Image Description: Black background and the word ‘family’ in white letters; the l has a tree growing out of it. Public domain image.
What if you could be gathered together in one place with a version of yourself from every year of your life? Like, from baby to current age of adulthood?
What if every age of yourself was present toward all the others, gathered together like a family reunion of sorts? What would that be like?
-Would certain ages pair together for care?
-Would certain ages avoid each other?
-Would certain ages wander off somewhere and find some space to tell the truth, or maybe do some reconciliation work?
-Would certain ages impart wisdom to the other ages?
What might the current you want to say to your younger selves? What might your younger selves want to say to the current you? Truth be told, our younger selves are always present in some way, embedded into the rest of our lives. We can access the various parts of ourselves, and in a sense, even be in relationship with ourselves.
I wonder what would happen in this family reunion?
Image Description: Two directional arrows — one toward Hope and the other toward Despair. Public Domain Image.
In the midst of pain — our own or that of the world around us – it can sometimes seem downright foolish to let ourselves become hopeful. It can even be risky —
What if things never get better than this?
What if the next catastrophe still happens?
What if I look like a fool?
Hope takes risk, I suppose. Hope certainly doesn’t put us in control. Hope might invite us to desire things that in the end, we do not get to see.
But hope also has a way of creating things – things that could barely be imagined before. Hope helps our imagination become alive, and from there, when we envision other possibilities, we soon discover that we are called to participate in their creation. Hope leads us somewhere.
And so, in the midst of it all — whatever it is for you; whatever it is for the world — what might it look like to dare to take heart?
Image Description:Fred Rogers sitting in the house set of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. He’s wearing a red, zip down sweater and a tie.
You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.
He said this daily with emphasis and intention. Occasionally, he said it with playfulness. He always meant it, and young children across the United States internalized this message inside themselves. They came to believe it. Very likely, many came to memorize it, and in anticipation, they said it along with him, either aloud or inside their own minds.
You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.
This was a litany of sorts. A daily recitation.
We might also call it liturgy.
Liturgy literally means, “Work of the people” — sacred words voiced, shared, and enacted. Perhaps in these days, we need to voice, share, and enact the convictions behind this daily statement.
You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.
And maybe part of our work as a people is to internalize these words inside ourselves as well.
After all, I notice one intriguing word in this daily liturgy. It’s the word your. Fred Rogers could have easily said, “You make each day special. You know how, by just being you.” But instead, he added the word your. “You know how, by just your being you.” His phrasing is actually a bit more clunky than it has to be.
But it’s also important. We are invited to know our specialness, worth, and value as ours. We are encouraged to be in relationship with ourselves — “being you” — knowing that even in our days of doubt, we are worth loving. We can live in conversation with this truth, recognizing when we are living in alignment with its values and when we have temporarily acted outside of them. We can always return.
And this isn’t ego, a way of setting ourselves against others or above others. It is a truth we live in relationship with others. So we hear and speak it again in relationship:
You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. There’s only one person in this whole world like you.
This weekend, the Interfaith Round Table of Washtenaw County held our annual Thanksgiving Celebration virtually. We invited speakers from a variety of spiritual traditions to address the topic, “Gratitude in Times of Grief” through speeches, readings, and singing.
I’d like to share that today, and I hope it is uplifting to you.
Image Description: A crack in concrete. Public domain image.
While listening to a radio segment, a journalist said repeatedly,
“They’re Republican,”
And a couple of times,
“They’re Democratic.”
Each time, she was speaking in the plural about more than one person. Why not, “They’re Republicans” or “They’re Democrats”?
Then I realized the phrasing of her language mirrors that of religion. Like,
“They’re Lutheran,” or “They’re Catholic.” , And I thought that was very telling.
For some, these political affiliations are creating a world of meaning and a sense of belonging, along with how we see reality itself, the world, and our place or it. For some, these affiliations are becoming the place of ultimacy and the primary place of identity.
Image Description: A tree in the foreground has a yellow graffiti heart marked upon it. A tree in the background is reflected in the water. There is also a green hill in the background. Photo, Renee Roederer
A quote from Valerie Kaur:
“’Love’ is more than a feeling. Love is a form of sweet labor: fierce, bloody, imperfect, and life-giving—a choice we make over and over again. If love is sweet labor, love can be taught, modeled, and practiced. This labor engages all our emotions. Joy is the gift of love. Grief is the price of love. Anger protects that which is loved. And when we think we have reached our limit, wonder is the act that returns us to love.
“’Revolutionary love’ is the choice to enter into wonder and labor for others, for our opponents, and for ourselves in order to transform the world around us. It is not a formal code or prescription but an orientation to life that is personal and political and rooted in joy. Loving only ourselves is escapism; loving only our opponents is self-loathing; loving only others is ineffective. All three practices together make love revolutionary, and revolutionary love can only be practiced in community.
“Revolutions do not happen only in grand moments in public view but also in small pockets of people coming together to inhabit a new way of being. We birth the beloved community by becoming the beloved community. . . . When a critical mass of people practice together, in community and as part of movements for justice, I believe we can begin to create the world we want, here and now.”
–Valerie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (One World: 2020), xv–xvi, xvii.
Image Description: People clink their glasses together at a dinner party. Also, these people in a stock photo are not spreading COVID-19. Because they’re a stock photo. 🙂 Public domain.
Yesterday, 163,405 people were newly diagnosed with COVID-19 in a single day. That’s a 73% increase from the daily cases average two weeks ago.
Yesterday, 1,171 loved ones died from COVID-19 in a single day. That’s a 33% increase from the daily loss of life average two weeks ago.*
Hospitals are pushed beyond capacity. This is difficult for COVID-19 patients, of course, but it also ends up impacting people with other health emergencies. And it delays necessary surgeries that people need.
When we meet and gather indoors (a task that is understandably desired) it is dangerous because these kinds of gatherings are fueling this spread. It’s difficult to sacrifice this, especially as it stretches on, but we need to keep making wise choices.
This is difficult to grapple with, but it’s not overdramatic. It’s true:
Sometimes people connected to us end up dying — people who weren’t even at the dinner party.Sometimes people connected to us end up experiencing long-term disability (a higher percentage than people who die) — people who weren’t even at the game night.
This is tough, but we are in a tough collective situation. It requires tough individual actions.
ur collective mental health is waning too, which is no small thing. How can we support ourselves and each other and making these necessary choices, but also feeling connected?
We’ll have to be creative in choosing what is much less risky.
But first we have to believe this: What we’re doing is risky.
