Dear Friends, I hope you are surviving the normal challenges of this season, combined with the left turns of Omicron. I also hope that you are filled with hope. I highlight “hope” because I suspect that more than a few of you are fighting the fatigue of this pandemic,...
Dear Friends, My daughter face timed me last week and the first thing I noticed was the Christmas tree. Just so you don’t feel behind (or offended that she broke an unwritten rule of ‘no Christmas before Thanksgiving’), all the decorations were not complete. She...
Dear Friends, I know it is a bit early to think about Thanksgiving, but it is November now, and a great time to not only consider travel plans and culinary recipes, but to take a moment to initiate the ritual of giving thanks. Long before scientists devised...
Dear Friends, Perhaps as I did, you expected warm and sunny days ushering in the month of July. Instead, it wasn’t just wind blowing through Chicago recently, but flash floods joined the tornado warnings and severe thunderstorms. Unless you were cleaning...
Dear Friends, In this month’s Overtones, you will find pictures throughout the articles. To me, this speaks to a narrative of one of our chapter’s high values - intentional relationships. Though the pandemic has naturally changed some of the ways we have...
Dear Friends, I have long been a fan of the late USC philosophy professor, Dallas Willard. His insights were profound and his demeanor disarming and engaging. Few insights seem as prescient as his argument that we must “ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our...
Dear Friends, The AGO Committee on Membership Development was recently tasked with the project of creating a webinar to be used as a resource for local chapters such as ours. Titled “Re-igniting, Re-imagining and Re-emerging from COVID-19,” eleven AGO chapters from...
Dear Friends, Suez Canal Last week, a sandstorm caused the cargo ship Ever Given to run aground in the Suez Canal, blocking it completely. The canal sees 10% of the world’s daily shipping traffic, but is only 300 feet wide in places. Ever Given is ¼ mile long,...
Scottish poet Robert Burns, ploughing his field, accidentally destroyed the nest that a mouse had carefully prepared in anticipation of winter. Reflecting, Burns left us the well-known phrase “best-laid plans”: You saw the fields laid bare and empty, and weary winter...
Dear Friends, This pandemic has made me more aware than ever before that I have little control over the most important things in life. I can’t keep my loved ones safe. I’m not in charge of the world. So, I’m learning to surrender to this lack of control and find...
Dear Friends, It has been said that an optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in, while a pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. If you were beat up by 2020, I can understand if you and those around you are anxious to see it go. I love a...
Recently someone asked me the question, “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” That question gave me pause, as it seems a bit of a challenge to embrace new experiences within the limitations of our world today. The ideas that come to my mind...