My Favorite Five Medium Writers #6
This week I’m picking writers who have inspired me or pricked my conscience. In each case they are worth reading and sharing.
Instead of unsung writers who need a larger audience, which they do, I’m choosing five individual articles this week that hit where I live. Pieces by writers with the courage to tell it like it is about parenting kids who would drain the resources of the most loving souls yet they keep showing up with new ways to embrace them. Writers who take on the environment, injustice, the ways the sheer effort of living can create calluses on the heart and conscience. They’ve opened and re-opened my eyes, and I thank them for the nudges and pricks that made me say ouch, made me take an uncomfortable look at myself if I’m contributing to a problem, made me resolve to do better. I hope you appreciate them as much as I do.
Let’s give some claps for:
I thought I knew gratitude until I read what an activist does with gratitude. To say I’m grateful for this piece sounds glib, but it’s true. This essay has made me examine my community and the problems I can overlook as NIMBY, but since I live on this earth, who else’s backyard are they in?
I dare anyone to remain unmoved by this father’s show of compassion, love and appreciation for his very challenged son. My new test of myself is to see everyone where they are, not where I want them to be. This one won the internet the day I read it.
I knew the work of this wonderful writer when I read her heartbreaking piece about continuing to love and stand up for a beloved who continually disappoints her. If you happen to need a lesson on unconditional love, here you go. But be careful, the hurt and anger might singe your fingers. The balancing act she walks, however, will astound you.
I’ve read many pieces urging me to care about the environment, all of them worthy. But Jenny Justice pulled me up short by calling my attention to Trash. The cartoon character and the stuff I accumulate and dump into my backyard and yours every day. Came away saying, got do do better. Hope you will too.
I’ve mentioned this writer before, and that’s okay. This piece should get a spotlight every day for the casual way some of us white people trample the justice system and probably don’t even realize it, the lives of so many shattered in the process.
In case you missed previous episodes, catch up here.
If you’d like to read more of my articles, click here to sign up for my newsletter and I’ll make sure you get a first look at everything I write. Thank you for reading.
