One of my core convictions is this:
I believe connections always change things. They don’t necessarily fix things, but they change their course. We need human connections with one another. Even in our alone times (we need introversion too!) internalized connections can be transformative.
Yesterday, I felt really down. I’ve been paying attention to various crises of violence in our nation, but the emotions of them really caught up with me and hit me so very hard yesterday. These also began to mingle with feelings about losses and challenges that people I know are facing personally, along with anniversaries of diagnoses and what the election felt like two years ago at this time. It just all added up. I think I needed to feel through these things and release some emotions.
In the evening, I thought I would settle into some Netflixing and then just go to bed in a harrumph, but then I got a text from someone wonderful, one of the alumni from my Texas campus ministry days. He said that his girlfriend (a Michigan alum! I love that one of our Texans is partnered with one of our Michiganders!) was about to perform in a choir concert of Carmina Burana, and it would be livestreamed from their concert hall in Chicago. Did I want to watch?
Yes, I did! And it was a great concert. Wow. And he and I had an excellent time texting back and forth during this performance — something you can’t do in a concert hall! We talked about how great the music was; we cracked a few jokes.
And after this started, I also sent the link to a handful of other alumni with whom this couple is close. And I sort of marveled that all these years later, we still talk regularly, and we if we want to tune in, we can watch a concert together in five different states.
And this completely transformed my mood. It didn’t fix the problems, but it put me back in a more hopeful space — hope which can then lean into engaging with those problems.
Connection is magic.
Smuggling Grace 