THINGS WITH WINGS 2026
I’m pretty adept at coming up with a positive take on circumstances, meeting the turns and twists of life with optimism and hope. (At least enough optimism and hope, most days, to keep myself going.)
I believe that the Universe is intelligent, loving, and benevolent. I believe, generally, that things are always happening for our ultimate good.
Obviously, it doesn’t always feel this way or look this way. Plenty of the time, it seems like the Universe is deliberately trying to kick our asses, beat us down, or just mess with our heads. Or that we should stop kidding ourselves because really it’s just random chaos and only our own foolish superstition and magical thinking that has us trying to make it mean anything at all.
The thing is: either way, it’s a story.
Both of these interpretations are meanings that we’re making. And the meaning we make informs and creates our experience of being alive. Harmony, empowerment, and growth. Or mayhem, impotence, and victimhood.
So even if we are, indeed, making it all up., this doesn’t mean it’s not real. It means that reality is, to a large extent, what and how we make it. It means it’s a choice, and that our choices matter.
“Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.” — John Lennon
This isn’t a promise that everything’s always going to go our way. Most of the time, things won’t turn out exactly how we think they should. Some things will, objectively, suck.
But if we meet the sucky circumstances, too, with deliberate and courageous hope — conscientiously choosing again and again to approach everything we encounter as an opportunity for us to bring our best and for something good to emerge — then even in trial and tribulation, our experience can be one of participation and creativity rather than oppression and futility.
That’s how I like to think of it, anyway.
This week was the anniversary of Bosque Center for Spiritual Living. February 4 marked eight years together. Well done, my friends! I’m really proud of us.
I decided to revisit the first talk I gave to our brand new community. It was called “Things With Wings,” which is a sweet title, and I think the talk itself deserves a reprise.
The idea was that the world constantly is coaxing wings out of each of us. We are all being invited to learn to fly.
I recognized in 2018 and I certainly feel now how painful it can be to grow wings. And how our flying lessons sometimes involve crash landings. It’s hard and we don’t always have to like it. Even if we affirm that it’s all for Good in the end, this doesn’t mean that we can skip or should gloss-over the hurts, the losses, and the ways that we might feel terribly lost.
Still, I believe that we are all destined to become ever more soaring, strong, and graceful expressions of human being. We’re here to be our fullest, best, most resilient selves.
AND — the only way to become truly ourselves is to be true. The way to become wholly ourselves is to be whole. The key is to be honest about our ideals as well as our feelings. To honor not just our dreams but also our fears. To share not just where we want to go, but where we actually are.
We’ve been through a lot. We’ve built a community from the ground up, while weathering a global pandemic, while witnessing the rise of authoritarianism in the United States. We’ve all had to deal with a shit-ton of personal stuff over the past eight years — death, loss, aging, health, money, existence. Right now, as ever, we’re facing a world of individual and global troubles.
And we’re together. In this together, as this togetherness. Here we are, growing wings if we want to, if we dare to. I believe we can fly, loved ones.
I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, February 8, 10:00am at q-Staff Theatre. With music by the divine Patty Stephens. XO, Drew
©2026 Drew Groves
