One Year Later

I wrote this reflection, "An Ordinary Friday," for the Nov. 12, 2017, service titled One Year Later at the Unitarian Universalist Church ofUrbana-Champaign. (Audio at the link above)

A year ago, in the days after the election, I was in the throes of grief, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through it. I wore black for a week. I love color, but I couldn’t face it.

In the year since, I have felt the need to turn inward, to find ways to nurture my compassion and my gratitude—to balance out my anger and fear. And to turn outward as well, to engage in ways I can sustain and which sustain me.

Over these months, I have found that the world has come to feel more fragile and more precious. I have come to realize even more deeply how much I love it, this world of ours.

I was reminded of the preciousness and beauty of our world on a Friday about three weeks ago. I was sitting in Westside Park in downtown Champaign, eating an early lunch and choosing the poetry I wanted to read for our UU coffeehouse, when I heard children’s voices behind me.

“It’s the Music Man!” a little boy exclaimed. After a brief pause, he added, “He’s going to make music!” The certainty in his voice moved me, and I turned around to look.

About eight children—they were about four years old—were walking one behind the other, holding onto a rope. They were heading towards the nearby preschool. A little distance from them, on a low stool, sat a middle-aged man, a bag beside him. He reached in, took out what looked like a small horn, and began to play music. Excited sounds came from the children.

I smiled and returned to my lunch and reading. A minute later, I heard more young voices.

“It’s the Music Man!  Hi, Jay!”

About a dozen more kids were on the path to the preschool.

                                                  

“Hi Jay! Hi Jay!” a chorus of voices called out. The man kept playing the music; the children waved and smiled and chattered excitedly.

I was struck by the joy the Music Man and the children brought each other through the repetition of what was clearly a regular event in their lives. I had been reading poems that emphasized our interdependence—and here I was witnessing the joy it brings. Witnessing it brought me joy.

I was struck by how this still goes on, this kind of kindness and interdependence, even while  chaos and cruelty dominate the highest levels of our government. Noticing moments like this is what has allowed me to nurture gratitude and compassion in myself, to avoid being consumed by anger and despair. There are opportunities every day, and I try to remain open to them.

That is how I get through: looking at sunlight on the tall tree outside the Champaign Public Library where I wrote some of this homily, or noticing the engaged looks on my students' faces at Parkland as they listen to each other discuss meditation or feminism, or witnessing the kindness and joy of strangers. These moments of beauty and attention and kindness are as real as the injustices and violations that capture the headlines. Each morning, standing with palms pressed against each other and looking out the living room window, I greet the day and bring to mind the compassion and beauty I witnessed the day before; this practice of paying attention nourishes me and strengthens me and opens me. It reminds me why I love our world and reminds me why I must keep fighting for it.

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Two works, introduced to me by Rev. Florence Caplow, our new settled minister at UUCUC, have helped lift me during the past year: 

the poem "Now, I Love You. Now, I Witness" by the UU minister Theresa Soto

and the song "I'm Gonna Walk it With You" by Brian Claflin and Ellie Grace.

What has helped you? 

Community has sustained me this year. These candles were lit at the beautiful Solstice service yesterday at our Unitarian Universalist Church; they represent individual goals for the solar year, goals pursued with the knowledge that we have the support of our community. 

An Offering of Flowers

Earlier this week, I walked around our gardens just before sunset. I noticed the exquisite intricacy of petals and leaves, the way the evening light made the colors pop.

I had come out into the backyard feeling horrified by the news from Charlottesville and sickened by the response from the White House. I had already been on edge from the escalation of tension with North Korea the week before.  

Walking around the gardens, my shoulders relaxed, my footsteps slowed. For a moment, the larger world receded, and I felt comforted and strengthened.

We are going to need comfort and strength in the days ahead, so that we can keep speaking up, keep keeping on. I offer you these flowers. May they bring you peace, too. 

Spectacular Prairie Skies

A recent evening storm that came literally out of the blue reminded me again why I love the prairie skies and Meadowbrook Park. As Marilyn and I began our walk around the prairie, I exclaimed at the blue-violet sky in the west. I wanted to gather the blue-violet in my arms and offer it to Amy, my beloved friend, whom I miss so much. She loved that color. On that evening, with the sky changing and the wind picking up, the thought of gathering the sky in my arms and handing it to Amy made me smile. I imagined her up in the sky like I used to imagine a white-bearded, smiling god when I was a child.

As Marilyn and I rounded the curve, stopping to photograph the western sky, a woman and two children joined us on the path. They had been heading home through the prairie to the nearby neighborhood.

"We had to turn around and come back to the park when we saw the sky," the woman said, laughing.

The sky was becoming more dramatic by the minute, and then the wind picked up in a way I had only experienced at sunset at Lake Michigan. There the waves became bigger and faster; here, the wind became louder and stronger.

I looked up.

"That's not a tornado coming, is it?" I asked Marilyn, the native Midwesterner, the one I have to urge to shelter during a tornado warning.

"No. It's not green," she said, not sounding as certain as I would have liked, as I noticed a twist of grey in the orange sky. Our car was on the other side of the park; turning back wouldn't be any faster than moving forward, so we kept going, walking, laughing at the wind and then the rain, stopping to watch a deer and her baby, and being greeted by a rainbow when we finally got to the car.

I felt like I'd been to another planet and back again.