PRACTICING BEING BOTH BURIED AND UNEARTHED (2020 WRAPPED)

 The year is winding down.
Praise God.
Anyone else feeling some kind of way about that?
Like you can't quite wait for it to be over
and you're afraid to wish it away
and you also found a lot of things
you didn't know you needed to find in the 
suffocating ashes of the year of hindsight?
This year has me feeling buried
like a seed somedays
and like the undead on others.
Both/And.

There were months this year that passed in the searing
pain of holding my breath.
First there was watching the news while an unknown virus started
ravaging China.  Then Italy.
Then the first wave as it made it to the US.
Now that rhythm has almost become normal.
Numbers and risk factors and hand sanitizer and trade-offs.
There was the election
a red-purple-blue wave of unknown 
that continues to test the boundaries of

 acceptance and unknowing and grace-giving.
There is the grief that will never stop being tangible
now that George Floyd will no longer breathe.
Or Breonna Taylor.
Or Chadwick Boseman.
Or Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Or the many many thousands of others
who were robbed of time or murdered by systems that continue
to grind our bones to make the bread.

In between breathless moments this year,
there were also riots of unexpected joy.
Right before the world shut down, we got a last minute ticket 
to see Lauren Daigle who exhorted us to 'Look Up Child'
like a prophet in the wilderness we didn't know was coming.
And while live music has shifted to virtual,
we've been able to see and support more of our favorites
than we might have been able to in a normal year.
From the boys to the chicks (and a host of others),
there's been new music, online singalongs, and fellowship.
I often connect to my Creator through music
and while I've had to learn new tricks and skills to find it,
that joy is still available to me through technology and privilege

that I didn't even know to appreciate until this year.
The glory of it runs over my heart like a giggling toddler.

Another joy that warms my motherless heart
is the way our nuclear family revels in this time together.
We don't just tolerate each other.
We nurture, support and enliven each other.
Daily hugs, riotous laughter over messy meals,
inside jokes through outside walks or car trips to nowhere.
We adore each other.  Each of us to each of us.
It's intimate and personal and nothing that I ever expected to have
with teenagers of all animals and I 
can't get over the ridiculous abundance of it.

A joy that snuck up on me is the relief from being in the world.
I learned so many new skills in 2019 and early 2020
and I wanted to practice those skills.
Of course, I was thinking that I would practice them OUT THERE
with other people, on other people, or just generally outside of myself.
I have struggled to see growth or progress in the past 

that weren't demonstrated in front of a crowd.

Thanks to 2020, I've had little choice than to turn those skills inward.
Like everyone, I've been sitting with myself
and sometimes only with myself
for months on end.
And the joy is how much I like her and accept her
and am so damn proud of her courage and perseverance and tenderness.

We're always becoming who we are intended to be
but I feel closer to her than I've ever felt.
This woman that loves tattoos, expresses herself with confidence,
knows her strengths and doesn't regret her weaknesses.

There were so many lessons from this year
but the need to cultivate joy like it is a living thing
is one I hope remains through the next.
My word for the year was practice.

And practice is what I have done all year-

just not in the ways that I ever expected.

How to hold so much grief as it rains down in waves
is not something that I have learned to do.

If anything, I've learned to see even more ways that the world

is broken and bleeding and deserving of the honor

that grief adorns the aftershocks of our actions.

And how to lean into the paradox of humanity

just a bit more.

We are both/and.

ALWAYS.

A spark of magic wrapped in mud.

Compassionate and careless.

Glorious and terrible.

Bereft and elated.

Brilliant and idiotic.

Forgiving and vengeful.

Holding those dueling natures

and attempting to integrate them

is a transformational effort.

It's the attempt that makes us worthy-

it's the intent and action 

that comes from repeated effort.

Practice.

To say that I'm over 2020 would be a simplistic fiction.

I am more because of the events of this past year

and I am also less.

I have practiced and will keep practicing-

and I am grateful to know 

at least for a few minutes 

that it is well spent.