Healing in these Times

We are called to keep reaching in…
to pray,
to seek that which brings us solace
and to go there.

We are called to dig,
to dig down to the roots…
to understand the hows and whys of who we are
so that we might better engage the
dissonance and that which makes us
raw with fury or pain.

Now is not the time to ignore our own
contributions to the collective mess.
Now is the time to make peace
with ourselves,
our wounds,
our burdens,
our misunderstandings,
and make them worthy of our attention and time.

We can use the sorrow to bless,
the pain to heal,
the divide to unite,
the anger to calm,
the brokenness to mend.

Life is calling us to our respective corners
not to add to the turbulence,
but to offer us time in which to grow
quiet enough
for long enough
that something unnameable can
give way inside of us, and 
we can begin to honor the mystery
that begs to transform.

We’ve been in social isolation far too long
as we have divided ourselves into
opponents and competitors
who have chosen to lose sight of 
our collective humanity.
We now have a new social isolation
imposed on us
as an illness drives us into our homes
and into a unique solitude.

Perhaps here,
in time, 
our callousness,
will grow softer,
and our hearts will find
reason enough to re-engage
the compassion, kindness, and care
that has always sustained and enlivened

our beautiful,
common humanity.

Kathy Fuller Guisewite
March 14, 2020