Oh dear… I’m delinquent again. I mean, I have my excuses: After my workday, I had evening commitments until after 9pm, and then I was tired, so the reflection didn’t happen. Same on Friday. And all day Saturday, and then today I had the same commitment, and then my turn to host La Famiglia for Soup. Sometimes reflections happen easily. They drop onto my lap, and I just have to polish up my thinkythoughts a bit and –bam—reflection done. Since its Sunday, scarcely an hour away from Monday, you can see that nothing arrived, mostly formed, as easily as that. Alas, sometimes you have to dig for it. 

I was speaking to a colleague (not a writer) who has to write a document,  and I’m supposed to take the source content from him, and massage and bless it and prepare it for general consumption. He was struggling with getting going. He had a big table of information, but wrapping sentences around it was leaving him with Blank White Sheet anxiety. I get it – I have it *right now*, too. I gave him some advice – think about what would prompt him to provide the information he had as an answer. What was the question that he was answering with his giant table? That was the text that he needed to wrap around it. And maybe it really really was just a bit of a scope statement and managing expectations, and then the table he had.

So here I find myself, on Sunday, writing Thursday’s reflection. Yeah, the irony of my conversation with my colleague isn’t lost on me. There are differences, of course. These reflections aren’t spawned out of a request for disaster recovery information. Although, now that I type this, disaster recovery be more apt than I think. The point of this whole exercise is the spring cleaning of my soul. This year I’m not making great strides, and there are a year’s worth of unswept corners and spiritual dust bunnies that one might mistake for tumbleweeds. 

So what’s the question that this post (or the other 2 I still have to write to catch up)?

On Thursday, how did I leave my environment and my relationships better than I found them. I supported a teammate who felt unsure of herself. I helped another teammate find a kinder, gentler way to measure her success. I told someone who was making positive changes (and maybe didn’t hear feedback very often) that I thought he was doing a top-shelf job. That’s the legacy of my Thursday. 

This Lent, may I not view the blank sheet as my adversary. This Lent, may I find more opportunities to improve the world around me through thoughts, words, and actions.