Day 365

One year ago I made a commitment to keep a blog for one year. I decided to focus on my efforts to live a nonviolent life. Now it is time to say good-bye to this blog. Before I do, I would like to reflect a little on what I have gained from this experience.

This blog was a promise to myself. I am almost never break my promises to other people but I needed to practice doing the same for me. I am proud that I saw this project through to the end. The rewards were plentiful.

I remember that first time I ever flew in an airplane. Looking down at the landscape I saw a patchwork quilt of green and brown, only visible from a great distance. This blog has given me that perspective on my own life. I have come to see the patterns and I have gained appreciation for my hard-won sense of equanimity.

This blog has helped me to embrace myself as a writer. Some entries were insightful, some were boring. The value was in the doing. The end product was in many ways incidental. As Miles Horton once said, "We make the road by walking."

I have decided to continue down this road. One of the things I learned this year about nonviolence was that it is, more than anything else, about honoring that which is most alive for us at any given moment. That is my plan for the immediate future.