Kill sterotypes! She is young, blond, beautiful AND intelligent!!
In a graduation speech at the New York University back in 2022 where she was awarded a doctorate, Taylor Swift’s message captivated the audience. It was so impactful that I decided to find it on-line, download it, and read it to really digest some of the points she was making. Below is only the last part of it, but it will give you a small picture of why this “blond bombshell” has taken the world by storm. If you have not witnessed one of her concerts, you probably don’t understand “the whole package.” I didn’t… until I watched her concert (see below). I urge you to take some time and log in to her Era tour’s grand finale in Los Angeles. You’ll be amazed at the dancing, the staging, the lighting, the cast of supporters, the whole sheebang!
Here is the last part of her speech to the graduates and their families at New York University:
“Sometimes, everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism, and I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. So this might be hard for you to hear.
In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong person, underreact, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self-sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not going to lie. These mistakes will cause you to lose things.
The Silver Lining
I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things, too. Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice, which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know which path to take.
There will be times in life where you need to stand up for yourself, times when the right thing is actually to back down and apologize, times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run, times to hold on with all you have, and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to sit and listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments?
Embracing Uncertainty
You won’t. How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t. The scary news is you’re on your own now.
But the cool news is you’re on your own now. I leave you with this. We are led by our gut instincts, our intuitions, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes.
Final Thoughts
So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about it on the Internet. Anyway, hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it. And as long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. (And you need to have seen her smirk here as she kiddingly said:) And I am a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.
I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re the class of 22. We’re doing this together.”
Cheers, my friends! Yes, young, blond, beautiful, and intelligent… You can be all that and talented, too. Taylor sure is!
Richard (Dick) Peterson has a blog titled From Big Sky Buckeye
In it, Dick shares entries from his journals. Today’s entry said:
“Resilience allows life’s next breath to continue with another step.“
AI generated that “big step” photo for me. I find it interesting that big step and next breath are used in a way that links our head to our feet. It is true for me that when I am ready to take a “big step” it has to be a decision made at the head and heart level.
What next step are you ready to take? Will it take resilience to take that next breath and continue?
What makes you unique? Your fingerprint and your eyes, Your hair and your smile.
Your conversation, And your own brand of whimsy. Do you embrace these?
Bob Goff wrote today, “God made you this way On purpose, freckles and all.”
He had lots of spots – As a kid, lots of freckles. He was teased a lot.
His grandma told him “Those spots are angel kisses.” So be proud of them!
“Don’t tell anyone,” She cautioned him not to share – “Friends would be jealous!”
That very mean boy Who teased Bob, calling him Spot, Wilted his soft heart.
With grandma’s advice His insecurities left, Finding acceptance.
Accept uniqueness! Embrace how you’re different. Congratulations!
Love, JanBeek
P.S. Bob Goff puts this message at the end of each of his books:
CONNECT WITH BOB “Bob’s passion is people. He’d love to hear from you if you want to email him at info@bobgoff.com. You can also follow him on Instagram and X: @bobgoff. Here’s his cell phone number if you want to give him a call: (619)985-4747.”
Autumn is awesome With spectacular colors Breathtaking beauty
Bob’s former student, Victor Salazar, treats us every week with his “Friday Fotos.” This “Pond in Maine” was in his last batch of pictures. It’s so spectacular, I just had to share it. Thank you, Victor.
Our brilliant bushes Greet friends who come to visit Soon color is gone
Winter comes too soon When everything turns to white Meantime dance in leaves
I have had a break from my blog for awhile. Why? Spending time with visiting friends and family this summer and early autumn has taken precedence. Also, for the last 300+ consecutive days I have been doing a daily French lesson on Duolingo. Can I speak French now? No… But I can read and understand some. Time to move on. So, I’m exchanging that focus for now. I’m returning to my daily blog posts. I hope you’ll join me.
Today, I reread a response from a friend who wrote to me back in 2021 with this comment:
“You lit a candle in my mind and heart this morning when I read your blog post … Thank you for spreading love, joy, peace, faith & unity through your blog…”
I kept a copy of that blog response in my journal titled, “I Can and I Will, Watch Me!” The entry that day in 2021 was, “I CAN Be an Inspiration.” That is my mission… and I have been neglecting it here on WordPress. But, I’m back!
My journal has 124 entries, each starting with “I Can…” As the “Inspirational Leader” I read one a month last year to my friends at Madison Valley Women’s Club. They responded very favorably to the inspirations. For the next few months, let me share one a day with you, okay? Hopefully you will follow along, and “I Will” be an inspiration to you, too. “Watch Me!”
I CAN Inspire!
I’m not in retirement I’m in re-inspirement Each day a new opportunity To inspire and To be an inspiration grabs me!
What is the secret to being an inspiration?
Love people and Try to understand them.
Reach out in love today.
Sincerely tell at least three people today, “I Love You.”
