Minister's Column - Rev. Robert Fulghum

All the stories and essays in the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten, were originally published in the newsletter of a small Unitarian church – as a minister’s column called From the Friarplace. The church was the Edmonds Unitarian Fellowship in Edmonds, Washington. The Minister was me. And here I am, back where I started. Writing the minister’s column for The Torch while Tom Goldsmith is away. FYI - I’ve continued writing a weekly column on my own published on the web at robertleefulghum.com linked to a Facebook page that carries photos connected to the web-journal. Take a look.

Why do I continue writing? To be useful.

Often, without realizing it, we fill important places in each other’s lives. It’s that way with the guy at the corner grocery, the mechanic at the local garage, the family doctor, teachers, coworkers, and neighbors. Good people who are always “there,” who can be relied upon in small, ordinary ways. People who, by example, teach us, bless us, encourage us, support us, uplift us in the daily-ness of life.
I want to be one of those.

You may also be one of those. There are those who depend on you, watch you, learn from you, are inspired by you, and count on you being in their world. You may never have proof of your importance to them, but you are more important than you may think. There are those who couldn’t do without you. The rub is that you don’t always know who. We seldom make this mutual influence clear to each other. But being aware of the possibility that you are useful in this world is the doorway into assuring that will come to be true.

My way is to keep writing and sharing that. What’s yours?