Embraced

Pastor Banda and future embraced. June 2023

The sky is blue grey and the moon is dipping into the universe; the temperature is warming at 60 degrees fahrenheit.  Today is Saturday.

It has been many days (eighteen to be exact) since my last morning thought piece and there goes my notion of five hundred words a day for 2023; and yet, those words appeared throughout the time between now and then.

The world is much the same, with news circling around concerns about political change (due to intensify in 2024, and already underway), women's health and access to abortion, housing and lack of affordability in the state, and continued concern over human migration and the possibility of many more who may be seeking refuge in this country.  Our collective response has been to resist and deepen our anxiety over change.

Change is what happens in life - constantly.  We need to learn to embrace this fact because the failure to do this might mean the failure of existence for all living creatures, including humans.  It seems there is a lot of activity outside of the spaces that get covered by the news media to suggest that many more people are concerned about finding a way to live in harmony versus conflict.  We just don't get to hear much about this.

In the past four days, there has been a chance to live into a small part of the picture of hope.  The key words, "sharing", "gathering", "listening", "engaging".

The sharing was in the generosity of friends and strangers who provided clothing, kitchenware, books, shoes, and many things that are needed among migrants at a sanctuary near the southern border.  The gathering was of friends who decided to make the hours-long drive going and returning with a load of items and engaging with people to learn what more can be done to support a journey to safety.  The listening was with the language of the heart, not with a common language of words but with a common language of humanity.  And the engaging was found in understanding what needs to happen in the immediate, the interim, and the long term to relieve the pressures that come with impossible situations for families who are a part of the human flow.

Many want to know what they can do to help.  The answer is whatever you can do to help.  Begin with an embrace of yourself and others.  Find the courage to recognize that we are all connected to one another across language, culture, histories, and much more.  Embrace the belief that we have the ability to understand and care - especially for the small beings that want to live into the years that will allow them to know joys as well as the struggles of living this life and time.

Remember that an embrace is a hug, a good thought, an action toward all that one may wish to manifest in a world of kindness, love, and compassion.