WE ARE MIRACLES

Does your heart sometimes tangle with worry? Mine does.

There's politics. There's the Russian war in Ukraine. The winter uptick in Covid is upon us.  And there's our personal stuff:  jobs, kids, parents, family, health.  Not to mention that icebergs are melting.  

And death of course, highest on anyone's spectrum of worries:  from natural causes, accident, suicide and shootings. Every day, on average, 316 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, unintentional shootings, and police intervention; every day 106 of them die. One day this week three University of Virginia football players were killed by a fourth. 

We live in the "andness" of life.  There's this and that.  Example:  "I'm frustrated in my work and glad to be working." "I love my fill-in-the-blank and he/she/they drive me crazy."  We all have contradictory feelings, and not about trivial things. Sitting in a recliner with chemo flowing, we cherish each day.  Praying for a friend who is ill, we enjoy the sun on our back.  When my mother died, I was not at her side even though I knew the end was near. I went home for the night and my father went to his room.  "I want to be here and it's OK if I go," we each must have thought.  Two hours later we were back.

This should all be too much for us, but somehow, it isn't.  Somehow, we are made to cope with death and sadness and grief and life and joy and relief all at the same time.  This is the gift given to our humanity. 

Life is short and precious, the biggest contradiction of all.  Although we all walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we do not despair.  In fact, we thrive.  We face the death of those we love and continue on, the rest of our life and our own death lying just around the corner.  We are miracles.   

So yes, our hearts are tangled.  Today, I woke to a chilly morning with deer out the bedroom windows silhouetted against a light frost.  Younglings tussled with each other. One stood on hind legs reaching for new cedar, a food shunned in warmer seasons. 

Out the kitchen window dozens of robins swoop into the holly trees for tasty red berries.  I turn up the thermostat.  The kettle sings and announces warmth. I fill a cup with strong black tea.  Mr. Wiggles stands at the door waiting to come in for his breakfast.  He routed the deer.  

Right now, I have my usual worries, those I have lived with for some time. I am also praying for friends whose health is precarious and treatments brutal. It could be me.  This is our life, mine and yours.  There's much we can't change. Nevertheless, Covid is lessening; that's what pandemics do.  Political grievances wax and wane.  Jobs, family and health fluctuates, but much abides.   It's just as fair to be hopeful as discouraged. Probably more so.  

I want to admire the resilience that is part of our humanity.  Our ability to accept the andness of life.  If I were in church, I might make this a prayer.  In peace, Nina Naomi