This is stewardly

For a long time, I’ve been working on a place where I could have the sort of sincere conversations that I crave. Sarcasm has its place and sacrilege can serve a purpose but I’ve always thought that the beauty of humanity is rooted in our tendency to take things seriously.

It’s in our ability to look up into the clouds in search of images and reflections of our world up there. Our penchant for tying together the loose ends of the chaos is what knits us together.

Last year, for my five-year wedding anniversary, my husband and I took a trip to Las Vegas and flew into the Grand Canyon via helicopter (thank you, Groupon). Pictures just do not do it justice.

There were a few mix-ups with our reservation and the “light lunch” at our landing point was simply popcorn chips + cheap champagne in cut-rate, plastic, Party City flutes. Still, it’s bound to make the top 10 in my memorable moments for years to come.

The weather was mild and the skies were clear—conditions could not have been more perfect. The Colorado River was muddy but it almost didn’t matter. Watching it make its way along the valley floor, unimpeded and insistent, I was struck by its simplicity. The process of change and transformation isn’t complicated at all, it’s just addition (or in the case of the canyon, subtraction) with the benefit of the compound nature of time. Here I was, standing in this world wonder that had required an unimaginable amount of energy over an unimaginable amount of time in order to create.

It’s an eerie feeling but not unfamiliar: looking back into time at the impact of your efforts, how you shaped the world, how the world shaped you. We were well-acquainted, though. Even just 5 years ago, I didn’t quite know where all of the small but consequential decisions I was making were going to take me. At the time, I was working in the non-profit sector managing constituent data & development analytics. Today, I’m a small business owner in telecommunications & utility construction. For some, it’s our widely varied interests that we channel, making our way along uncommon paths. For others, it’s our natural ability to adapt to change that propels us, bending where necessary but intent on forging forward. Flexibility: it’s a perfectly natural way of moving through the world.

Sometimes willingly. Sometimes not so much.

But before we learn to be moved along by some singular motivation or goal, most of us learn to lean on our principles. Sure, there are always concrete things that we need to check off of a list. Save for college. Meet client deadline. Send out 15 resumes. Do the laundry. But often, these things make up the entire picture for us, rather than the frame within we we’re able to weave freely.

It’s been a process and it hasn’t been pretty.

I’ve been doing my best to focus my energy in closer proximity to me. It is where my impact is greatest and it’s an endeavor I’ve been undertaking for a few years.

Actions speak louder than words.

It’s the little things that count.

It’s all true but it ain’t easy. Very regularly, I sketch out what things could look like, given similar circumstances and consistency. Otherwise, I do my best to concern myself with the work at hand, grateful for whatever amount of discipline and diligence that I have currently at my disposal.

Earnestness and thoughtfulness can so often be drowned out, in favor of sarcasm and satire and spectacle.

My hope is that stewardly can be the sort of place where sincerity roams, unimpeded by the rugged individualism that keeps telling us we do not need each other and that others do not need us. I pray that this can be a forum free from cynicism.

I hope we can make community here.