I want to write about something else...
Updated: Jun 4, 2020
I want to write about something else – but there is nothing else. Corona virus, shelter-in-place, quarantine. Concepts we didn’t know a few months ago and now they are all we know. This is the year of the rough draft, the year we learn to bend in the wind. We are slowly coming to understand that this is the year of the marathon, not the 50 yard dash. And, we haven’t trained for it – we are plodding along trying to catch our breath and we can hardly see the track. And yet, it is also the year of rest, reset, silence, contemplation, and extended hiatus. No place to go, no end of the race, not even any ribbons to be won. We are living in the space between words. And yet, it is the year to read War and Peace and to do the 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, just because. It is the year of no haircuts, baking without flour, parking the car more or less permanently. It is the year of Zoom and making do, of empty beaches, empty chairs. It is the year of darkened doors and home-made. It is the year of more medical deaths than we as a country have ever imagined, and the year of not knowing. It is also the year some of us have had the bandages ripped off our eyes and we have glimpsed the raw truth of the inequality among us.
And so I am always asking myself, what is the spiritual truth in all of this? What are the soft places hidden in the difficulties? And/or what are the hard places that I suddenly see more clearly? What are the possibilities for spirit to show up in our lives in some new way? Though we certainly didn’t choose this, it is what we have. I like to hear people talk about what they have learned or are learning as we slog through this time together. It’s not that there’s always a silver lining behind every cloud – and not that what we are learning is worth the price we are also paying – but still, since we are here – what have you learned from this time? What do you hope to carry forward once this is over or changed?
(I’d love to see people actually add their comments, but that must be difficult to do, because I notice people don’t. So, if you can figure it out – I’d love for you to share in the comment section below what is working well – what are the tiny glimpses of silver you see in your life right now? Or what new truths have become clear to you?).
May all of us stay safe and calm and hopeful as time passes through us.