Month: May 2020

If you have never, with calmed mind, walked on a gravel drive in the country, please do try it sometime.

Hear the crunch beneath your feet, watch the killdeer as he runs before you, laughing when he finally takes flight. See the orange above his tail feather, only really visible as he wings away. Feel the warm sun on your face and the wind in your hair.

Breathe, listen, see, hear, smell

The experience is like coming home, like where you belong.

Boots are highly recommended for this experience, lest a twisting ankle or stone between the bottom of your foot and the inside sole of your shoe revert your calmed mind into a raging torrent.

You do things everyday that benefit others more than yourself. And, not because it makes you feel better, that would reverse the benefit roles, no, it’s because something inside of you guides you to understand that it is the right thing to do.

The more you do such things the stronger the guiding voice becomes and the more you do them, it’s a feedback loop and a good one. One that deserves to be nurtured and cared for and allowed to flourish.

It defies logic and reason.

That’s the way love is.

If you are old enough you may remember the lowly handkerchief. Little squares of cloth that were carried by men and women and used to protect the health of others.

Along with the handkerchief were protocols, one of which involved excusing yourself, finding a place where others were not down range and giving a solid blow of the nose. Coughs were similarly dealt with. Clean handkerchiefs were used to dry eyes and clear away sniffles.

All practices which slowed the spread.

Does anyone else find it bazaar that studies of first hundreds and now thousands of Covid-19 patients showing the benefits of treatment with an old, inexpensive, readily available, well know drug is met with skepticism by the media, while early results of 8 healthy young people for a new, expensive, not yet in production, untried drug is met with positive accolades by the very same media?

Seems a lot of people are either contemplating a change in career direction or have undertaken one during the lock-down. And it isn’t only those whose livelihoods were deemed non-essential and who were forced to stay home. Many of those were have been working throughout the lock-down are questioning how they invest their labor contributions

You spent a great deal of your time laboring, so it makes sense you want to invest that time wisely. Maybe the lock-down has given cause for considering the investment. Maybe the constant reminder of death and uncertainty poured out by the media during this time has led to a consideration of how our time on earth is precious and ephemeral?

If that is true then it would be a positive side effect of the mess we are in. Woot!

Life has not always been easy for us, maybe its never really easy. However, we have never watched while our children dwindled from lack of nutritious food. We have never taken turns sleeping in order to protect what food and necessities we had. And, we know enough about history, and the broader world, to be extremely grateful to have raised our children in an environment of unusual safety and abundance.

We have friends and acquaintances who have never known material comforts to the same extreme. And now, what little material comfort they had known is vanishing, or has vanished, as the world scrambles to deal with the pandemic. Jobs have been lost in parts of the world where there is no unemployment or federal stimulus checks. Crops are sometimes out of reach because of travel restrictions. Supply lines are disrupted and, most troubling, assistance from friends in the United States is in danger of waning.

You see, contrary to popular myth, the people of the United States of America are very generous and many people in the majority world have benefited greatly from that generosity.

It is not foreign government assistance or USA Rice that the people we speak with are concerned about losing, those always have strings attached and often serve the bullies and warlords more than the folks. Its the food, medicine, water wells, and a hundred other acts of love personally delivered by visiting Americans, eager to share their blessing with others. Shared blessings which have no strings, no sense of superiority, no propping up of preferred regimes, only a desire to love.

We’ve been privileged to see much of that love first hand and privileged to know many of those unheralded American lovers.

But now, America is in jeopardy, and those in the majority world know it, and are unsettled by it. They know there is no other country that generates so many individual people who give so much to love their far-away neighbors.

So America, we need to find our way through this, not just for our sake and that of our children, but also for the 265 million people who are expected to be pushed into food insecurity due to the world pandemic response. American lovers, let’s get to it.

Gray skies, water dripping,
Feels like the gloom may never end.

Today’s rain is tomorrow’s green grass and ripe tomatoes.

Are there green pastures and delightful fruit in our post-lock-down future?
Sure there are, only, they will not have been ameliorated by the virus.

They will, however, be more appreciated.

We miss so many of you and look forward to seeing you again. Face to face.

Wait, I thought it was supposed to be 2 weeks.

We all knew it would go on longer, but 60 days? And counting?

However, great concert last night!
https://hostandartist.com/artist/fort-worth-brass/live

More to come, stay tuned

We met with friends at a restaurant last night and remembered how great it is to gather together.

There was nervous joking about the current situation, tinges of anger toward the murderous regime in China whose treacherous responses of lies and coverups inflicted this mess on the rest of us. Sadness over the lack of a graduation ceremony for a member of the party who had just completed his undergraduate studies at TCU.

But there was such great joy and gladness seeing one another again. Being able to laugh and empathize face to face, no, we didn’t wear masks.

Could a growth in Direct to Consumer (DTC) businesses be in our new normal?

Even before the lockdown companies like Casper (mattresses) and American Giant (clothing) were already successfully selling directly to the consumer.  By skipping the layers of middlemen typical in modern retail, DTC companies are able to place more resource where it counts, customer and product.  Since the lockdown there seems to be a boost in people starting new businesses who don’t know about distribution layers and don’t care to learn.

We have purchased clothing from American Giant clothing and luggage from Redoxx for years.  We discovered them when looking for ways to support ‘made in the USA’ but discovered extreme value and great customer service. (Please note that value and cheap are not the same thing, these products last long and still look good after many years of use. Repeatedly replacing cheap products is very low value.)

Finding DTC products can be difficult since search engines have become billboards and small startup companies often can’t afford the word buys required to show up in search results.  Instagram and ‘influencers’ seem to be popular ways that DTCs get the word out but some of us don’t track either of those information channels.

How do you locate products offered directly to consumers?