Thursday, August 16, 2012

Welcome home Missy Franklin

How refreshing this is!


In a grim summer that seems only to get bleaker, it was so much fun to see the uninhibited, unabashedly joyful posters in the neighborhood this week that say, "Welcome home, Missy!" I've taken to driving past them just to make me smile.

A young woman doing what she is gifted to do. A young woman doing what she loves to do. The perfect marriage of love and ability. It is a gift to this world to have joy and laughter and skill working in sync -- one can hardly say working with a straight face, it looks like such fun, except we know it does involve a lot of work.

Five Olympic medals, four gold (in case you slept through the Olympics, fair enough) are now at home just up the hill from our house. Pretty cool. And a lovely young woman who loves life.

No grim lectures, no hateful, snarky rhetoric (of which I too am guilty), no fires, no drought, just joy and being who God made her to be.

That is the coolest thing and I am going to be all about that (I hope).

Those welcome banners of course should hang on the neighborhood signs for all of us who work hard and do well at joining our gifts to good purpose. But for now I'll at least enjoy the ones that welcome Missy.

"The Golden Gator" (the neighborhood swim team) is back in the 'hood. And we're all feeling a bit brighter.

Next?

Who in your neighborhood gets a banner and a welcome home party? Think on these things.