Resolution

When I was about to graduate from college, I received some encouragement from the Danforth Foundation to apply for a grant to start graduate school. I went to my advisor to ask him what he thought.

“You want to be a writer, don’t you?” he asked.

I said with conviction that I did.

“Writers write,” he said.

It was such wonderful advice. I decided not to go to graduate school, and for the past 40+ years I have been writing. I pass along this counsel to anyone who asks me for tips about how to start writing. Writers write.

Now, I need to take my own advice and start writing this blog!

For months, I’ve been asking myself with uncharacteristic indecisiveness what this blog should look like—how personal, how philosophical, how much reflecting the subject of my new book, how much about other preoccupations… But actually, tagline says it all: Grabbing the Great Now from the tiny now.

Life is full of challenges, and if I make an effort to see them with openness, curiosity, a sense of their larger possibility, and the certainty that I can be surprised at any moment, I receive great amazement and insight… even in the midst of grief and fear.

So this is my commitment to you: to write more often—sometimes with the personal, sometimes the philosophical, sometimes citing something I’ve found interesting… but always exploring how to grab the Great Now from the tiny now.

Thank you for sticking with me!