The story of "stone soup" exists all over the world. In my favorite variation, a hungry traveler appears in a village with nothing but an empty cooking pot, a spoon, and his appetite. When the suspicious villagers will not show him any hospitality, he sets up his cooking pot in the village square and begins to boil water with a simple stone in it. As the curious townsfolk pass by and ask him what he is doing, he stirs the pot and tells them that he is making stone soup. Further, he explains that at the end of the day when the soup is ready, everyone will be welcome to come and share it with him. Eventually, one person ventures that the soup might taste better with a few onions. Soon the villagers are each bringing a couple of carrots, a potato, a little salt, whatever they have on hand to add to the stone soup. At the end of the day, the whole town shares a delicious pot of soup (minus the stone, of course), and they have also learned a valuable lesson about the joys of shari...
Good morning, and happy beginning of meteorological Spring! Under all that snow, wonderful things are happening, but in New England we know that there's more to get through before Spring comes for real real :-) I had a slightly different plan for this letter today, but late last night I came across the title of an article from Psychology Today that immediately caught my attention. "We've Lost the Spaces that Foster Friendship." I believe most of us are already aware of that. For decades, people have been pulling back from joining clubs and other organizations, from church membership and from bowling leagues and community choirs. Covid made it much worse, and so many of us retreated into our own little worlds, helped along by online "communities." These gathering spaces outside our homes are called our third spaces (first = home, second = work), and there are fewer of them all the time. When the great withdrawal began, lots of third spaces ...