A Reflection Point

Goodness Is Always a Good Idea

At the time of writing this note, we are two weeks away from knowing who our forty-seventh president of the United States will be. A collective pensiveness is in the air like never before, and it’s palpable for all as the country is at a crossroads of great consequences. There are moments in time that are life-altering, and I believe this is one of them.

We are a divided nation, and a house divided cannot stand. How we reconcile this existential crisis of division is seemingly impossible to me at this moment. We need to do a much better job of remembering that we’re not enemies but rather understand that although each side vehemently disagrees with the other, we are one. I believe part of the reason for such animosity is so much information, misinformation, and propaganda being mixed together to create a recipe for angst, at the very least. There is a deep concern and quest to find absolute truth, or as close as we can to get to it. We are living in an Orwellian climate where it’s hard to know for sure who is telling the truth.

Lisa Marie Burwell at VIE’s Sea + Farm + Table dinner event, 2013 | Photo by Carlo Pieroni

America is a country of innovators, entrepreneurs, thrill seekers, and problem solvers with multiple ethnicities and cultural differences. If the nation is going to survive, we need to have more love, understanding, and empathy for our fellow citizens. Since 1956, the official motto of the United States has been “In God We Trust,” which is still imprinted on our currency and is a legacy of our founders. I don’t proclaim to have all the answers, but I believe that the God I serve does, and I’m praying for America. One of my favorite scriptures is found in Philippians 4:8—“Think about things that are true, clean, right, and lovely.”

It feels like time is moving much faster than ever, and most people I talk to feel the same way, no matter what walk of life they are on. I thought it was just me working in the field of publishing, but it’s not. We all feel it. I read a great book by Oliver Burkeman recently, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Its premise is that if we live until at least eighty years of age, we all have four thousand weeks. When you net life down to weeks, it doesn’t sound like very many to me. Many Kindle readers chimed in with this astute take on the book’s ethos: “The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things.”

Because I feel like we are on the precipice of experiencing something drastically different, which may be good or bad, my current mission is to choose wisely how to spend the rest of my weeks on God’s green earth.

—To Life!

Lisa Marie Burwell