Axios Finish Line: Wearing your heart on your body
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Photo: Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images. Cover: Thomas Nelson
I was reading Savannah Guthrie's new book, "Mostly What God Does," and the very first sentence of the very first chapter startled me.
- "When I was fifty-one, I got my first tattoo," she says, noting that she "certainly didn't think of myself as a tattoo person, whatever that means."
- She then tells of getting her late father's words, "All My Love" etched into her arm in his exact handwriting, "traced from a love letter he wrote my mother when they were courting six decades ago."
Why it matters: The phrase, Savannah writes, is "a link to my father and a personal mantra to glance down and live up to — a mindset for daily life."
- "But most importantly, it is an encapsulation of what all my years have taught me about faith."
I've known Savannah back to our days on Air Force One with President George W. Bush. Her book's honest, vulnerable reflections on faith are rare for someone in as secular and glamorous a gig as "Today" show co-anchor.
- The book is a No. 1 New York Times bestseller for the second week running, reflecting the yearning for connection and higher purpose that I see every day in emails from Finish Line readers.
Crazy coincidence: Savannah's opening startled me because 51 must be the perfect demarcation for a midlife crisis — or finding big meaning in simple words. In my book, "Just the Good Stuff," coming this spring, this is the first sentence of the first chapter:
"After I'd spent fifty-one years in an artless body, my first tattoo was slapped on my right shoulder at the tail end of 2022. Zotheka, it reads."
The backstory: In Malawi, during a mission trip with my two sons in 2022, I was told that zotheka is considered among the most muscular words in the native language. It means: "It is possible."
The big picture: Savannah's book got me thinking about people, moments and phrases meaningful enough to stamp into our skin for eternity.
- Savannah did it to connect the memory of the father she lost as a teenager to the two kids she created as an adult — and to the life, and faith, she lives today.
- I was moved by watching my sons serve people who had so little — but was even more moved by Malawians chanting "Zotheka!" with such joy that I couldn't shake the word from my mind. So I etched it into my arm.
This article appeared in Axios Finish Line, our nightly newsletter on life, leadership and wellness. Sign up here.
