I received an email from a friend in the United States two days ago.
Some days I awake, simply ready for the new day. Other times, like today, I wake up feeling “old” or a certain fatigue. For sure the terrible stuff going on in the country and world are part of it. A sense of how long it will take before the “new” begins to reveal itself. So many conflicting values are still in the way.
Yesterday, early morning, the sky did its ordinary magic colouring the sky in pinks and fuschias.
Today, everything is blanketed in thick fog with no noticeable sign of lifting.
This pattern of sun and sky seems to mirror my friend’s personal human experience. And this alternating experience is common to us all. In fact, we might say that it helps us know we belong to each other. More deeply, we belong to earth.
I am reminded of a hymn that we sing on Holy Saturday, that “hold one’s collective breath” day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday in the Christian tradition. That immobile space between tragedy and hope. The words of the hymn go like this:
As morning breaks
I look to you
I look to you O God, to be my strength this day
As morning breaks.
Perhaps this moment of our experience on the planet also calls us to look to each other to be our strength this day. Perhaps we can also look to sun and sky, to river and ocean to be our strength this day. Perhaps in these discouraging days, we are more surrounded by what might give us strength than we have imagined.
As morning breaks…
-Sister Margo Ritchie, CSJ
IMAGE: Zetong Li/Unsplash