Dear Reader,
Lori Stanley Roeleveld, today’s guest author (who wrote a wonderful column), is a professional coach, author, speaker, and disturber of hobbits. She has a couple degrees, but learned most of what she knows in life's trenches, raising children and working
with families in crisis.
She's authored four award-winning books, co-authored a fifth, and has a sixth in process. In her latest release, Colorful
Connections: 12 Questions about Race that Open Healthy Conversations, she and co-author, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, dialog about being black and white in America. The book explores questions that can facilitate productive conversation and includes practical suggestions for engaging with others around race and ethnicity.
You can reach out to Lori at [email protected]
I Grew Up Useless
My grandfather used to call me useless.
He was the butcher in our corner store. At ten, I was sent to work the register.
Gramp had a checklist of tasks I finished quickly so that between customers, I could write, or read my newest library book.
That's what made me useless--my love of words.
I understand it now from his perspective. Gramp could do practical things. Cut meat. Manage a business. Mix a drink.
Our small town was full of useful people--carpenters, seamstresses, farmers. Words paled.
It frustrated Gramp that I couldn't see work that could be done instead of reading. It frustrated me that he couldn't see the power of words.
After a time, I couldn't see it either.
That uselessness followed me into adulthood. I kept trying to learn practical skills--to excel at something others would find useful. In my spare moments, I returned to words. Even if they rendered me useless, I couldn't abandon them.
Eventually, I accepted that words were my lot in life. I spotted a library book with the title: Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal: How to Have a Great Life As a Freelance Writer. It sounded like an ideal calling for someone useless like me.
So, I wrote.
Then, somewhere around my fourth book, I had to grapple with this old tape my grandfather uploaded to my fragile identity. He was long gone, and I was well into midlife. Time to move on.
My book was on hard conversations, and I was invited to speak about it at a conference whose theme was "Less Talk, More Action." The other keynote speaker was a Hollywood actor famous for his work in action films. How was I going to talk about words at a conference designed to inspire action? How could I, a woman of words, hold the stage beside a living, breathing action-figure?
As I wrestled, however, what dawned on me was the damage done to my heart, mind, and soul by what? My grandfather's words. The incredible power of that wound changed my thinking immediately.
If words can be weapons, they can be tools. If they can be poison, they can be the remedy. If they can create life-long destruction, they can inspire lasting change.
And I had the passion and skill to tame them. From that moment, I was no longer useless.
I am a writer. I work with hazardous material so combustible it builds careers, incites revolutions, and changes minds.
Useful work if you know your way around words.
-- Lori Stanley Roeleveld
Email Lori at: [email protected]
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
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