Opening

I'm tired. So much is at stake this election year. Or at least I feel like there is a lot at stake. I worry that the world as I know it, one that is emerging toward greater equality for people in all segments of society, will snap shut. That we will close our hearts around fear. I am tired of the angst and the language and meanness, of the lies and of the mask we humans can wear over our prejudices. It's not socially appropriate to be prejudice so we mask the feelings with anger, distortions of truth, and veiled accusations. No doubt being prejudice is wrong. It's also wrong to think we aren't prejudice when we are, to not see our behavior for what it really is. Watching the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates is an example of this. I'm tired.

I know I need to keep working for justice, as I understand it as a progressive Christian. And I will. 

But I am tired of how we speak to one another and treat each other. I am trying to be a better person, myself. I am trying to not live in anger but reach out in compassion. It isn't easy. Some days I just want to turn off television and not read any social media stuff...but I still continue to read and then work to calm my heart with prayer.

  As usual Mary Oliver says it well. And so, on this Monday morning, a day off, I offer this:

 

The Fist

There are days
when the sun goes down
like a fist,
though of course

if you see anything
in the heavens this way
you had better get

your eyes checked
or, better still,
your diminished spirit.
The heavens

have no fist,
or wouldn't they have been
shaking it
for a thousand years now,

and even
longer than that,
at the dull, brutish
ways of mankind -

heaven's own
creation?
Instead: such patience!
Such willingness

to let us continue!
To hear,
little by little,
the voices -

only, so far, in
pockets of the world -
suggesting the possibilities

of peace?

Keep looking.
Behold, how the fist opens
with invitation.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Thirst)