A friend forwarded this to me. She said it was too good not to pass on. I agree👍🏽 So, I’m passing it on, too. It’s from Butler Bass from The Cottage<dianabutlerbass@substack.com>
It’s long and it’s political. I don’t usually post political viewpoints on my blog. But, I’m feeling the pain of what’s happening in the USA right now. And I feel like I need to do something. At least speak out. So here it is:
Everything is worse than expected. Hearts are breaking; many are confused and afraid. A late night reflection.
I hope you didn’t watch the news today.
Because today is one of those sorts of Trumpy Fridays — tariff insanity, stock market decline, a dismal jobs report, firing the director of the bureau who produced honest unemployment numbers, moving a convicted human trafficker to a cushy prison (most likely to pardon her), continuing crisis around the Epstein scandal, threatening Russia with nuclear submarines, $10 a pound ground beef, the dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, altering history, extortion of universities, and innocent people arrested and detained for no reason at all (except that they speak Spanish).
Welcome to America.
Here in the United States, we’ve just passed through the first six months of the second Trump term. If you are a reader who lives in a different nation, it is probably difficult to understand how difficult it has become here.
In May and June, I spent nearly a month in Europe. It was lovely being in places where people were laughing in the streets, who enjoyed being together and were not consumed with politics. Speech wasn’t guarded; no one cast furtive glances to see if ICE might suddenly appear.
When I returned home, it felt as if I’d been dropped off in a toxic waste dump. The air itself seemed poisoned in comparison to the month I’d just experienced. I couldn’t sleep. I was shaking. It was hard being here.
Shortly after my return, I was out to lunch with a friend. With her eyes downcast, she told me that she was having terrible nightmares, felt overwhelmed with sadness, and struggling with intense grief. “I can’t stand it anymore,” she confided. “Every story about immigrants being snatched by ICE, the cruelty of it all….” Her voice trailed off. “Am I going crazy?”
“I don’t know about that,” I replied. “Not sleeping, crying over the suffering of others? That seems pretty normal in these abnormal circumstances. You’ve got a soul.”
She lifted her gaze. “I’m serious,” I said, “if you weren’t sleepless and depressed, I’d think something was really wrong with you. All you’ve described only proves you are a moral human being.”
“But I can’t live this way,” she protested. I nodded, “I know. I feel the same way.” Then she asked, “What should I do? I can’t do anything. I don’t know what to do.” She seemed a bit lost, maybe somewhat guilty or perhaps even shamed by not knowing.
Although I didn’t say this to her, I remembered that before Trump was elected, one of the authors of Project 2025 bragged about how, if Trump won, their initial goal was to put Americans into trauma. He gleefully talked about wanting to traumatize federal workers and their families. But, even then, it seemed obvious that there were even more human targets for purposeful trauma. Millions of traumatized Americans, unable to function or respond in any meaningful way, would give them a clear pathway to execute their plans.
There are many ways to traumatize others — violence, abuse, witnessing or participating in harm to others, psychological manipulation. We’ve seen them all in these six months. These days, I’m less focused on those enacting all this evil than I am on the rest of us.
The victims of such behavior often suffer moral injury, a real condition, often associated with PTSD. The Veteran’s Affairs department defines moral injury: “In traumatic or unusually stressful circumstances, people may perpetrate, fail to prevent, or witness events that contradict deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”
Moral injury is just that — trauma that violates one’s core ethical beliefs.
And that’s what we’ve been suffering for the last half year. A government that is purposefully, cruelly, and maliciously creating trauma to make millions of us transgress or shift our own moral boundaries — to inure us to their destruction of democracy and the harm being done to our neighbors.
If you feel bad, it means you haven’t yet been broken. It means you still have a soul. Your moral core has not been breached.
Six months of Trumpism and you have a beating heart. It is, however, probably suffering from moral injury. But you are still the beautiful, compassionate, empathetic human being you have been.
I didn’t say all of that to my friend. I may recognize the outlines of this mass trauma event and the impact it is having on all of us. But I’m not a therapist — and I certainly can’t help others process this moral heartbreak in any kind of professional way.
Instead, I shared a simple practice that is helping me right now.
“Do you know the Serenity Prayer?” I asked her.
“The AA prayer? That’s your suggestion?”
“Yes,” I replied, laughing a little, “I’m not in AA! But it is a really good prayer: ‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’”
She looked at me quizzically. I explained, “I think I’m a bit ‘addicted’ to fixing things. But it is too much, too fast, too overwhelming. I can’t fix it. I can’t fix anything. These are powerful people and they are purposefully destroying things — including our hope. The first part reminds me that I can’t fix the economy, starvation in Gaza, all the lying and chaos, the blatant racism and misogyny…the list is long. I can’t send Trump or Stephen Miller or Russell Vought or Hegseth to therapy — or jail. I can’t remove any of them from office. I can’t change these things.”
I took a breath. “Accepting the things I cannot change doesn’t mean being passive or complicit. It means recognizing that I’m not God, I’m not that powerful, I’m just one limited human being.”
“I get that,” she said.
