June 16, 2020

Beloved:

I filled the feeders, watered the porch plants, pruned the tomatoes, and hung laundry on the line.  I washed our patio table and took the dogs twice their usual number of times.  Finally, I gathered up all my work things and carried them out to the patio so I can at least pretend to get some work done today.  Seventy degrees and no humidity has it feeling like Michigan in August, and every fiber of my being wants to be outside.

Except for maternity leaves, I haven’t spent so much time at home since I was a child.  Most days I never leave the house.  I have put gas in my car twice since the end of March.  We still don’t eat out or shop for more than essentials and things we need to garden.  In the last three weeks or so we’ve had more people coming and going from the house, the kids and their friends mostly.  We have no summer travel plans except to bring the youngest home from college, there and back again.

I miss my previous routine but I also don’t.  I miss being with people in person.  I don’t miss the traffic.  I miss eating out.  I don’t miss the higher bills on our credit card.  I miss being at the church through the week and on Sundays, swapping stories with our church administrator.  I will definitely miss working on the same patio table with my husband on a glorious summer day like this.

​If I know anything at all, I know this season will not last forever.  For all we can and cannot do to hasten a good outcome, we can choose to be present to each day’s gift and lessons in the meantime.  What have you noticed and learned in these days of quarantine, about yourself and about the world?

time rather than be present to the movement of time.  ​

Early morning to mid-morning.  Noon to late afternoon.  Each time has its own feel and even its own light.  I find a certain little pinch of joy in recognizing this.  The ebb and flow of noise inside and outside the house that I have only discovered staying home day after day is a gift of quarantine I didn’t anticipate and hope I don’t forget.  Sometimes I get the urge to check out, to binge-watch TV reruns or play solitaire on my phone for thirty minutes at a go.  That’s boredom, not contentment.  Time to go outside.  Even a nap is time better spent.

Of course, there is also the news — always urging me to DO SOMETHING!  This world’s need compared to my life energy is so vast, I am overwhelmed before I can begin.  I find being present to the moment helps there too, centering me in the reality of what one person can do:  a lot, in fact.  One person can attend a protest.  One person can read and learn and discover the racism within their own thinking.  One can write letters.  One person can encourage.  One person can confront, with love, the misunderstandings they come upon.  All these things feel doable when I am present to the moment and to the eternal quality of time.

As you go about your day, I pray you find joy in the empty spaces.

June 2, 2020
 
Beloved:

Another black man was murdered in police custody last week in Minneapolis.  His name was Mr. Floyd.  Peaceful protests have been infiltrated by rabble-rousers turning cities upside down with violence and vandalism.  Meanwhile, I can’t stop wondering if it’s a sin to keep my seat in this quiet room with a sweet breeze coming through the window, where all I hear is birdsong, road noise, and a sighing dog.  Shouldn’t I be doing something in the wake of such violence and tragedy?  How can praying possibly be enough?  Would one more set of marching feet make any difference anywhere?

I keep thinking about John Woolman, that 18th century Quaker forever working on his own heart; when he was divinely led to speak, he hardly spoke to more than a handful at a time, usually just one or two other people.  After thirty years or so, not a Quaker in North America still owned or traded slaves.

Systemic change is called for in every corner of our culture:  economic, social, political and otherwise.   Today, if possible, laws allowing excessive force by the state must change.  But as Woolman knew, the fundamental change required happens in the human heart and begins with my own:  the painful, painful work of tweezing out the shards and splinters of my own attitudes about this thing called race.  Race – itself a made-up notion to reinforce the attitudes that allow me to maintain my place in the deep disparity between white, brown, and black people groups.  Prayer and conversations with people also willing to do the work is all I know to do, and it’s the hardest work there is, it seems.  It contains less space for speaking than for listening.  It requires trust not easily found and/or maintained.

I do pray God’s blessing on the brave ones marching peacefully in the streets, and for God’s protection.  And I pray for the courage to pray that human hearts might also change in the days to come.  Take care.