The Blessing of 2020 and The Hope of 2021
A beautiful sunrise due to wildfires in Colorado. August, 2020.
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~David Wagoner (1999)
I do love a new year. It’s like a do over, we get to wipe the slate clean and start fresh. Who of you out there needs a do over after 2020? Don’t all raise your hands at the same time.
I always set a list of goals and hopes for the new year. And a look back of the current year – highs, lows, joys, hurts, and truths. I know we all can’t wait to put this current year to bed. But I do think we need to take a look back—the good, bad, and ugly of it. It holds valuable lessons for us. I think in our current fast-paced, image-focused culture it would behoove us to dig a bit deeper.
A few weeks ago, I decided to be flat out honest and authentic on social media. At the time, I thought it wasn’t my best course of action. But there was something my soul needed to say out loud. I had just spent two weeks alone nursing a broken heart. I was quarantined because of possible exposure to COVID. Add to that, the guy I had been dating for 6 months broke up with me. I was blindsided. It was brutal.
It felt like the pain I was in was extremely personal, made just for my core issues. It brought up all of the darkness of my dysfunctional, old tapes playing on repeat in my mind in my solitary confinement. I spent time journaling, figuring out my part in the relationship, dealing with my disappointment, and confronting my loneliness. Instead of letting the pain consume, I did my best to be sad and walk through it during a godforsaken pandemic. Difficult soul work.
Every time I got on social media, it just made me feel worse. The beautiful, filtered images and edited poetic comments. Blah. I had a visceral reaction to it. I just longed for something real, something beautiful, and true.
I journaled about it and about how the world reflects or doesn’t reflect my worth back to me. It was filled with deeply personal memories of shame and redemption. I decided that I wanted to put something real on social media, to see if it was even possible to be authentic. I posted it. Within seconds, I had my finger on the delete button. Instead, I turned off my phone and decided it was good for me to be seen for who I really am, unfiltered.
The interesting thing is it was probably my most liked and commented post in years. I was shocked and overwhelmed by the response. I had people messaging and texting me about their own experiences. I couldn’t believe my little step of honesty gave permission for others to share their truths and pain. Also, I could believe it, that’s kind of how it works.
People are longing for something true and redemptive, for something real. For our pain to matter and to be transformed. That’s what I learned. It’s a good takeaway for 2020. The harshness of everything we lost this year, the violence that surrounds us, the inequality that is smacking us in the face, the division, the death, the pandemic. The things that we placed our identities in are gone. It’s a pulling back of the curtain to expose suffering.
Band-Aids and pretty filters won’t do anymore. Well, they won’t do for me. I’m betting they won’t do for you or for our society as a whole. My greatest takeaway of 2020 is to show up and be seen, warts and all. When I do, I can then show up for you- for friends and neighbors, for family, for others that are suffering, for marginalized communities, for immigrants, for refugees, for the homeless, for the entire freaking world.
My hope for 2021 to that we show up for each other.
It doesn’t mean we won’t still have the same problems as 2020, I don’t think that will magically disappear. We still have a pandemic and political upheaval and division and hatred and racism.
My hope is we all come to the table and we make room for everyone at the table and we come together to build a better, more equitable table.
I love that poem by Wagoner. We are where we are. Right now, we cannot change that. We can accept it. We can see beauty in it, and we learn from it.
That’s the blessing of 2020.
That’s the hope for 2021.