Patricia Crisafulli - Inspired Every Day: Essays & Stories to Brighten Your Day, Give You Hope, & Strengthen Your Faith

Inspired Every Day

Essays and Stories to Brighten Your Day, Give You Hope, and Strengthen Your Faith

Patricia Crisafulli

Dedicated to my sisters, Jeanine and Bernadette, with love.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Stories that Inspire Every Day

WE ARE A PEOPLE OF STORIES . Sacred texts, collective histories, and literature tell us who we are. Stories chronicle life as we experience it and understand it to be. No matter how unique the individuals, stories at their very essence are universal. Anyone who has told a storyeven a simple anecdoteand heard the response, The same thing happened to me! has witnessed the connection that is possible through stories.

Whether they are fiction or nonfiction, whether populated with imaginary characters or drawn from our own lives, stories speak truth. Stories offer a vision of what is possiblethe love, healing, and grace that are available in abundance, just for the asking. Stories inspire faith and celebrate hope.

Faith is the consoling truth that something beyond ourselves is accessible and available and waiting to partner with us. Whatever ones own interpretation, inwardly, faith encompasses ones beliefs and, outwardly, it colors experiences and expression in the world. With faith, we can see little miracles everywherethe signposts on the path and the affirmation that were not alone.

Hope is faiths companion, the encouragement to keep on the journey. Faith sees the new possibilities and hope takes us to them. Faith considers different outcomes than what has limited us before, and hope finds a way to pursue them. Hope is stirring and compelling, and it can overcome fear, indifference, and a lack of momentum. Hope says keep goingthere is much in you that needs to be expressed.

With faith and hope, we can move a mountain, or at least dislodge the stone that resides within, the one that blocks us from experiencing the fullness of who we were created to be. We tune out the discouragement of the world with all its negativity and no, and acknowledge the directive that we were all given: to tell and share our wisdom and what weve come to know. The way we do that is with our stories.

Inspired Every Day is a collection of stories, both fiction and nonfiction. Whether made up or personal experiences, these stories celebrate and honor reconnection, possibility, forgiveness, family, love, joyand finding moments of extraordinary grace in the midst of ordinary life.

Patricia Crisafulli

Holding On to a Strong Hand

An Essay

ANSWERS TO PRAYERS come in a variety of forms, whether as the long-awaited positive outcome or as the strength to endure a negative turn of events. Hope and encouragement are whispered in holy words or shouted in mundane ones heard on the radio. Inspiration never ceases its communication.

And so it was for me while I prayed for guidance, discerning where my path lay. But as I looked for knowledge and assurance of where I needed to go next, the answers seemed to elude me. Like most situations, the particular circumstance on my mind was complicated by layers and nuances; I needed to tread lightly and cautiously. Even this fool didnt dare rush in.

Day after day, I prayed for direction; even a hint or a clue would suffice. Then one day, when I stopped asking the questions long enough to become attuned to the answers, an image came to mind. In it, a little girl in a dark blue dress coat and matching hat was being held tightly by the hand as her mother guided her through the maze of a crowd. Perhaps it was a busy department store or a train station at rush hour. Wherever they were, the place was so thick with people dashing about, that a child of six or seven could be easily lost, if not for the strong hand of her mother.

As I contemplated the image, I knew that the little girl didnt need to know where they were headed, whether up the stairs or the escalator, or down a long hallway. It didnt matter if they were taking a shortcut because they were pressed for time, or the longer way around because it would be less crowded. She only needed to feel the firm grip of a loving, assured hand.

This mental picture, assembled from whatever clip art I carried in my subconscious, brought me great comfort. No, I do not have the definitive answers to my lingering questions. I cannot tell you that my path is now well-defined or more clearly marked.

All I know is I have the confidence and comfort of that little girl, with a Loving Parent who holds me firmly by the hand and steers me along, step for step. I cannot get lost and, ultimately, I will get to where I am supposed to go (or in the least, I will get somewhere)provided I never let go of that Hand.

Why Geese Dont Fly

A Story

JOSHUA HURLED A SMALL STONE with pinpoint accuracy, hitting the goose in the middle of its thick body and sending it skyward in a flurry of beating wings and splashing water. Hoping no one had seen what hed done, Joshua got back on his bike and pedaled as fast as he could out of the park, away from the pond, away from the geese and, if his legs could have taken him that far, away from the town he didnt want to live in.

Unlocking the back door, Joshua entered the quiet house. He remembered California again, coming home from school on fall days, knowing his mother would be there and working in her studio. Sometimes shed sit at the counter, sipping green tea for the antioxidants that would keep her from getting cancer. Green tea didnt prevent getting hit by a drunk driver.

Joshua hated Wisconsin and the fact that they had moved because their grandfather lived there. At 14, he didnt need anybody while his father was at work or traveled for business, not like his sister, Cindy, who was only 7. As soon as he graduated from high school in four years, he was out of there.

His solitude was broken by the rumble of the school bus, and he hurried out the door to meet Cindy on the corner. By the time he got back to the house, his grandfather was pulling in the driveway. Joshua turned away, just as his grandfather asked him a question, You wanna come to Best Buy with me later? Joshua told him he had a lot of homework, but his grandfather insisted, saying hed pick him up at 7:30.

The store was cavernous as a warehouse and brightly lit. Joshua wandered over to the videogames for a while. When he went back, his grandfather had found a laptop that seemed like a pretty good deal.

On the way home, his grandfather tried to make conversation but Joshua only stared out the window into the nothingness beyond the intermittent glow of a few streetlights. Then his grandfather made an unexpected right turn down a road that ended with a crunch of gravel at the edge of a marsh.

Joshua spoke up, but his grandfather shushed him and, opening the car door quietly, motioned for him to follow. Deep into the cattails, the water oozing up from beneath their feet, they crouched low. Just listen, the old man whispered.

Above the crackling of the wind in the cattails and creak of tree branches, they heard the low honking of geese. As time passed and more flocks landed in the swamp, Joshua forgot the scene in the park earlier that day and just listened to the voices of the birds, thinking that if his mother could see him now, shed be proud of him for being there with his grandfather, watching the geese settle in for the night. He could picture her, smiling at him over her mug of green tea, and telling him to take it easy on his grandfather, that he was only trying to help. After a while, they walked in silence back to the car.

I love to listen to them fly in at night, his grandfather explained as they drove back home. This is their staging area, where they come for food, water, and rest before taking off again.