Boots and Blessings

For the next five months, we will be in a liminal space to beat all liminal spaces. We are between the large spaces of the Before Times and the Post-Pandemic Times, and we are also between the small spaces of the Pandemic Time and the Recovery Time.  We are not yet in the recovery time. The recovery time will (I hope) look similar to the Before Times, in that we will be able to go to church, children will go to school, etc. In Recovery Time, things will look "normal," but they won't yet feel normal. It will take time. It will require meaningful ritual and spiritual practices, to help us to make sense of all that we've experienced and to chart a new course.  The next five months are the in-between. They are transition time.  Transition is ... well, uncomfortable is the word often used, but really, we need a better word. Something that encompasses discomfort, irritability, our brains not really working well. I would like to go to a metaphor that everyone has experienc...

As humans, we have evolved to be wary of change. In a church, you see this all the time. I like to jokingly remind our leaders that if we change brands of toilet paper, someone is liable to leave the church over it.  Welp, this year our theme could be the line from one of our hymns: Don't be afraid of some change. Because whether you were afraid or not, change was here. Time to learn Zoom. And Youtube Premiere. And in non-church life, curbside pickup for everything from dinner to craft supplies.  We changed. We didn't have a choice in the matter. Trust me, if we'd had an actual choice, if the alternative was not literally potential death, we would have held lots of committee meetings, weighed the pros and cons, and decided nope, we were not going to change.  But we did. And now, slowly I hope, because it's the right and healthy and covenantal thing to do ... we will change again. We'll come back to church. Go back to eating dinner inside a restaurant where people ...

  We are hopeful that the end of the pandemic and a return to some of the things we've missed is on the horizon, even if it's a few months away. But we may feel confused at our own feelings of not being happy , or being anxious at the thought of things getting "back to normal."  And then there's the feeling of camaraderie, of sharing an experience with many people.  Going through something difficult together - even if we are in separate houses while doing so - is often a bonding experience. For those of us who have chosen to take the pandemic seriously, even if our individual circumstances have been different, we have still had similar challenges. It has been reassuring, as a parent, to hear that other families have had some of the same frustrations, like when blogger/author Jen Hatmaker shared on Instagram , "I just cannot look at the grades. I can't do it. I can't look at the missing assignments or those that scored under 70%..." Solidarity, S...

  We have the hope that the covid-19 pandemic's end is in sight ... and it's bringing up a lot of feelings. Not all of them happy .  Many of us are feeling some level of anticipatory anxiety.  The anxiety is rooted in a fear that almost all of us have, in some form or another. The fear that others will make us do something we don't want to do. Whether it is through what can feel like the aggression of "your job depends on this," or the polite friendliness of social obligations, we pre-emptively worry about being dominated.  Look, the pandemic made saying "No" to in-person events super easy. So easy, in fact, that we didn't even have to say no, because no invitations were forthcoming. We didn't have to send regrets, we were all living in a world where responsible people didn't get together. Heck, those of us who before might feel we were being antisocial could now feel self-righteous! A win/win!  I kid, but only a little.  We anticipate that p...

We are still in the tunnel, but we can see the light at the end of it. Many of our loved ones, or even us, are getting the vaccine. And yet, we may feel ... melancholy. Anxious. Weirdly sad. It’s not weird. It’s normal. When my daughter was 3, she had cancer, round two. This meant a schedule of every couple of weeks, packing clothes, toys, snacks and more, and heading to the hospital to stay for a week. It was grueling. It was scary. The outcome wasn’t assured. So many nights, after she went to sleep, I cried into my pillow. And then, we were going in for our last stay. It was about to be all over. THANK GOD. And ... I felt anxious. I hated watching those drops of chemo (poison) drip into her little body, but I also loved those drops of chemo (liquid miracles). While the chemo was going on, I had some feeling of soldiers fighting off the enemy. Protection. And now ... we were going to be flying without a net. I felt cranky. We had a routine. Go to the grocery store, load up on food fo...