I could travel in a time machine and visit relatives I never had the opportunity to meet.

My great grandparents circa late 1940’s.

I am always amazed at the length of time that exists between generations. For example, my father, who was born in 1925, attended the funeral of his great-grandfather (Rhoda Cress’s father), who was a member of the Iron Brigade in the American Civil War. My father described to me his memories of his great-grandfather, including how he smelled like tobacco and how he remembered seeing him in his casket wearing his uniform with the signature black hat resting on his chest.

His great grandfather served during almost that entire war, was wounded on more than one occasion and even met Abraham Lincoln while he was a patient in the hospital, recuperating from battle wounds.

That thought was so amazing to me…that my own father personally met and knew someone who had shaken hands with Abraham Lincoln…

Today we live in is vast, complex and radically connected world and the whole of our lives is lived in connection with others. Each one of us is part of an unbroken chain of recognition and love and this phenomenon involves more than just the lives of the living.

I listened to a local pastor several months ago who made this analogy in a sermon…Imagine you are standing next to your mother on one side of you and your father on the other side and you are holding their hands…and on each side of them are your grandparents, also holding hands..with each generation added…each one of the people in this human “chain” are connected…through a combination of genealogy and historical experiences.

For example, when I held my mother’s and father’s hands, I was holding the hands of people who had lived through the Great Depression and World War II…and as you would move down the chain, the connections would take you back in time…living through medical breakthroughs, wars, the birth of a new nation, famine, Shakespeare…and on and on…

Within each of our chains, the lineage is different but they all have one thing in common…love… and the human spirit that creates that love…

Each one of those links in our chain had someone who believed in them, who encouraged and instilled faith, who let them know that they mattered…Those links also had elements of bravery, kindness, compassion, hard-work ethics and creativity.

What lesson do we learn from this chain of humanity? In essence, I believe we are all connected and with that connection comes an obligation…To spread that love beyond our own chain…in acts of kindness and compassion…and to never forget that no one gets excluded from God’s love…

The saying goes, “You reap what you sow…” but maybe we need to focus more on sowing so that others can reap…loving so that others can heal…being a person who reflects and inspires those around them…while not forgetting the hands that we once held…and who, in essence, we really never let go of…

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Tranquil Moments…

I asked my niece, Jennifer Malphy, if she could share some of her nature photos with my newsletter audience. Each week I will feature a new photo. Here is this week’s:

This week’s Smile video…

After his retirement, and following the death of his wife, Danny Chauvin of Mississippi was looking for purpose. He had served in the Army in Vietnam and been treated for PTSD and depression, and knew he needed to keep busy. So, he posted a note to Facebook offering his services as a handyman, and everything changed. Steve Hartman has his story in "On the Road."

#believe #smilevideos #spreadkindnessandlove

Poetry to ponder…

What I am reading…

This week I reread one of my favorites by Joyce Meyer, The Love Revolution. It did not disappoint…

The Amazon description is as follows: “Joyce Meyer is not satisfied with the status quo. She believes that we each need to become a revolutionary and practice love every day. And if Joyce has her way, the revolution will spread -- person by person, house by house, town by town, until the old culture of selfishness and greed gives way to a new culture of concern for others.

The book is a revolutionaries' manual, a hands-on primer for bringing the Golden Rule to life in the twenty-first century. Meyer starts out by giving some stunning statistics. Right now. . .210,000 children will die this week because of poverty; 640 million children do not have adequate shelter; every day, 3,000 children are abducted into the sex-trafficking industry; every day, 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. She goes on to say that although crisis is global, the solution is local. We can't solve the world's problems, but that isn't a reason to remain idle.

Love Revolution focuses on personal behavior on the local scale. It's not just a call to action; it is a call to being: being the person who goes out of your way to encourage someone who's out of hope; being the one who smiles at a stranger; being the one who is willing to do something for nothing. The paradox: when we do something for nothing, what we often get is something far greater.”

What I am watching…

This week I tried to escape the chaos of current events and instead, dove into a series I literally haven’t watched since I was a child - the original series of All Creatures Great and Small. This series debuted in 1978 and as soon as I heard the theme song, I was transported back in time, sitting in our farm house living room with my parents, watching this delightful depiction of James Herriot’s stories revolving around his experiences as a veterinarian in 1930’s Britain. It is one of the many perks of getting the streaming service Britbox and I think I will be turning to it even more in the days ahead.

This week’s TED Talk - Never, ever give up | Diana Nyad

In the pitch-black night, stung by jellyfish, choking on salt water, singing to herself, hallucinating ... Diana Nyad just kept on swimming. And that's how she finally achieved her lifetime goal as an athlete: an extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida -- at age 64. Hear her story…It is so inspiring…