I’ve just returned from spending a week luxuriating under the balmy skies of Arizona. However, my heart was divided while there. One chamber was overflowing with gratitude for my big-hearted friends who treated me like royalty; the other chamber was breaking for my people back home.
You see, while I was basking under an Arizona sun, back home skies were pouring down rain. And snow. While the closest I got to water in Arizona was a piece of deep-fried calamari (squid), back home dams were breaking, highways were flooding, and bridges were ripped from their moorings and heading downstream. While the heaviest thing I picked in Arizona was an orange from a tree, people back home were picking up shovels to fill sandbags and operating snowplows to shove glaciers of ice off the highway. While I was taking in the sights and sounds of Arizona, folks back home were taking in evacuees.
I couldn’t cut my trip short to go back home and commiserate—even if I wanted to—because in the thick of the snowstorm, rainstorm and flooding, flights to Sioux Falls were cancelled. But because of rescheduling, on my trip back home I was seated next to a mail carrier named Kevin and a teacher named Lori who had originally planned to return to South Dakota much earlier.
While we flew, Kevin described a motorcycle trip he’d recently taken: a tour circling north to Vancouver, Washington, and down the coast of California where they turned east to get their kicks on Route 66, cruising through Albuquerque and on to Texas where he broke down and trucked his motorcycle back to Sioux Falls in pieces. On that three-week trip, Kevin—gregarious as he seemed to be—asked everyone he met the same question.
“Don’t think about it too hard,” he said. “Just answer. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind.”
His question was the same each time: “What inspires you?” In other words, what divine brainwave guides you? breathes life into your decisions? stimulates you into action? allows you to inhale when something takes your breath away?
I loved Kevin’s idea so much that the first thing off that plane I asked the same question to a circle of friends. “Don’t think about it too hard,” I said, “Just answer. What inspires you?”
Answers varied. “Babies, old people and the poor,” one said. A man spoke of his wife. “The changing seasons,” another answered, and “History.” “God,” someone said. “Relationships,” was another’s response.
That someone was me. I didn’t have to think about it too hard.
However long or fleeting they may be, relationships inspire me, whether they’re big-hearted friends who treat folks like royalty or newfound friends who tell their stories at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
I know this might seem like a silly question to ask when homes are flooded with muck and roads are buckled, when cattle are stranded in mud holes and destruction is so widespread. When human lives end and the weight of this loss is so heavy on our hearts we are unable to inhale. The question can seem irrelevant. But is it?
Because for all the folks affected by this disaster it’s going to take some mighty inspiration—along with dirt-movers and scrub buckets and plenty of prayer—for them to become motivated enough to get back on their feet. How can they be inspired to begin again? How can we be inspired to help someone whose basement is full of mud? Where does one begin? What kind of force will breathe life into our decisions, will motivate our actions?
I ask again. “What inspires you?” Don’t think about it too hard. Just answer.
LaRayne Topp
You see, while I was basking under an Arizona sun, back home skies were pouring down rain. And snow. While the closest I got to water in Arizona was a piece of deep-fried calamari (squid), back home dams were breaking, highways were flooding, and bridges were ripped from their moorings and heading downstream. While the heaviest thing I picked in Arizona was an orange from a tree, people back home were picking up shovels to fill sandbags and operating snowplows to shove glaciers of ice off the highway. While I was taking in the sights and sounds of Arizona, folks back home were taking in evacuees.
I couldn’t cut my trip short to go back home and commiserate—even if I wanted to—because in the thick of the snowstorm, rainstorm and flooding, flights to Sioux Falls were cancelled. But because of rescheduling, on my trip back home I was seated next to a mail carrier named Kevin and a teacher named Lori who had originally planned to return to South Dakota much earlier.
While we flew, Kevin described a motorcycle trip he’d recently taken: a tour circling north to Vancouver, Washington, and down the coast of California where they turned east to get their kicks on Route 66, cruising through Albuquerque and on to Texas where he broke down and trucked his motorcycle back to Sioux Falls in pieces. On that three-week trip, Kevin—gregarious as he seemed to be—asked everyone he met the same question.
“Don’t think about it too hard,” he said. “Just answer. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind.”
His question was the same each time: “What inspires you?” In other words, what divine brainwave guides you? breathes life into your decisions? stimulates you into action? allows you to inhale when something takes your breath away?
I loved Kevin’s idea so much that the first thing off that plane I asked the same question to a circle of friends. “Don’t think about it too hard,” I said, “Just answer. What inspires you?”
Answers varied. “Babies, old people and the poor,” one said. A man spoke of his wife. “The changing seasons,” another answered, and “History.” “God,” someone said. “Relationships,” was another’s response.
That someone was me. I didn’t have to think about it too hard.
However long or fleeting they may be, relationships inspire me, whether they’re big-hearted friends who treat folks like royalty or newfound friends who tell their stories at an altitude of 35,000 feet.
I know this might seem like a silly question to ask when homes are flooded with muck and roads are buckled, when cattle are stranded in mud holes and destruction is so widespread. When human lives end and the weight of this loss is so heavy on our hearts we are unable to inhale. The question can seem irrelevant. But is it?
Because for all the folks affected by this disaster it’s going to take some mighty inspiration—along with dirt-movers and scrub buckets and plenty of prayer—for them to become motivated enough to get back on their feet. How can they be inspired to begin again? How can we be inspired to help someone whose basement is full of mud? Where does one begin? What kind of force will breathe life into our decisions, will motivate our actions?
I ask again. “What inspires you?” Don’t think about it too hard. Just answer.
LaRayne Topp
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