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| Storm Clouds over Derwenter Lake, UK |
SOME TIDBITS TO HELP US THROUGH HARD TIMES
"There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm." Willa Cather, Pulitzer Prize winning American writer (1873-1947) Cather wrote about pioneers who were often European immigrants traveling west in this new land under hardship. We can each do our own extrapolation from this quotation. But it speaks to me of these days when we're learning how much we love our country and our democracy as it is under threat. We've had threats before but never has our president been against us, against We the People. Never before has the congressional majority robbed this much and this blatantly from the poor to give to the rich. We are in a storm and learning, learning what to value, what to fight for and how to protest peacefully. Voting rights mean more to us than ever before. We are learning not to normalize cruelty or sane-wash irrationality, and we are learning not to give up. We are learning in a storm.
Trust your relationship with the natural world. Summer heat or not, these are go-outside days, stand in the rain, sit in the shade, mow the grass and water the flowers days. Hit some golf balls, go to the pool, putter in the garden, pick a tomato or two days. Tall trees, deep lakes, sand dunes, rocky shores all take us out of ourselves and our problems and give us perspective. We are learning too how much we value the planet during the storm of climate change. With us as its stewards, the world abides.
To unite and speak up is the only choice we have now. If hate is rising, then love must rise higher. Love is stronger than hate, it lasts longer, carries more power and is not self-destructive. Love has the strength of God behind it; hate does not. Instead of acting out of hate for the opposition, we can act out of love for our country, or love for the refugee, or love for creation. We do not need to hate anyone or anything. Think about how constricted hate makes us feel, how open love.
In my life, and maybe yours, many people are in danger, danger of having to live an experience to the end. Friends, even young ones, spend time with their oncologists. Couples, especially old ones, walk side-by-side in fear for the other. There are times when one can go no further, times of divorce or death or loss or betrayal. No forward available, only a backward trek to begin anew.
Funny how we get do-overs every day. You felt hate but stopped it with love. Repentance intervened, and forgiveness, mine or theirs. You forgot to do good yesterday, but remembered today. We shared our food with someone, had guests for dinner, worked in the food pantry, donated our coins and dollars. I dreaded the nursing home but went anyway. Daily we are forgiven, and Sunday forgiven formally.
July is the month we celebrate our freedom and Independence. NO KINGS the protestors said. I worry everyday about our country. I didn't used to. But we are learning in this storm, loving in this storm, trusting God and nature in this storm, uniting and speaking up in this storm, surviving and not giving up in this storm. Thanks be to God.
Nina Naomi
