Sun Days on Orcas | Happy New Year

||| SUN DAYS ON ORCAS by EDEE KULPER |||

Today is a day of contemplation. Of pondering who we are, how we live, and the ways we would like to shape our lives moving forward.

Yesterday I learned that the topic of today’s column fell through. Though I planned it two weeks ago, and it felt so fitting, it was not to be. Rather than scramble to write something in its place, I decided to see what “presented itself” instead. I knew something appropriate would come along, especially for the first day of the new year, so I waited expectantly, eyes and ears open to what would arise.

It is 4:30 PM on New Year’s Day, and though well beyond any unspoken deadline, I bring you something local, poignant, and inspirational in the areas of remembering the past, assessing the present, and dreaming about the future.

Remembering:

Skyler Gregg grew up here on Orcas Island and died in Ukraine at the age of 23, fighting and advocating for the people there. He did it knowing it could cost him his life, but it was a chance he was willing to take.

Many of us knew or knew of Skyler, and saw him as a role model for our younger children to observe. He was kind, humble, polite, and enthusiastic. He died living passionately and courageously.

His memorial service took place ten days ago at the Community Church, and I thought you would be inspired by getting to know who he was and how he chose to live and die. 

Assessing:

In last week’s column, I briefly mentioned a new website that retired pastor and radio show host, Dick Staub, has created called St. Aub: Meditations & Confessions of an Old Godward Soul. Dick loves to ponder God. St. Aub doesn’t mean he thinks of himself as above the rest of us – you’ll hear how the name came about when you go to his site, on which he will post weekly video episodes of his ponderings.

I love a great orator, and Dick is one of the best I’ve seen in person. He used to joke about how his wife, Kathy, would remind him not to go off the script he had written for his sermon each week in church, but I didn’t mind it a bit. He could talk for hours and never get dull.

Dick decided to create a project to pass down to his family, but it became something he opted to share with the rest of us. Combine a great orator with ponderings about life, God, our purpose, and the thoughts and musings of others around the world from ancient times to the present, and I’m in.

Click here to go to his site, where you will watch the very first episode, which (I found out this morning) was released today!

Dreaming:

Several weeks ago, I was a vendor in the Winter Artisans Market at the Odd Fellows Hall. It was a two-day event, so there was plenty of time for us vendors to walk around and see each other’s work.

When I walked around to the table manned by Robert Dash, a local photographer and book author who uses a scanning electron microscope to capture the hidden worlds all around us, I saw a National Geographic magazine in the middle of his table. ‘No way,’ I thought, ‘he did it – the holy grail of photographers, and our local photographer did it!!! How awesome!!!’

That he did – his subjects in the February issue of National Geographic are magnified hundreds of times their size, and they are the leaves, seeds, and buds of plants growing right on his own property here. Click here to see his website.

Though I don’t currently plan to contact National Geographic anytime soon, I told Robert that I wrote the magazine when I was eleven and asked what it would take to become one of their photographers. (They sent me a thick packet of materials and a typed letter describing what I should do.) In my 20s, I sent in a story idea and their return letter became a part of my beloved rejection file. Rejection doesn’t keep me from continuing to pursue something, and while it isn’t in my immediate plans to suggest another article to them, I thought I’d pass on the encouragement and enthusiasm for living your dreams that Robert communicated to me…

Don’t ever give up. Keep going. You never know when your dream is going to be realized, and who will notice you, so keep at it. (I’m paraphrasing.)

That’s the type of mindframe I live by, but perhaps his words need to be read by some of you who haven’t yet been “seen.” I don’t mean by a magazine, necessarily. Perhaps your dreams and goals are to keep striving in some area, and you have no idea how it will turn out. Sometimes living out our talents means taking big financial, physical, or emotional risks that are life-changing.

In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho describes a baker who always wanted to travel, “but he decided first to buy his bakery and put some money aside. When he’s an old man, he’s going to spend a month in Africa. He never realized that people are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”

On this New Year’s Day, I join Skyler Gregg, Dick Staub, Robert Dash, and Paulo Coelho in encouraging you to be courageous, to ponder what’s important and life-changing, to continue striving passionately in doing what you love to do. May you live out your own personal legend.