you make a difference | The Direction of Intention

Follow The Dream [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

As if the world was not topsy-turvy enough, last evening, just as the sun was setting, I opened the back door and was met with a wall of rising heat. The sun was going down and the temperature was going up!

We are in the land of Lewis Carroll. Logic spins like a wheel of fortune. Alice awoke from her Wonderland dream when she stood up to the Queen of Hearts. She awoke when she’d had enough of chaos and challenged the madness. It was a threshold moment, marking the passage into adulthood. Everything we need to know is in the story.

Do you remember Field of Dreams? “If you build it, he will come.” It’s a story of the power of following a dream no matter how irrational. Lately I’ve thought that our democracy is like the baseball field built in the middle of a cornfield. How irrational is it to imagine and then create a single nation, a field, that attracts and is home to people from all over the world! A nation where a wildly diverse populace governs itself. By the people, for the people, of the people. Build it and they will come.

Redemption is one of the themes of the movie. As is true in life, redemption for the characters comes after reconciling with their past. All of it: the good, the bad, the ugly. Redemption is a door that opens when a person or community – or nation – is brave enough to honestly look at and deal with the full scope of their history. There’s a good reason that Honesty is the first step in the twelve steps of addiction recovery. An honest reckoning opens the door to the pathway that leads to a second chance. It clears the vision, clarifies the dream.

Challenge the madness.

Say, “Enough!”

Get honest.

I took some small comfort when I read these words this morning: “…it’s never too late to reconcile with the past and find peace.” Follow the dream “…even when it seems impossible or irrational.”

“Go the distance.”

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CORN

likesharesupportcomment…thankyou!

Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Possibility | Tagged: adulthood, Alice In Wonderland, artistry, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, field of dreams, honesty, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reconciliation, redemption, second chances, story, studio melange, the melange, you make a difference | 1 Comment »

Ripple [on KS Friday]

Posted on February 28, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

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“you make a difference in their life, even though they don’t know who you are, you make a difference.” ~ Kerri Sherwood, You Make A Difference

I catch myself in webs of my own weaving. There are things that I know to be true but willingly ignore when I am feeling blue and indulge in a warm bath of self-pity. For instance, my move to Wisconsin brought me to my great love but also came as a career killer. I have, in the past few years, spent inordinate amounts of time pondering my worth to the world. Beyond “husband,” who am I now that “no one” finds value in my work?

When my eyes and heart clear, I know that I have willingly stepped into the single greatest trap plaguing the Western world: investment in the notion that my experience – my life on this earth – is a product. That I must, as John O’Donohue writes, “…strive to garner a quota of significance from the world.”

How isolated we are, searching for purpose, trying to make a mark, seeking an experience, trying to find our voice,…have value, like so much property or stocks to be traded. Reduction. People as bottom lines. What is my value? What is yours?

I’ve decided that my favorite movie is ABOUT TIME. The main character, Tim, is afforded the opportunity to live each day over again. The second time through, instead of grinding out his task list and exhausting rush to achieve, he pays attention to the little things, the relationships he has all throughout the day. He is afforded the opportunity to shift his focus from “life as a product” to “life as relationship.” He makes a difference, not because he makes millions or wins the case, but because he smiles at the clerk of the convenience store. He pays attention to the “space between” and realizes he is nothing more or nothing less than a relationship. Ultimately, he has no need to live each day twice because he ceases throwing the first chance away. He releases the life-dulling-I-am-a-product-mentality and embraces the life-giving-I-am-a-relationship reality.

Sisyphus, in his first trip to the underworld, watches as a thousand souls wander the river bank, so lost in the fog of their own stories that they, each and every one, believe that they are all alone. Finally, their manic little stories play out, the fog surrounding them dissipates, and they see each other. In that moment, they return to their natural state, their most powerful state. They blend together into a single, vibrant mist (relationship). In that moment, Sisyphus is forever changed. He comes alive, returning to the upper regions, knowing that the real vitality, crackling life, is available if he looks beyond his isolating story-fog.

Instead of reducing his life to a measurable value, a few gold coins extracted from the world, Sisyphus expands beyond his little story-prison of worth-seeking to paying attention to what he brings to the moment, focusing on the shared space between. His life ripples and those ripples have no end. In fact, he understands that his life is a ripple.

Instead of trying to be somebody (separation) he simply recognizes and fully inhabits the utter miracle of his being (relationship). In that simple, profound shift, the difference is made.

It’s in Kerri’s song. You make a difference in their lives, even though they don’t know who you are. Your life, and their life, are one and the same thing.

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE is available in iTunes& CDBaby

read Kerri’s blog post about YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Filed under: Awakening, Emergence, Energy, Identity, KS Friday, Story, Uncategorized | Tagged: cancer research, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, life giving, life lessons, life worth, meaning making, product-thinking, ripple, sisyphus, story, value, worth, you make a difference | Leave a comment »

KS Friday

Posted on March 2, 2018 by davidrobinsoncreative

Many years ago, when I was riding around the country slaying dragons, thinking I might help save a troubled world, I wrote a post entitled You Make A Difference. A few days later, in my inbox, was an email with a link to a song from a musician I did not know. “I read your post,” she wrote, “and thought you might appreciate hearing my song with the same title.” I listened more than a few times. She was right! I loved her song. I jotted her a note thanking her. That was the first time Kerri and I communicated. It would be a few more years before our paths crossed again. Another post, another response, a surprising and casual email chain would lead me to this woman who would someday become my wife.

Over and over the lesson is the same: it’s the small stuff that matters. My life turned on an email. I never told her (until today because we are sitting together writing posts) that, on the day she sent her song to me, I was sitting in Seattle wondering if anything I did or had ever done in the world mattered. It was one of those days. And then I opened her email. She made a huge difference to me on that bleak day.

I have lived long enough to know that none of us truly understands the full impact our actions have on others. The smallest thing, opening a door, sharing song, ripples and ripples on.

Kerri was commissioned to write this song, originally for folks on the front line of the battle against cancer, though, like all great artists, she composed it from her very personal wellspring of experience; her brother died from cancer. Songs of inspiration can also be rallying cries and that is true of You Make A Difference. Kerri understands the profound difference between resisting the thing you don’t want (sickness) and moving toward what you desire (a cure). On this KS Friday, take in this blast of inspiration from the melange. You never know how one click might change the course of your day and life.

YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE a single track available on itunes

read Kerri’s thoughts about YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE

kerrianddavid.com

Filed under: Heroes, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: actions, cancer, cancer research, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, impact, impact ripples, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood yamaha artist, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mattering, offers, the melange, you make a difference | 1 Comment »