What if we could approach the other with a deep curiosity that would lead to new understandings and ways of being together?
What if we committed ourselves to working with others to right the wrongs experienced by Canada’s indigenous peoples as more starkly revealed by this pandemic?
What if instead of watching the important and peaceful protests, we joined them and walked alongside?
What if for every movie made in the US we watched one produced elsewhere, especially by people of color?
What if we used the experience of the last year of not attending Sunday morning ‘church’ to reimagine church?
What if we came out of this time with a greater awareness of those who are lonely and alone and could form new patterns for a more generously shared life?
What if, when we can gather together in larger numbers, we really mix it up, so that the gathering becomes a learning, a growing, a celebrating of the other?
I think we all feel like life on the other side of this Covid 19 is going to be quite different. Let’s use our will and energy to make it a good different.
For Those Who Have Far to Travel
If you could see the journey whole
you might never undertake it;
might never dare the first step
that propels you
from the place you have known
toward the place you know not.
Call it one of the mercies of the road:
that we see it only by stages
as it opens before us,
as it comes into our keeping
step by single step.
There is nothing for it but to go
and by our going take the vows
the pilgrim takes:
to be faithful to the next step;
to rely on more than the map;
to heed the signposts of intuition and dream;
to follow the star that only you will recognize;
to keep an open eye for the wonders that attend the path;
to press on beyond distractions
beyond fatigue
beyond what would tempt you from the way.
There are vows that only you will know;
the secret promises for your particular path
and the new ones you will need to make
when the road is revealed by turns
you could not have foreseen.
Keep them, break them, make them again:
each promise becomes part of the path;
each choice creates the road
that will take you to the place
where at last you will kneel to offer the gift
most needed— the gift that only you can give--
before turning to go home by another way.
Jan Richardson