Human beings bond in a lot of very different ways: as members of the same family, alumni of the same school, or adherents to the same body of beliefs. Most amazing, though, is the bond of shared experience–the sharing that makes a band of brothers.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother…

Sometimes brothers find each other in unexpected ways and places. Enjoy this snapshot of an impromptu family reunion.

Last year I worked with an ex-Air Force officer. Great guy–friendly, out-going, smart, and level-headed. One day, he came in to work, plastered a goofy grin on his face, and told me, “I’m gonna have a son!”

“Congratulations! When is the baby due?”

“Oh, in about eight months.”

“How do you know it’s a son?’

He just looked at me incredulously. Apparently, I had asked a question that was too stupid to even deserve a reply. “I’m gonna call him Deuce,” he said. “Derek Number Two.”

Derek was a prophet without honor in his own cubicle. A number of months later, his wife did indeed present him with Derek Number Two. Wolf Forever is an improbable little fable that is not the story of Derek’s Deuce. But it did grow from the seed of Deuce’s early birth announcement.

Enjoy!

Memory can be a tricky thing. But memories–good, bad, and bittersweet– give texture to the fabric of our lives (sorry: that does sound like a schmaltzy product commercial, doesn’t it?)

Here‘s a little story about looking back and remembering. Enjoy…if that’s the right word.

Christians were often active participants in the Rwandan genocide. A number of survivors reported that some Christian pastors collaborated with the murdering Hutu, even going so far as to herd their Tutsi parishioners into church buildings so they could be more efficiently butchered. But If Not… is “a story, ain’t got no moral,” like the Billy Preston song. Just responsibilities and results and evil goin’ round in circles, giving us something  to think about…

Click here to read But If Not …

For some historical perspective, click here.

Is life fair? Sometimes not, but …

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice…
Martin Luther King

Sometimes, when the well-laid plans of thieves go awry, underhanded liars get their comeuppance, and good-hearted innocents come out on top.

Click here to read What Goes ‘Round.

emories. Memorials. Mindfulness.

I’ve always been a looking-forward kind of person. Live in the moment, plan and prepare for the future, and don’t waste a lot of time and energy looking backward. Past is gone. Past is prologue, and what reader worth her salt spends valuable story time perusing the prologue?

That was me. Until this past weekend.

My husband (the genealogy fanatic–and I say that in a loving way) drove us to Columbus to look at gravestones. Okay. Not my thing at all. But he had slots on my side of our family tree that were waiting for pictures of selected gravesite markers and headstones:  specifically, that of my aunt (and also stepmother–but that’s a long story and I’m not telling it here).

“Hmm.” The  functionary at the cemetery office paged through a deck of yellowing cards. “Ah. Here she is. Unfortunately, our records show no indication of a marker. But I’ll draw you a map of the burial location. It’s in the old section, on the other side of the four-lane highway.”

After some discussion about what “the other side of the highway” actually meant, Husband and I crossed the road and located the designated section. We looked around. Found headstones and markers for several long-deceased family member: a mother, two great aunts, and even an old family friend.  But in the spot where my aunt’s body was buried…nothing but brown and dying grass. Just as we had been told.

And that’s when I lost it: my composure as well as my disdain for what I had called morbid review of a personal past. That unmarked plot of land, surrounded by memorials of lives long since over, affected me with an almost unbearable sadness, far more deeply than I could have imagined. A sweet soul, a short life, a chronic illness, an untimely death…and precious few people to remember her twenty-odd years of existence. I cried like the baby I was when she died.

Those who went before are not to be worshipped and, in some few unfortunate cases, not even to be revered. But they are to be remembered because they went before. The  guiding brightness of the North Star comes from energy that was generated light-years ago. Just so,  past lives are distinctive memorials that can illuminate my path forward. Just so, being mindful of what was gives me courage for what is and strengthens me for what is to come.

Living in the present is primary. Looking forward is wise. But looking backward occasionally is essential.

Got dreams? What are they?

• Sharing your insight and experience with an ever-expanding community?
• Transforming your remarkable concept into a remarkable enterprise?
• Opening an online boutique for heirloom-quality gifts that enrich family life?
  or simply
• Using your purple-cow idea to change the world in your own memorable way?

Oh, you have dreams, all right. So tell me…what are you doing with them? If the 2009 dreamscape was featureless and barren, let’s look at some ways to make you a Big-Time Dreamer in 2010. Here we go!

Dreams Are A Lot Like …

Oh. One thing before we begin. If you’re near a stocked refrigerator, go get an egg. Seriously. I’ll wait. (Or just picture the egg; this is an exercise in focus. White egg or brown egg, raw or hard-boiled, ostrich, chicken, or hummingbird. No matter.)

Now look at your dream the egg – in your hand or in your mind. And consider these observations about eggs (and dreams):

• The bird waits in the egg. (James Allen)
  Today’s dream defines the scope of tomorrow’s reality. No dreams today, bleak reality tomorrow.
• [An] egg…must be hatched or go bad. (C. S. Lewis)
  Dreams have a finite shelf life. They spoil if left unattended for too long. And they stink.
• When arguing with a stone, an egg is always wrong. (African proverb)
  Don’t break your dreams by bouncing them off defenders of the status quo; we all know someone with no idea how to lay an egg, who considers herself to be “a very good judge of omelettes” that can be made only from eggs that are broken.

Five Steps to Hatching Your Dream

1. Stop thinking and talking about the dream. Do something.
   Early in the hatching cycle, eggs in an incubator must be turned every day. It’s easy–and comfortable–to build mental castles by reading you-can-do-it blogs and books and sharing/discussing your dream with supportive friends. Take a hiatus from contemplation and conversation; re-focus your attention and energy from thinking and talking to doing.
2. Carve out the specific terrain where your dream will flourish.
   Seth Godin calls this changing the game: redefine the playing field so that your dream is the only game and you are the only qualified player. Brian Clark calls it daring to be different.  I call it “being an odd, but singularly attractive, duck.” This is the strategic part of the dream-hatching plan.
3. Develop a project plan.
   Create a simple dream-hatching project plan and schedule. My plan has the following important (at least to me) pieces:
   • Strategy, to document the “business case” for your dream; mine is a “stream-of-consciousness” statement that describes my dream in great detail, including the nature of my particular attractive odd duck.
   • Tactics, to outline the steps you will take turn your dreams into reality.
   • Timing, to schedule one or more blocks of time every day to work on the tactics in your plan.
4. Keep a dream-hatching log.
   My husband bought me a WII Fit Plus system for Christmas. Since I consider myself among the world’s least fit, this particular collection of bits, boards, and controls has presented something of a challenge. However, after the first few days of on-and-off workouts, I’ve settled in to a regular routine, in large part because of the annoying little animated balance board that insists on maintaining a graphical log of my activities. Seeing that line go in the right direction keeps me motivated. The same principle applies to my 2010 dream-hatching log–the one with milestones and scheduled dates that make me happy when they coincide.
   Come up with your own system for keeping track of your activities. Or drop me a line and I’ll send you mine.
5. Be prepared for the unexpected.
   New hatchlings may exhibit “curious chick behaviors …the chicks will be very active one moment, then fall in a heap with their heads on the ground as if they were taking their very last breath. A few moments later, they’ll be up and chirping once again.” Give your hatching/newly hatched dream a chance to develop its own rhythm; erratic ups and down are common in the first months of life in the real world.

Over Easy = Broken Dreams

If you want to be a big-time dreamer, over easy is not an option. So get hatching!