Things that Will Hold

These days, as the world starts to open up, and all of us feel the jitters, the stress of returning to the more that life demands, we need to be careful with ourselves and each other.  We need to practice kindness, with our words, our deeds, and even our non actions. 

We need to have gentle words, gentle acts, and gentle arts, gentle responses to the hardest of things and the ordinary hardness of ordinary life.  That means choosing to eat healthy, but being kind when we can't.  It means getting enough rest, even if it means a nap. It means praying, and asking the angels and saints to help when the heart runs dry.   It means practicing that good and generous measure packed and overflowing of forgiveness, for everyone struggling with the damage and hardness of the past year, and other pains we do not know.   It means practicing on ourselves for all the pains we ignore.   

Today, I spoke with my kids about remembering to take care of themselves and each other,  We need to exercise, we need to exercise restraint. We need to read, we need to read the moods, and we need to serve each other and recognize when we need to ask for help.   It's not easy to recognize we need to stop, or we need to help someone else stop, but this is the reality we have to help soften, like a crocus in the landscape before spring.  

Being a crocus in winter is the goal, ermerging before Spring signals that everything is safe and warm and ready.  It doesn't mean not wearing masks or practicing social distancing, it means doing all of that, but doing them with a trust that spring will come, that the world will get warmer and so will life.   

We won't always be in lock down. We won't always be struck by Covid. We won't always have to wear masks to make sure everyone around us is safe, and everyone we love we go home to, is also safe. One day we'll be able to breathe easy about all of this and all of this will amazingly be a memory with face masks being a reminder of that year we stayed home. . 
It’s restorative to remember, we won’t always be in Lent.  Easter is coming. All of Lent is a reminder, that much of life is ash, is Ash Wednesday, but Easter arrives.  Easter is here, and even better, it is always. For now, we get to work at this business of caring for others and ourselves.  'Till we have faces, we will have to show our true selves by how we treat each other and ourselves.