2020

Initially, we froze.
Frozen in the headlights of a global pandemic.
We waited there one month. Two months. Three.
And then April. May. June.
Waiting for the car to pass by.
Waiting to be able to drop our heads again and graze.
Convinced normalcy had to be around the corner.
A normalcy that didn’t come.

This is it.
This is what we’ve got for the for-seeable future.
Graduates grieved the marking of a milestone they had journeyed 12 years to realize.
Weddings happened where the chairs holding the anyone who needed to speak now or forever hold their peace sat empty.
Funerals took place because people died.
Families stood 6’ apart, singing “When the roll is called up yonder” through masks.
Masks that protected from a deadly virus
But also served as barrier to the guilt inside of not being able to be present with their dying loved one.

We felt out on the open sea in a row boat with no oars.
Bucked and tossed with no horizon on which to fix our eyes.
All we could hope for was to stay in the boat.

Then when we thought staying in the boat was our only invitation,
We saw Jesus walking on the water.
Holding a sign that said “BLACK LIVES MATTER”.
We gasped at new images of suffering,
New truth telling about the injustice we all keep propped up.
Our collective consciousness bolted out of bed with the nightmare.
We protested.
We were pleaded with.
We pled.
We have to be better.
We have to learn, to admit, to hear the perspective of those whose experience is different than ours.
We have to believe.
We have to be allies. Not because they need us. But because we need each other.
To be whole in the world.

We tried to process this most disorienting year
But our words escaped us.
Others found the words before us.
Long before us.
Knowing this is how the world turns
Is, perhaps, our only solid ground.
__________________

To everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to uproot up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to gain, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to rend, and a time to mend;
a time to make the best of things and a time to burn it all down (Rachel Held Evans’ take).
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.
But God has made everything beautiful in its time.