Locate Your Grace
Dearest FUSD community,
I am writing to you at an unconventional time. It is 5:30 am and I am not a morning person. I’m up because I’ve not really caught much sleep tonight anyway, and so it seems as good a time as any to write a bit about where we are as we enter the fall, nearly six months into the debacle of a pandemic here in our country.
Many of us do not know what time it is, or what day it is. Our attempts to normalize what is not normal have worn down our resilience. I make jokes, sometimes harsh, only because I need to laugh to keep from crying. I have days of intense focus, and others where I languish amidst all that is wrong and seems beyond my scope of Influence. I’ve taken to doing my work in unconventional ways at unconventional times. (See last week’s time for all ages in our virtual
service for an example of unconventional.)
Perhaps you can relate, and perhaps not. Coping with the stresses of the world takes on so many different forms for each of us and the loved ones in our lives. And so, I ask you to check in. Check in with your neighbors, your friends, the worker at the post office. Pause, give and receive eye contact if possible. Vocalize your gratitude. Notice the small things offered to you by the other humans in your life.
Mixed in our collective bag of various freedoms available to us in the here and now, please locate your grace and keep it handy. Apply it liberally to your self and those around you. Our world has asked us to continue to perform, to work, to create, to give, to learn, and to connect in unconventional ways during unconventional times. As we try to justify our existence with our busyness, keep grace close by for the times that your soul is crying out to listen to a good piece of music rather than finish that report. Hear the call for a socially distanced visit, rather than completing your daily task list. Respond to your need to nap, rather than grind yourself down to raw nerves. Resist the idea that your productivity will fill in the gaping holes torn in the fabric of our lives by the circumstances of Covid-19, environmental distress, and poor leadership. Find unconventional joy by allowing grace to give you permission to do life these days just a little different than previously expected.
Sending you grace, and all the accompanying freedoms that may result,
Erin