All four are either currently pursuing post-secondary education or have recently completed their professional training. Several other GLOW girls–now women–are enrolled at colleges and universities in five different states. They are all pursuing unique academic and career paths, from the culinary arts to emergency medical response. Some may become teachers, helping the next generation learn and grow. Some are already working in helping professions, serving throughout the shutdown as “essential workers” assisting those with disabilities and special needs. Some are already becoming vocal advocates and activists, helping to reshape our society for the better. I could not be more proud of these young ladies!
And I hope you will join me in affirming their persistence by supporting the GLOW Gateways to Success Grant. In my last newsletter, I mentioned that this Friday I was supposed to be singing an “Ode to Joy” with the Kansas City Symphony and Chorus but, because of the COVID pandemic, our season was canceled and we could not perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Nevertheless, this summer (and ALL seasons!) what I wish for you YOU and for all my GLOW girls, friends, and family–for all people everywhere–is JOY!
As I mentioned last week, Joi happens to be the name of one of our younger GLOW girls (see below). She is the youngest child of GLOW co-founder LaVeeda Simmons, and has endured multiple surgeries and painful recoveries during her relatively short lifetime.
Yet, Joi brings JOY to all who meet her. She is quick with a hug and a smile and I love to hear her laugh. She and her mother and her siblings and all the GLOW volunteers and families I’ve met have brought me much JOY over the years. Like Joi I see them meet seemingly insurmountable challenges with faith, optimism, grit, and determination. It inspires me and this week, especially, as I’ve wondered how we can find joy in troubling times, I’ve been reflecting on several passages from The Four Desires, by Rod Stryker, on the concepts of dharma and moksha. One passage on dharma refers to the way seeds grow,
“Drawing upon every resource available, a seed is compelled to become the thing it was meant to be,” sending roots deep into the earth but also extending skyward, toward the sun, “exhausting every last fiber of its being to fulfill its potential.”
I have seen many GLOW girls stretch beyond limits others set for them and reach higher than many may have thought possible. This brings me JOY.
Stryker writes that he “can’t help being touched by the greatness of the human spirit” expressed in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, perhaps best known for the 4th Movement, “Ode to Joy,” not just “because of the grandeur of its vision and expression as a piece of music,” but also because “it was composed by someone…unable to hear the masterpiece he had created.” He further asserts that when we cheer for amazing composers, athletes, or other individuals who overcome great odds, “we are at some level cheering for the part of ourselves that aspires to become everything we are capable of becoming.”
That is my wish for my GLOW girls, for myself, for everyone: that we may become everything we are capable of becoming. It is easy to feel discouraged lately. Just read, listen, watch the news. But it is important to remember that we can work together to overcome our collective challenges and create a freer, more peaceful and even joyful world. In a later passage, Stryker cites Einstein to illustrate the
“enduring truth that individual happiness is inextricably linked to the fate of the world around us…there may have never been a more crucial time to ask ourselves how we can achieve our individual happiness while simultaneously having a positive impact on the world of which we are a part.”
If dharma is a “longing for purpose, the desire to become who you are meant to be,” Stryker writes that moksha “is the longing for true freedom…to live fully, unburdened by your life and the things in it…the longing to move beyond all suffering and fear and realize the highest of all joys.”
The highest of all JOYS: that is my wish for Joi, for all the girls, women, and families of GLOW, and for all of YOU! I firmly believe that when we act from a place of LOVING, when we connect with the principles of dharma and moksha, positive progress is inevitable. THANK YOU for using your practice and your life to make the world a more joyful and more equitable place. Namaste