It is going to be ninety-five degrees today and the sun will be smiling.
The word today is Stewardship.
Lately, I have been thinking about what it means to be a steward. Not an owner, not a king, not the first or the last, but someone who has been handed something to take care of for a while.
A tighthead prop wears the number three jersey, one of many who have and will wear it. It isn’t about glory, but about grit, duty, and respect for those who came before.
The mayor of Chicago isn’t some political deity. They are just one more name in the long ledger of caretakers watching over the city by the lake.
Farmers tend to land passed down and when their clock runs out, it passes again.
Homes we live in? They were someone else’s once, and they will be someone else’s when we leave. We only dress them with our lives for a short time.
So maybe Hemingway was right. “No one you lost is ever truly lost,” because we are all part of the same unfolding story. The same line of succession.
Whether it is a jersey, a tractor, a public office, a teammate, a spouse or a house on a corner lot in Oak Park or Broad Ripple….
…we are only holding it down for now.
Take care of it while it is yours.
