The Silent Industry of Grace

Hello. Good morning. Good morning from Erie, Pennsylvania. I see I've situated myself very close to my American flag, which is flapping in the wind proudly. Let me move this table. I am. I am your comrade. Speak, wonder. And I love to talk all things harbor. So I love to think about. Hey, Jackie. Good morning. I love to think about and converse with you about harbor pilots, which symbolically are friends and comrades, Cadre people, coaches, relatives, people who are in your corner, who come alongside you in the harbor and help you find your way to safeport.

That's the symbolic application. It is a literal job. It's a real job. If I were starting out all over in life, maybe I'd consider becoming a harbor pilot. A person who is at the ready, on call to motor out to the larger vessel and shimmy up that rope. That's why I say back in my younger days, go up to. To the navigational part and take over the helm. This is what a harbor pilot does. They actually take over the wheel because the captain of that vessel, that cargo ship, that pleasure boat, that tugboat, does not know the local harbor.

So they need the expertise, the one who does, the one who knows about the sandbars and the hazards that might lurk under the water. That's what a coach is. That is what a mentor is. Ah, Steph. Steph, Erwin. Andy, Joyful. Great to have you. So it is a real job, a harbor pilot, and it is my harbor application every Thursday, as we think about the picture of caregiving. A long time ago. Well, it feels like a long time ago now, 2020, when we were in lockdown and it was uncertain as to when we'd return to our offices and buildings.

I was given the. Actually the privilege of writing an encouragement every week for our co workers. Where I worked, I'm now retired. It became something that people were hungry for, this encouragement. A little quick blog, if you will, or a poem or an essay. And so one of the workers said, can we have these every day? And so you guys. I was paid to write at my government job, staying to be what I really like to be, which is a writer and a poet. So I got to do that during my workflow, write something to encourage the troops.

And so I was thinking about the silent industry of grace. And, you know, grace and the activity of grace, whether it's during COVID lockdown or today, any time in the human experience as we walk out into the world, grace is not loud. It doesn't come with fanfare. It just is. It just exists. It exists in a Kindness. It existed today when another motorist let me in first in the flow of traffic. Grace is a smile where you didn't expect one. It's just a nod in your direction. And it humanizes us. Not only do we receive affirmations and silent echoes of grace, but we give them.

And we don't know the effect they might be having on the ones who receive them. We don't always recognize it as grace. We don't pause and say, wow, that was a grace filled moment. But if we took an inventory of the day, we would see the grace coming our way in the caregiver picture. As caregivers, we need that. We need that bolstering up, and we need to know we're not alone. So this is something I wrote to the troops back in 2020, and I think it's relevant today. It's titled Grace runs to Pain. Grace runs to pain like a healthy, like healthy blood runs to a wound.

Have you been the recipient of grace lately? It's a swoosh of comfort, a balm of healing, an ointment of relief. And have you been the giver of grace? It's a spark of warmth in your eyes, Genuine caring, real grace. Much of our work includes the silent industry of grace. On the surface, we provide safe spaces for at risk children. I used to work in Children's services. We're helping people find their way out of the labyrinth of addiction. We refer clients to parenting classes. We offer mental health services through our many providers.

The list goes on and on. Beneath the surface, there is an unseen weaving. Ribbons of support that lift and tug and wrap and hug and bolster up. There are workers among us, even scattered as we are, who speak grace as a second language. You know, if I were to go in and edit this essay, I would say grace as a first language because it's unspoken. We carry it with us into the world. Thanks, junk food. Good morning. Yeah, you love the little pom pom on my stocking cap? Yeah, my Cadre cap. One of the first things I acquired from the Cadresphere when I became a contributor a couple years back.

Back in the day when we worked under one roof. I saw you show kindness on the phone. I observed you mentoring a co worker. I laughed with you as you spilled ribbons of humor into a very tense moment. This is grace, a language that needs no interpretation. It is immediately understood by the ones who need it most. Grace is healing. You can feel it rush to the place of pain. And maybe you've heard the story of the small boy who learned that his neighbor was grieving the loss of his wife. The boy asks his mom, can I go next door and see the man?

Sure, she said. Just don't bother him. So when he returned home, the boy's mom said, what did you say to comfort our neighbor? Nothing, the boy replied. I just sat beside him and helped him cry. Grace. Grace is light and airy, but, oh, it is profoundly powerful, rippling into a needy world, infusing it with hope. The world is a fist. Grace is an open hand. The world loves a snappy comeback. Grace loves a kind word. The world runs from pain and grace runs toward the thing that. And FedEx is here, right in the middle of my poem.

