Insight: Outrageous living in challenging times by Lorraine Glowczak

I don’t think I’m stretching it if I say that most of us may be feeling a little disillusioned with the world in recent days. I simply do not know if I can handle one more hurricane, one more school shooting or one more policy maker deceiving us.

It’s times like these that I want to throw up my hands and say, “What’s the use?” But then I got to thinking. Well, the truth is, writing this weekly insight forces me to think and this is the result:

Let me start with a story.

I recently watched a Netflix series entitled, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” – which is a monthly series hosted by David Letterman. In his new show, Letterman interviews and speaks with important global figures who have made a profound difference in others’ lives.

During one of his interviews, Letterman reflected to the person he was interviewing about his own response during the 1960’s civil rights movement. Letterman stated to his guest something like, “When people were marching across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Alabama, I was heading to Florida to party and get as drunk as I could. Why wasn’t I there in Alabama on that day instead, fighting for a basic human right that came so easily for me.”

I have asked myself this question from time to time, wondering if I do enough to make a positive impact or make a difference. The question came up again as I was writing about the life of Sally Breen, Windham’s very own mover and shaker (see front page).

As I wrote her story about the passions she carried for peace, equality, the environment and the challenges faced by many, I discovered that there were times she came away from these events with a bit of disillusionment of her own, or has her friend said, “got burned.”

But despite getting burned from time to time – she didn’t allow it to stop her. She kept moving forward. I wonder if it was the mere fact that she put her energy in making positive change that kept her going.

The more important tale and moral to this story is that it’s people like Sally that bring joy and hope to the world, shedding light on the good that still exists. She encourages people like me not to give up, to live fully and with outrageous intentions.

So, in Sally’s honor, I’ll pick up my disenchanted bootstraps and get on with it. If I get burned, so be it. I’m not much of a country music fan, but as Garth Brooks says, “Life is not tried it is merely survived if you’re standing outside the fire.”