From Rev. Anya Sammler-Michael, Senior Co-Minister
You have been telling me how you are sleeping. Some are up the night long. Some are resting for many more hours than usual.
You have been telling me how you are breaking down. Some are restless. Some are settling into an uncomfortable sadness.
You are telling me how you are surviving. Some are singing. Some are dancing. Some are doing and doing. Some are allowing themselves to pause.
Is this grief, trauma, loss? Is this our bodies and souls in crisis? Are these growing pains?
In the third week of this COVID-19 crisis, many of us lost a dear one – a friend, a family member, someone we knew when we were young. What was perhaps once at least somewhat abstract has settled down deep into our bones. We know that this is about us – really about us – and we are learning what that means.
Every threshold that I have moved through, every spiritual transformation that has come by grace, every spiritual transformation that I have endured – began with what felt like a monumental challenge, one I didn’t know if I could overcome. Perhaps we can feel the deep challenges of these days, not only as grief or loss or trauma (as I imagine they are). Perhaps we can feel them also as growing pains – as our stepping through a spiritual threshold that we didn’t choose, but one that we can harness to change us, in a way that we do.
May you be well. May you care for yourself with tenderness.