My. My lovely, lovely poem. Can you believe that this happens every Thursday? Something happens and put my notebook down and I'm going to come back to my poem. Okay, guys? Hi. How you doing? Thank you very much. Careful out there. You know, I come outside to do my Cadre and the world says, not today. Do you like my outside? Do you like my side yard? Isn't it beautiful? I'm so blessed. I live on a farm. It's 40 acres. There are three barns. They used to have livestock in them. The one that's closest to me, the barn, had seven horses at one time.

I know this because the family has told me its history. I rent here. I'm not a landowner and I'm not a farmer, but I live here in a refurbished garage. Look at the wood on my garage. It's like I live in a barn. And there's a milk house nearby where they used to walk the cows through to get the milk. There's a large Victorian house. That is where the landlords live. So, anyway, I am truly blessed to live where I do. And I wanted to do my Cadre outdoors because it's so pretty out. It's not warm. It's probably about 45, but it's sunny.

The world is a fist. Grace is an open hand. The world loves a snappy comeback. Grace loves a kind word. The world runs from pain and grace runs toward the thing that hurts. The world thunders me first. Grace whispers you. You go first. The world upends and grace mends. The world abandons. Grace abides. The world quits. Grace perseveres. The world shrugs. Grace hugs. The world mocks and grace griefs. Grace reframes everything in the workplace, in church, at home, in the car, wherever your day will take you.

Grace is a language we have all learned and we do speak in this silent industry. We speak it. With or without words, we can trust the quiet, capable, dynamic activity of grace to heal and heighten, strengthen and sustain. Beneath the surface, there's unseen weaving. I'm repeating my favorite part. Ribbons of support that lift and tug and wrap and hug and bolster up. Where can you float grace to somebody today? And where can you allow it to come to you? I invite you to do that. Dr. Charisse. This morning's live.

She's always spot on. This morning, I invite you to her replay. Also, JC she talked about the embarrassment and recovery of mispronouncing things, especially when learning a new language. Dr. Schwes was talking about how we might avoid burnout or mitigate burnout by doing some simple things. I won't do her whole list. You need to go and look at that. But the thing that really kind of zinged into my heart about avoiding burnout was she said, think about all your apps that you have on your phone. How many applications do you allow to send notifications every day?

So you're getting bings and pings and zips and zaps and reminders and it draws you to your screen. And so that was one of her suggestions. To not be quite as frenzied and unfocused and distracted is to look at the apps you don't really use and silence them. A great word from Dr. Charisse. I've been thinking about the crow's nest at the top of the ship's mast. When you really think about that, you really think about. We all have our own crow's nest. We observe people and things around us. I think you're still writing, my dear.

Oh no, there's your explanation point. We observe people and things around us. Thank you for the hearts. Yes, we do. So the crow's nest, which was my live last week, feeds right into this live, which is looking around, noticing, observing, being in a position high up on the mast. Looking with our observation piece, whether it's an old style eyeglass or modern powerful binoculars, we're looking, we're observing. We're observing the silent industry of grace and seeing the other boats as they approach the harbor or as they leave the safety of the port and go into the open sea.

I guess my poet's heart will forever belong to the sea or the lakefront or the river. I am Aquarius, born in January. And that's the water sign. Grace shows up when it's dark and raining. Wow. I think I've gone over time. This is a picture of my Totoro, my neighbor totoro My daughters grew up with that movie. It's beautiful Japanese anime. And this fictitious character comes and protects the family. Here is my garden frog. He stays outside year round. He's impervious to the elements. He needs a name.

Maybe you could think of a name for my garden frog. And if I remember, I'll get him in front of the camera again next week and see if we can come up with a cute little name. My FedEx delivery is printer ink. And I'm super excited because I've been needing to print stuff and my ink had run out. I'm going to leave you with, ah, with this. I'm going to leave you with this parting thought and I invite you to watch. Ms. Shannon Paul, I believe, is coming along this afternoon. Comedy in the chaos. And she is.

She's funny and she's relevant, as is every contributor here and everyone who participates in the conversations. It's truly a dynamic thing we have going in the Cadre. We can trust the quiet, capable, dynamic activity of grace. So let's go out in the world today and heighten, strengthen, receive and sustain. Let's call him. We could call him Freddy. Just like the frog on the New Zoo Review TV show. I gotta catch that junk food. Freddy is perfect. He's responding already. Already he looks like a Freddy.

I can't help myself. A lot of things spill out in rhyme. Have a great day. Wherever you are. Float grace and let it float to you. We'll see you next Thursday. I know it's Thanksgiving Day, but I'd still like to show up on the Cadre in the midst of whatever it is Thanksgiving looks like for you and for me. And I say farewell for now. Freddy. Freddy. Got a leaf on me. Freddy. And I say ciao for now and end Live stream.