Welcome to Graceful Mischief
I am weary of the world, and yet I yearn for it as I know it could be. My purpose in life is to change the operating system of the world from one based on fear to one based on love. Seriously.
Forget talking about love. People have given up on love, so they say. But they still crave its authentic embrace. How do you manifest the real thing in this world?
I tripped over Grace on my way to giving up on love.
How do you look to something you cannot see? You notice where She has been. Grace Tracks. I have been doing a lot of noticing.
I notice that my leadership experience crosses sectors: public, for-profit, and non-profit (social profit). I have worked in corporate America, owned small businesses, and founded and led three social profits. I am a giver and a getter for the Common Good.
I did well in school after being told I would never amount to anything. I survived three head-on car crashes, all caused by young men driving too fast for conditions. A friend says I am safe to fly with, as things happen in threes. I had three surgeries on my feet. I should be dancing, but my feet have their own wisdom: sit, stay, write.
I notice that I have always found refuge in my spiritual practice, which has and continues to evolve over time. I don’t recall whether I first heard about Grace in church (Presbyterian) or in school. I went to The Shipley School for thirteen years (K-12). Shipley was founded by Quaker sisters. The school’s motto is “Courage for the Deed; Grace for the Doing.” I have Quaker genes. Shipley and I kissed and made up at the turn of the 21st Century.
Grace later revealed Herself to me during my training as a Reiki Master. She lends Her name to my fourth chakra, the Heart Chakra. I had recurring dreams about being Grace for many years. My friend Parker Palmer, Founder and Senior Partner Emeritus of the Center for Courage and Renewal and a Quaker, speaks widely of Grace. I am Founder and served two terms as President of WholeHeart, Inc., which places Grace at the core of the WholeHeart Wellness Model. www.wholeheartinc.org. These are just the times Grace has shown up by name.
My “Official Title” (not legal) at WholeHeart was Spark of Divine Mischief, a title that came with me when I completed my term on the Board. Grace has allies.
It is through Grace that I have discovered my gifts even when they were, in my opinion, poorly wrapped. Everyone’s gifts are different—why we need each other to be whole—as Parker says, in solitude and community.
Community. I have devoted my life to building community (and family and dogs) over the last twenty years. People are accustomed to seeing me in Town. If most of my time now is in “Sit-Stay-Write” mode, how do I continue to show up off the page?
My “wise connecting” continues, though I do not often do it in person. My network is rapidly expanding beyond Town, indeed beyond Vermont. I am a storyteller for The Obama Foundation. Being a Weaver and supporting other Weavers of Community Fabric is how I get my kicks. It’s where my passion meets the needs of the world, to paraphrase Frederick Buechner. It’s Graceful Mischief.
Defining Grace, my first book pending publication, is a noticing of where Grace has been and continues to cause Divine Mischief in an extraordinarily ordinary life—mine. Grace knows my heart and yours, our souls’ yearnings. She is an unprecedented partner in manifesting the culturally improbable. Let’s practice putting down Grace Tracks together. As Hillel the Elder famously said so long ago, “If not now, when?”
