PEBBLE
Wisdom is like a baobab tree: no one person can embrace it, but together a tribe can. -African Proverb (Benin, Ghana and Togo), shared by Mary in Wichita, KS
BOULDER
Wisdom comes from metabolizing what we learn from others and from experience to a point where it can be shared.
-Mary Catherine Bateson, shared by Isaac in Sedona, AZ
PONDER
It has been a joy to unleash Ripples for the past 1,068 weeks, and I’m grateful for the community we’ve built, the connections we’ve made, and for the many hopeful, helpful messages we’ve spread far and wide. I treasure the scores of kind notes many of you have sent over the years (I read every single one even though I can’t always respond individually), and I especially appreciate those with a flavor of “this week’s message was just what I needed–how did you know?”
I’m okay with receiving credit for the time, energy, and love I put into assembling these weekly splashes as long as we also recognize the collective effort of those who contribute quote submissions as well as those who enthusiastically forward ripples on to others (and let’s not forget our Patreon Peeps, the passionate group of Ripplers who pitch in a few bucks a month to cover the significant costs of our ripply efforts).
It is equally important to me that people acknowledge their own role in embracing the weekly splashes and seeking/finding/recognizing meaning for themselves. I’m also fairly sure there is a higher power at work (God, Universe, Source of Life), helping connect us to each other and to the messages we need to hear at a particular time.
It takes a village to accumulate and share all these wise and wonderful nuggets, and they would be less enjoyable and less effective without each and every one of our contributions to this collective wisdom. I’m proud of us and I hope you are too!
Peace,
Paul
p.s. Last week’s Memorial Day issue found me so focused on seeking a balance between helping people celebrate a much-deserved holiday weekend while honoring the meaning behind Memorial Day that I missed an important opportunity to recognize the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. I’m grateful that someone reached out to encourage acknowledgment of this significant and tragic part of our history that most of us didn’t learn about in school. I apologize to those who were let down by my oversight; yet another example of why we need all of us working together to make the best possible Ripples! -pw
