I’ve been struggling to find a word to describe 2020.
I thought of the word ‘trauma’ because of the fear and loss and helplessness experienced by so many …
I thought of the word ‘hope’ because I have heard that word … a lot … I hope I can go back to work… or… I hope I can be with my family again … I hope I can pray in community again … I hope I don’t have to wear a mask forever … Often this is said as a prayer…
And then there was ‘despair’ and ‘anger’ resulting from political and social injustice. I heard the questions.. “why do we keep doing the same things over and over again?” … or … “ will it ever end?”…
I thought of the word ‘freedom’, because I’ve heard from many in my art and writing communities that they welcomed more time for creativity, for catching up on half finished projects or those not yet started.
Another word I’ve heard a lot is ‘home’ .. meaning a physical structure or spending more time with people living in the same space or doing more at home… cooking from scratch, making repairs, cleaning, and clearing out spaces, time for helping with school work, projects, meals together…
Recently someone told me it was just ‘different’. Some things are just different than how they have been in the past and some see it as a challenge.
Like many others I’ve experienced changes that I didn’t see coming, an illness just as news of a possible pandemic made the headlines. Then leaving a position sooner than I’d planned. Vacations cancelled. Family gatherings cancelled.
I had a trip to Puerto Rico planned, wanting to see some of the familiar places. I wanted to see the rain forests, some that had been stripped bare by the hurricane a few years ago, but that I’m told and have seen in images are becoming lush again. I wanted to see the new growth, the parrots that somehow survived as their home was stripped bare.
Thinking of the parrots, I wondered how any, already so few in numbers, had survived the devastating storms of recent years. I searched online and found a university report that mentioned the use of bunkers and apiaries. These structures were already being used to help increase the population of the wild parrots. They ended up being some of the places where the birds were protected, sheltered from the storms.
Sheltered …
I believe much good can come from sheltering, physically and emotionally. We can complain about not being able to gather in groups or not being able to go on vacation or do the many things we are accustomed to doing. Or … we can embrace doing what we can to care for ourselves and others. We can embrace trying new things, new ways or returning to old ways of doing things that help us to be healthier and more self sufficient.
Who can know all that 2021 will bring? Will it bring the changes we are hoping for? Like so many others I hope for the end of the pandemic and injustice and so much more. At the same time I don’t believe we can just leave the past year behind. We will carry some of it with us. And some of that is in the way of seeds, seeds of understanding, seeds of caring, seeds of exploration, seeds of old and good ways of doing things, seeds of faith. And regardless of what 2021 looks like, we can plant seeds from the past year, sorting out the seeds of fear, and choose the seeds of awareness, the seeds that will help us to grow, thrive and flourish, so that we may experience perennial grace.
What word or words would you use to describe 2020 and why? What good seeds from the past year might you/we plant in 2021?
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