This world right now.
This overwhelming, polarized, challenging world.
Three Covid-19 deaths in Cambria County this week with an average of 5 new cases daily.
My daughter began her sophomore year of college two weeks ago taking most of her classes online from her dorm room in Pittsburgh, 90 minutes away from home.
We live in ambiguity right now with this pandemic, striving for routine and structure with no clear end in sight.
The police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor have not been arrested.
Healing racism ought not to have “sides”, yet there is enormous resistance to acknowledging, atoning and seeking to repair the breach of the enormous scourge of racism and its continued lingering implications in institutions/laws/policies, etc..
All of this existing in the absence of competent leadership.
I sit and write this on my porch in my vibrant, diverse neighborhood while kids ride bikes on the sidewalks, cars drive by with music blasting, and people walk dogs of all sizes. Life continues to move forward minute by minute.
What can I put down in this moment that will allow me to breathe into the beauty of this late summer eve?
Where can I open my heart to joy, pleasure and happiness without bypassing the enormous suffering of these times?
I think of the Tao which goes beyond duality, moving beyond the idea that everything is simply awful or that everything is so amazing.
I remember that even in the darkness of suffering, there is the presence of light.
I remember that even in the brightness of light, there is the presence of suffering.
I remember that we are always moving through various phases and iterations of the human experience.
I realize it will take resiliency, faith, trust and conscious engagement to bring love and being relational into my own life, my family, my community, into justice work, and the work of resting and nourishing.
I commit myself to not merely moving through the motions of life right now, but to being here for all of it.
I move back and forth on my porch swing as the clouds darken, some a tint of pink, others are blue/gray.
I feel lighter in my body. There is also more space in my heart.
For now, this is enough.
