Maybe the Middle
I live in B.C. We’ve been in the news a lot lately and it’s beyond exhausting. I’ve learned a lot of meteorological terminology this year that I would rather not have needed. I know what a heat dome is, and how it is lethal for those without enough connections to find air-conditioned shelter. I dropped my daughter off at camp this summer on a day that was so red and so dark from the fires that I couldn’t make sense of why I was leaving her, even though every map of the actual fires assured me it would be fine. This week we all learned what an atmospheric river is and how vulnerable our current infrastructure is to one. I live in Kelowna (the traditional and unceded territory of the Silyx/Okanagan people) and last week I was supposed to help host a conference in Abbotsford. Between here and there is utter devastation.
And yet.
Other stories are also trickling out. I doubt they make global news, and rarely even make provincial news, but there are some beautiful stories that point us to hope. This morning I read about three horses, a pregnant cow and some goats that were airlifted to safety. In Hope, people were opening up their own homes to stranded travellers. The churches, the school a local camp—all extended hospitality. I’ve read about farmers taking in extra animals, people offering their boats in the floods, volunteer community members sandbagging into the night. Here in Kelowna, they’ve had to ask that no more clothing donations be made for the moment because it was so much more than could be sorted. It took only three days.
These are the stories I pray we commit to telling more often. The ones that invite us to be knit together, to reach out, to behave selflessly. The resurrection story all around us of beauty emerging from ashes and community being reborn from calamity. This is why I pray, thy kingdom come, on earth, as it is in heaven.
I wrote the reflection below prior to this week’s calamity but share it now.
Maybe the Middle
The pandemic has been unrelenting hard. My heart is weary after too little connection and too much bad news. Case counts. Death counts. Alarming headlines. My spirit is a tattered garment blown by the breeze. Flapping about without rhythm or grace and wearing ever thinner.
I hear a whisper. A voice inviting me to another way. A greater Spirit, the Holy Spirit, speaking peace and steady to my anxieties. Offering shelter in this storm.
And when I accept this place of refuge, I find in this same embrace, people who have navigated the storm differently; made anxious by other news and having had other fears consume them, weary them, unravel them.
I wonder at the breadth of this place. Where the Spirit mischievously mixes those who are different like an artist tracing her brush through the splotches of paint on her palette. Breathing over the mixing; calling to life this fresh creation. A picture of new wine pressed out by so much crushing.
Here in this spiritual place, ragged hearts are invited to share refuge without the need to share opinions. The only commonality is that we all have accepted the hospitality of our gentle and holy host. And our Host pours cup after cup of love and hope to nourish and refresh our spirits. Fear’s voice becomes less insistent, muffled. Division seems less necessary—even absurd in the warmth of this wide embrace.
In some ways, this is a middle. Where enfleshed difference comes to meet. And yet it is more transcendent. Somehow it isn’t halfway between two places, two opinions, but higher than either. Where difference isn’t what tears apart, but what provides a palette for an Artist’s touch.
O Artist Spirit, I yield to your brush. Trace in my imagination how to shape this sacred space here on earth. Make your bride a host to all kinds of frayed pieces, that she may do the creative work of knitting together what would otherwise be torn asunder.