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Emerging with your "Kwan"

Writer's picture: Christopher FatherleyChristopher Fatherley


May 2021


As global regions gently transition from "mask required" to "mask preferred," the forming question is: what have we learned from the past year? While some gained quality of life benefits from the pandemic's isolation, others faced illness and loss. Each story is personal; no story is the same. My local community is bubbling with a cautious emergence from its protective cocoon as the weather turns toward summer. The same sentiment is echoing across media channels reporting the latest company or industry preparing for a return to measured normalcy.


But what is "normal"? What is fair to expect from each other as the pandemic's immediacy slowly dissolves from view? How has the caregiver role changed? Will its "essential" function remain as publicly visible and recognized with the same compassionate fervor? How do we balance health, freedom, and a recognition that something universally profound has happened?


In this spirit, I decided to draft a personal working list of post-pandemic resolutions.


These are my vision statements:


  • Faithful awareness of others. I begin each day with a prayer for the comfort and peace of our human family. I focus on the shared experience, prioritizing commonalities over differences.


  • Remain thankful my circle of loved ones made it through the year with no fateful setbacks. Yes, lifestyle adjustments were made (some not by choice) but I stayed the course with an adaptive focus.


  • Be receptive to leadings for a wiser, more resourceful, and prosperous self. Deliver with a graceful urgency, knowing cultural inequalities remain. Be thoughtful, efficient, and actively contribute to the greater good.


  • Respect other's healing process, meet them where they are. It took me some time to decide about the vaccine, but I eventually saw it as the best way to move forward for myself and community.


  • Be bold and offer help; be humble and ask for help.


I am reminded of the film Jerry Maguire, a near relic from 1996 but unusually insightful for a Hollywood blockbuster. At a career crossroads, the professional American football player Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) schools his failing sports agent Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) on the mystical power of "The Kwan." With roots in Eastern spirituality, The Kwan represents a gathering of "oneness" through the unification of love, respect, community, and livelihood.


As Rod Tidwell puts it, "the entire package."


So how does The Kwan reveal purpose in your life?


For the Kingdom,


Christopher


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