“But,” I continued, “there are things I can change. Those things that I am called to do, relationships in my part of the world. I can give, volunteer, write, be generous and kind, stay informed, tend to my soul and my own fears and griefs. I can even take some risks. I can still vote. I can speak out. I can do my work well. I can love. I can do good, even when it seems too little. I can’t change everything. I can change some things. And that’s where wisdom comes in.”
She said, “I hadn’t thought about that prayer as a guide for now. Yeah, I can’t do everything. But I can do those things right in front of me.”
I like the Serenity Prayer. But I also think it should be called the Serenity-Courage-Wisdom Prayer, because it doesn’t ask for one thing. It asks for three! The trio of dispositions work in concert to shift our own perspectives and attitudes. It isn’t about fixing anything. Instead, it opens a path of resilience and appropriate action that we may be transformed.
The prayer is attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, the great twentieth century American theologian. Niebuhr’s theology, richly imbued with irony and humility, emphasized the tensions and contradictions of human sinfulness and the necessity of social justice, communal ethics, and the practice of love. You sense that in this prayer — the recognition of our limits and the summons to genuine courage. But the paradox of serenity and courage must work tandem with wisdom, the ability to both accept and act in difficult and emotionally trying circumstances.
Niebuhr’s daughter thought that her father’s 1943 version of the prayer was his best — and is closest to his intention. It is notable that this version is a communal invocation, not an individual petition:
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
And that’s what I’m wondering. Of course, the prayer is a good guide for these hard days. It helps me. I think it is helping my friend.
But what of us? Can we pray the prayer together? In community, sharing our restless fear and relentless sorrow?
Give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed. Like there’s no real going back. We can’t live in some nostalgic America. We’re going to have technology and AI. We’re going to be living with the consequences of climate change. We can’t change the past mistakes and sins of our ancestors. We need an honest assessment of reality. We will shed many more tears over what cannot be changed.
What must we learn to accept?
Give us courage to change the things that should be changed. Not what we can change. But what should be changed. We might feel we can’t do big things. But there is so much that should be changed — for future generations to thrive, for the planet to flourish, for humanity to live justly and in peace. What should be changed? Do we even have the courage to ask the question?
What should be changed?
Give us wisdom to distinguish what cannot be changed from what should be changed. Only in that tension, the deep irony of the human condition, between the realism of what is and the dream of what should be, will our nightmares cease and our love increase. Wisdom, oh wisdom, we need you.
How would knowing the difference shift our lives and communities?
If enough of us embrace serenity, courage, and wisdom, things will change. But not because a some Golden Age is dawning or a political savior will save us. There’s only the long, hard work of being human — of striving toward love and justice, accompanied by the tender compassion of grace.
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.
― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
INSPIRATION
If you are one who has practice meeting the pain of the world, we need you. Right now we need you to teach us it is possible to swallow what is weighty and still be able to rise. We need you to remind us we can be furious and scared and near feral over injustice and still thrill at the taste of a strawberry, ripe and sweet, can still meet a stranger and shake their hand, believing in their humanness. We need you to show us how we, too, can fall into the darkest, unplumbed pit and learn there a courage and beauty we could never learn from the light. If you have drowned in sorrow and still have somehow found a way to breathe, please, lead us. You are the one with the crumbs we need, the ones we will use to find our way back to the home of our hearts. — Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Please”
I took my sermon notes as a series of Haiku today in church. Let me share those notes with you. It was a wonderful message delivered by our interim pastor, Brian Conklin.
Live in unity Choose love over labeling Walk in the spirit
Be a peacemaker Listen to one another Hear others’ stories
Share humanity See Christ’s imprint in others Exhibit goodness
Show agape love It’s the highest form of love Unity and grace
Two hundred forty Plus nine years ago there was Freedom declared here
Our nation declared One land – indivisible But, we divided
We let politics Rule over our heart, soul and Our identity
We need freedom TO Exercise our highest good Not just freedom FROM
We need open hearts Hearts that seek to heal others Not drive them apart
Stop all the fighting Show love, not hated discord Celebrate freedom
Hear one another Just lift one another up Be calming healers
Unoffendable Means listening openly Try understanding
Openly share faith Faith in each others’ goodness Hope for our future
Live in hope and peace Just be unoffendable Wear love on your sleeve!
Air: an essential… treat each breath as a luxury. Never waste a minute of the breath you receive. It’s the gift of life. Every day is a luxury. Cherish it!
Here are some ways I live and share the luxuries inherent in every day:
Big Sky country – headed from Ennis to Bozeman, MTTaking time to smell the lilacs!Enjoying and relaxing in the gift of sunshine with KennyCelebrating music with the Bozeman SymphonyVicariously traveling to Europe with Adrian & Laura
Can’t live without the contacts with loved ones … so grateful for the luxury of their shared experiences!
God bless those loved ones in our lives who share their experiences with us, huh? Such sharing definitely is a luxury for us as receivers. Thank you for sharing yours, too🥰👌🏽!
