Roy’s Sunday Letter for November 2, 2025
Supportive Thoughts in A Week of Troubles & Challenges
Each week may bring news and events of harm and injustice to those who live, work, and worship around us. Destructive weather in Jamaica and Bahamas has changed food, housing, employment for so many. Immature blaming and general lack of compassion has created additional hardships for those with no resources. And yet, in the midst of the troubled times I continue to write short stories and Sunday Letters with the hope to lift up eyes, heart, and spirit. It is my hope the Monday – Sunday readings will add calmness and acceptance to your week.
MONDAY: Maybe enjoy a Movie or a series that gives images and words of hope and inspiration. In the 1940’s Jimmy Stewart said it was not scripts that made a movie it was the Moments. Each of us can identify one or more Moments in all the images we have witnessed. Those Moments are the Miracles that inspire, motivate and pull us forward. What are your Moments, your small Miracles, that were with you then, and with you now?
TUESDAY: Paul Simon defined much of who I am in the song title, “Still Crazy After All These Years.” There are SL readers who identify in the same way with a Taylor Swift song. A friend took his teen son to a Paul McCartney concert, to see and hear one of the Beatles, to give his son his own memory. Live performances are forever in our memories and supported by hearing/seeing on a social platform. As a people we need to hear “This Land Is Your Land” or witness a crowded stage holding each other singing “Amazing Grace.”
WEDNESDAY: The traditional question ‘What are you reading?’ must now include eBooks, iPad & phones, magazines, and online web pages. Today, I ask who and what topics attracts you? Somehow national and local bookstores are still here, along with cards, t-shirts, and gifts. What writer or book have you gifted or recommended to a friend? Is there a book or magazine on your nightstand or stacked by your reading chair? Has the pace of life moved you away from reading? Perhaps reading to an isolated elder, young child or grandchild will bring you back to the easy pleasure of words and of turning pages.
THURSDAY: Friends and family are vital to our health and wellbeing. Relocations, along with a decline in health sometimes stretches our friendships. A friend remarked maintaining friends and family is ‘work.’ Tis True. Communicating in 2025 can be rewarding but also challenging. Emails are no longer new and receive less attention than texting or Blue Sky. Beth and I regularly surprise someone with a personal note. However, you accomplish communicating by doing the work because the reward is enduring friendships that continue.
FRIDAY: Beth and I live in an old-style neighborhood. Some younger and older friends live in 200+ apartments, redefining the concept of “being neighbor.” Today, there is a growing desire for intimacy, for a smaller, defined sense of community. Images of a village or tribe help us describe living environments that connect us, ensuring we are not alone. My most successful conference room arrangement is a circle of chairs, no tables, no power point. Strive for living environments that promote connections, knowing and caring for neighbors. We are no longer a driveway and a wave society.
SATURDAY: What are your next steps? Do you have a timeline? A friend told me “I used to have a plan. ” Today, everything is so chaotic, I am waiting for political and economic decisions to settle down. A young friend knows her next years will be long hours, promotions, and possible relocations. Are your plans and timeline still workable? “Adjusting our sails” has become our new normal.
SUNDAY: A friend’s 40+year career was in financial and business. His interest now is the sacred and the spiritual. Although not a part of my younger faith experiences; meditation, breath work, and mindfulness have become a daily part of life for me and Beth. I am glad younger ones are not waiting for elder years to develop this essential part of our true selves.
Roy, with every day a new experience
I chuckled at a post the other day that said “ thank God, it is finally Friday.” Those of us that are retired and older see every day as Friday. We don’t have to prepare for a job or get everything done in the evening or the weekend, our lives do not revolve around work, so we fill our days with what makes us happy and fulfilled. I don’t watch the news anymore because it makes me anxious. I do read some news on my iPad just to stay aware of the craziness. I often comment to myself, “ this is not the country I grew up in.” Thanks for your perspective, Roy it is a great way to begin my week.
Friend Maurine…
As with all of us we weave our way through the daily news.
You are showing wisdom in your choices to 1) stay informed and 2) protect yourself from harm, or further harm.
The ways we balance all that and more is a gift of skills you both have inherited and/r developed on your own.
Whatever we do we do together…..Roy
Roy,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and wisdom with us each week. Your words give hope to what we may be experiencing in our daily lives. Hope for a better day, Hope for health and healing, Hope to be a blessing for others. All I have to add is to “HOLD ON, GOD IS IN CONTROL”
Friend Billie…
I am reminded of a writer’s online topic, “Writing Of Hope In Difficult Times”
I believe this is one of my paths.
I attempt to find hopeful ways of repeating the same message.
Thank you for encouragement to continue on,,,,& I will
These 3 words are from a fiction current read: “Joy overcomes fear.”
I say Yes to thse 3 words.Roy
What a beautiful letter filled with goodness and inspiration as always. Favorite book lately, “Into The Magic Shop” by James Rl Doty, MD who died just this year. I read it years ago; and read it again just recently and was called to register and take the class on Cultivating A Compassionate Heart at Stamford University. Tremendous research has been done there and its resultant work is the course I take every week with 31 people from around the globe. Stretch, grow, seek, learn, make a space every day for more Hope and Joy, Love and Humanness.
Your circle of chairs was one of the most important mentoring exercises of my entire professional career. I occasionally sit in on the Directors Leadership Circle now and it has value. But when you were leading it, it also had clout and power. Love you and Beth to the moon and back.
Kind words from a kind person.
I will do a search for The Magic Shop. All the words match my desire to write of Hope in difficult times.
Yes to seeking, learning, leaning into others.
I may have sent you a 3 word phrase from fiction read: “Joy overcomes fear.”
I believe this to be true.
Monday morning. My “do” list ready.
Also, my opportunity list
I am leading a church staff of 5 for a 90 minute review of Oprah podcast with Richard Rohr on Wednesday.
Good to feel useful.
WE continue together.Roy
As always I enjoy your letters. My favorite book of all time is The Untethered Soul by Michael A Singer. I am on my 8th reading and it never fails to shore me up for whatever is going on in my life and the current world situation. Lots of love and blessings to everyone! Michelle
The upcoming Sunday Letter, I think on Monday, will present the quote: “No two readers read the same book.”
And you have one that you find a new word or meaning in the pages you have turned before.
Good for you, good for all us readers…….good comment and thank you. Roy and Beth