The second day of Spring here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The camellia bushes are losing their blossoms and the Daffodils are bursting their yellow throats open, full of praise for Spring. Hyacinths fill the air with intense sweetness and fruit trees float delicate pink and white sprays over the sidewalks. With all this joy springing forth around me, how is it that I still feel anxious?
It’s the election.
For March I’ve prepared services on Ostara, Purim, and Easter, and in April I’ll be leading an Earthday service. All needful messages, but through all of them I have personally needed, and I believe those in the congregations I am visiting also needed, words of care and support in the face of the anger, fear, and grief present in our election season this year.
I recently posted on my Facebook timeline requesting folks to vote against hate, whoever the alternative candidate might eventually be. I was stunned to see my friends and family on the right and on the left use almost identical words to say “No, I am tired of compromise, I am tired of wanting change and seeing none.” The level of disappointment with our federal government, the anger at the economic situation most Americans find themselves in and the disparity between ‘have’s and ‘have-nots’, and the fear about not having any say in our own lives and futures has created two “outsider” candidates with passionate, dedicated followings. In this moment I do not want to speak about the presidential candidates’ potential to do the job well. It is not my place on this blog to compare the candidates themselves.
I want to acknowledge the pain. I want to seek together for a way forward.
I don’t think we are ready yet to work together to find a solution that works, at least somewhat, for all. We will not be ready until we have acknowledged the emotions, and healed some of the pain. So I invite you to join me in a first step. We who do ritual, let us start with ritual.
Will you join me in a moment of prayerful contemplation… a time of stillness and spaciousness… a time to rest into the sacred moment and the embrace of divine love…
Breath deeply. Feel the strength of the chair that supports you, the solid ground beneath you. Breath deeply, again. Reach out and feel the connection of the community around you. Breath deeply, together. Reach up and know the Sun shining above, the rain soaking the earth, the green trees and plants stretching into the warming air. Breath deeply and know…
Our world is shaken. Our hearts are battered. We are reminded of the man who promised to make Germany great again, but instead inspired her greatest tragedy. We hear the terrifying word “Revolution.” And we are afraid and angry. Even as we move through peaceful, joyful, or mundane moments of our lives, there is a small piece that remembers – not everyone is at peace, not everyone is loved, not everyone is safe.
How can we hold the pain without becoming filled with pain? How can we hold the anger without becoming filled with anger?
We call on the strength of our own bodies and minds. We call on the connection of our community. We call on the joy and peace of the natural world around us. We call upon the sacred, that which each of us knows in our own way.
As Adrienne Rich says: There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors.
May we be vessels, containers. May the fear, anger, and grief find a resting place in us, and then flow into the earth, the air, the fire and the water. May we have the strength to hold the weeping and the raging without becoming stuck.
Let us breath deeply of this beloved community, here to support us, to remind us of our best selves, and to bind up the broken. May all beings be loved and at peace. May all beings be safe and well.
Amen, Blessed Be.
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