Podcasts, apps, Audible, we all have such easy access to “listening” these days. A friend had to retrieve her phone from the shower recently as she had left it there after not wanting to put down a book before the end of a chapter but needing to get ready to get out the door. I get it. My most recent healthy addiction is the Hallow app. I came across it around Lent and started listening and I think today was my 172nd consecutive day - once you get to that number you really don’t want to miss a day. It becomes a personal challenge for competitive people….
Last Sunday I was listening to Father Mike and Bishop Barron’s 18th Sunday in Ordinary Times sermons and I was fortunate enough to have woken up at our Lodge on Fox Pond. To say you are immersed in nature there is an understatement. Milla and I sat on the deck, seemingly in a tree house, overlooking the Lake with the birds chirping and the sun starting it’s ascent and it was magical. Every time I experience it I think of how we are going to share it, how we are going to take what I do - the hospitality business - and apply it to the Lodge but in an ethical and cruelty free way. Sorry, but I don’t want push fishing or hunting as it was used for before but rather embracing the peace and beauty and, in my humble opinion, some of God’s best work.
Our listening, beyond the wild critters, was about giving, why we need to always be thinking about giving more than receiving. I mean, isn’t it always as much if not more fun to watch someone open a present you gave than to receive one yourself? Seeing the joy in someone’s face when you chose the perfect gift is a gift in itself.
So, it was the perfect place, the perfect surroundings, the perfect time to hear and contemplate giving and sharing. The challenge is how to do it and give to the people who will in turn give to others. If we host a Mindful Monday at the Lake and one of those participants goes home and shares a nugget of enlightenment with a friend that is giving. If we support a wildlife organization by selling an artifact and donating the proceeds, that is giving. If we host a non-profit event at Swan Song Saltwater Farm, a favorite donation for decades in our properties, that is giving. If we share our beautiful summer office in Northeast Harbor with up and coming artists to gain exposure, that is giving.
There are so many ways to give and really, super easy and anyone can do it. Being the steward of these extraordinary properties that we are blessed with in the Swan Song Collection give us a unique opportunity to share and give. It was a beautiful summer morning to have that affirmed.