Tired?

 

I feel this prayer.  I feel it in my bones.  I feel it in my heart.  I feel it in my soul.

I was reminded of Christina Rossetti's poem, "In the Bleak Midwinter": 

 "In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,

In the bleak midwinter, long ago."

We are indeed in a bleak midwinter.

There is much darkness in this world. It is all too often overwhelming for me.  Yesterday, the sky was dark. They day was gray.  The weight of the fear filled news, news that I try to avoid while also trying to stay informed (an impossibility if there ever was) and the obvious cruelty towards neighbors (remembering that we are ALL neighbors) burdened me.  It wore me down.  It depressed me.  It physically hurt me.

I know I am not alone in this.   I scroll on social media.  I see friends.  I see strangers.  We are all struggling with what our nation has become.  We are sad.  We are ashamed.  We are frightened.  We are angry.  And we are exhausted.

It's hard to get up on cold, dark mornings.  I have often said, I wish I could just hibernate the winter away.  These days I wish I could hibernate the next several years away.  But if I did; if we did, would anything change?  As exhausting as each morning may be, as weary as we get as we are pummeled day in and out by inhumanity, we do need to get up and we do need to do what we must to move forward to put whatever positivity we can out in the world.  We need to be the light that the darkness is trying to overcome.

For me, that meant going to church this morning.  I'm not trying to push religion here.  (Then why Bfth did you start out this post with a prayer?!)  What I am trying to encourage is for everyone to find that safe space within your local community where you can be refreshed and renewed.  Where you can find friends who will lift you up and you in turn do the same.  That may be a church, synagogue, or mosque.  Or it may be a library, community center, gym or coffee house.  (I am sure that there are many more examples that I just can't come up with at the moment.)  As much as we may want to bury ourselves away, we do need face to face interaction; wherever or however we may find it.

While attending a church service this morning was a good thing, what I really needed, came after the service.  I go to the early service and as I am leaving I often run into people who are coming to the later service.  Today I was blessed enough to run into a couple that I know (although not well enough and there was just enough time for a hug from one (before she headed off to a choir rehearsal) and a brief chat with the other.  That interaction was enough to lighten my load.  We all acknowledged how awful we feel (and how we feel that way too often) and how we would keep being there for each other.  

This interaction was less than 10 minutes, but I felt so much better afterwards.  Again, I don't know them too well, but I am thankful for the time we shared this morning.  (And I certainly hope there will be more!)

So take today's prayer to heart.  Acknowledge your exhaustion.  Care for yourself.  Find like-minded people to lift you up.  Lift up those around you with kindness and compassion.  Be the light and we can and will make a difference.  We can and will make this world (or even just a small part of it) a better place.