We'd all like to be saints. It is just that the process is a bit difficult. From time to time I'd like to share a thought or two on it, and, as we travel together down life's road, we all might benefit.

Let's start with patience. In the great list of spiritual practices there is none quite so demanding as its exercise. It is definitely not a virtue of the modern world. No one today names a child Patience, although it was popular in the 18th century. The card game most of us call Solitaire is also known as Patience, probably for those who don't cheat to reach the desired end more quickly.

I thought about practicing it today as I caught sight of the subway platform, lined with the patiently waiting workers for that perennially slow R train. The lucky few sat; the rest of us stood, and we waited, more or less patiently. Does waiting impatiently spur on the process? Of course not, but it does give us something to do as we step to the edge of the platform, peer knowingly down the dark tracks, sign gustily... you get the picture. We have all done it from time to time.

I remember once being at a party at a friend's apartment when I noticed, in the middle of the room, a woman of about eighty who had the most beautiful face. More than that, a beautiful light shone through, making her appear even more beautiful. I had to find out who this woman was. I eventually inched my way close enough to her to talk to her. We chatted for a while, and in the course of the conversation she told me about a game she and her husband played every day, and what a difference it made in their lives. She called it the Lift Game.

They would try to find a way to lift up the people they met. When she passed by the doorman in her building, the newspaperman down the street, the lady in the grocery store, she always had a smile and a kind word.

She told about being in Macy’s one day, and trying to deal with a salesclerk who was in a terribly negative mood. She was determined to get the woman to smile. Then she noticed that the woman had beautiful teeth, and she commented on them. The woman broke into a huge smile. 

You never know the difference a kind word or a little smile will make to somebody else. Remember, everyone is fighting a tough battle. We can do more than we know with simple kindness.

Fall is upon us, with its invitations (if not insistence) of new season and fresh starts. The eternal school year inside us is all about forward movement, a pilgrimage, a setting out into a new year that in some deep-rooted way, begins now.

The Bible is filled with folk called to leave old land behind, to set out, not knowing, but trusting. I love the mysterious idea of pilgrimage: part voluntary, part kicking and screaming, with all its elements of uncertainty, doubt, and fear... and its promise of radical amazement, too.

Pilgrimage can apply to our own sense of self, to our relationships, to our work lives. We set out on them when the old ways no longer work, when we need to be stripped down to something essential and core. And to find that essence, we have to leave the old ways and venture into wilderness space. As a client said to me tonight, with sudden feeling: “I must have some new conversations!” As in deeper topics, newer, truer ways of being, of connecting. That too is a pilgrimage cry.

It is with great joy and thanksgiving that I submit my first blog posting. My wife, Monica, and I moved from Ohio to Manhattan on August 11, and we are amazed by all that the Big Apple has to offer. Because we have only been here for about a month, we still feel like tourists roaming through a maze of buildings and subway stations, trying to find our way through a sea of people and heavy traffic. It takes some getting used to.

The decision to move to New York City was wrought with several reservations on my part. A flurry of anxious questions occupied my thoughts: Where would we live? Will we be able to afford it? How will we find our way around? What if the people aren’t nice? The anxiety was raised even more when we filed the paperwork for our new apartment. And yet, with the help of friends at Marble and new friends in our neighborhood, we have found the transition to be easier than expected. In this big city, we’ve found out that we’re among millions of other “transplants”—people on a journey from other parts of the world who at this time call New York City “home.”

I think that it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.” In my thinking, a teabag never becomes fully itself until it finds that hot water. Maybe it is so with women, as well. In fact, this could be a commentary on our culture—there’s been a lot of “hot water” in which women have found themselves these days.

At this very moment, the strong women who are on my heart and in my prayers are the mothers, grandmothers, neighbors and friends who have, in any way, been hurt by the numerous hurricanes that have recently come through the Caribbean and the Southeast U.S. The women who have protected their children and families, while evacuating or hunkering down are heroes to me.  May God continue to be with them.

In a loftier and less tragic area, the Olympics were a highly competitive international cup of “hot water”. This summer I found myself glued to the television. There were so many strong women athletes, though some left especially vivid impressions on me: the strength and beauty of relay runner Sanya Richards; the fortitude and persistence of 41 year old (you go, girl!) swimmer, Dara Torres.

How do you end a vacation? You look forward to it all year. The excitement grows the closer it gets. And this year it was perfect. The sun shone, the water in the pond at the end of our yard was warm and inviting, the ocean smiled as the waves rolled in, and Cape Cod Bay delivered breathtaking sunsets. We laughed, we played, we ate ice cream; and then we did it all over again.

You know in the back of your head it will end but you do not think about it. Sort of like grandaughter Sara who this year decided that every day this summer was June 18, the day vacation started. The clock stopped.

The day to go back home did eventually come. The end of something good. The end of a wonderfully playful time with our adult children and seven grandkids. They were going home, we were going home. It would be a while until we saw each other again. It would be a year until we saw the pond again.

Labor Day! No matter what the weatherman says, this is the official end of summer and of that otherness which we all adopt, both mentally and physically. My apartment complex closes its outdoor pool. I gather up the detritus of my summer's activities, and the fall mode begins. In fact, I started early and, as I look at both the calendar and the remaining bits of my summer's activities, I wonder—did I really do all that?

I have travel printouts that assure me I took 11 different airplanes, multiple interstate buses and commuter trains (one trip alone merited seven different modes of transportation to get from here to there). No, I did not have a "staycation" as so many people did, enjoying the blessings of home as a response to the doubtful joys of travel.

I was on the road for 51 days in the past three months and I took my road mind with me. There is always something new to see and so to learn. I saw soybeans growing in Kentucky, admired roses in Texas, marveled at a herd of yaks in Colorado as well as the June snow of the Rockies beyond them, got caught in a cloudburst in New Jersey that flooded both the streets and my luggage, rode in a speedboat towing young water skiers on Lake Champlain... Yes, all this was a by-product of the retreats and workshops I gave across the country, and I learned as I went.