Escape the winter dark for ‘eightysevenminutes’

Above: Participants at a global peace fellowship held in Thailand.

I'm classifying this blog post as "Arts & Culture," not because it has anything particular to do with any of the standard arts — literature, painting, cinema, etc. — but because no other heading quite captures it.

"Life Lessons" is not something Spokane7.com typically addresses with any specificity.

But this is the time of year that begins to weigh on people. It's dark and cold and it feels, to some of us at least, soul-searchingly oppressive. So what better time can be found to focus on the actuality of daily life and our place in it?

That's what my friend Kent Hoffman does on a daily basis. And that's what he has tried to share with his multi-dimensional online essay he's calling, simply enough, "eightysevenminutes." (It has a rather lengthy subtitle, "What we were never told about why we suffer and how to live with tenderness," but that message gradually becomes clear as you scroll through it.)

So, this falls under the "More" part of my blog. Though, truth be told, it sits at the heart of everything I write. And try to be.

If it helps you weather the next couple of months, until spring begins to again revive the Earth, then Hoffman will have achieved at least part of his purpose. To go on from there is up to each of us alone.