Find faith and silver linings in this most trying year, amid coronavirus and challenges

Like everyone else, I am sometimes so very burdened by it all this year.

The pandemic threatens to get me down. Sometimes it just feels so oppressive, like a horrible blanket weighing on all of us, preventing lively coffee chats at Moxie, keeping us from those hugs, making us cook at home nearly ALL THE TIME. Regular meditation and prayer are good, but they don’t fix it.

And our country’s so-painful waking pains are impossible to ignore. I have thought myself pretty aware of what white middle-class privilege means, but I actually am not. Every day, now that my eyes are opening, I realize anew how our (my) language, governmental policies, social practices and taken-for-granted attitudes are plain-old, flat-out racist to the core. I do not want to lose this awareness, or step off this path to “wokeness.” At the same time, goodness and joy have to be a part of the lives we live.

So, today, I take several leaves from the book of my e-friend, Phyllis Cole-Dai. Phyllis is a writer, poet, musician, camper, wife and proud mom, “writing across what divides us.” (She’s the co-editor of a wonderful poetry anthology I have lauded before, “Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems.”) She is religious in the sense that we Unitarian Universalists love: spiritual, respectful of mystery, light-hearted nay funny, nondogmatic.

Every Sunday, we subscribers receive from Phyllis a “Staying Power Care Package,” with prose, music and poetry that really does help with the staying power. She shares her life and she does not varnish the hard truths of living in 2020. At the same time, she, too, knows goodness and joy. Just recently, she came up with a list of 45 “silver linings” to the pandemic. (After acknowledging we might feel odd, being a little frivolous like that, but affirming that we can hold tragedy and hope both in our hearts.) Her list made me think of what silver linings — or at least what blessings — I am aware of in this pandemic/uprising life of ours. Here are a few.

• My Dream Group, three other women and I who have been meeting and sharing life and dreams since 1990. We gather, wearing masks and 6 feet apart, under the comforting shade of a spreading backyard ash tree.
• My husband’s continuously improving health, and the competent, kind, caring St. Luke’s cancer nurses and doctors.
• Our funny cat, Olivia, who really digs having us around all the time.
• The grandsons’ now-flexible schedules, allowing us more cherished visiting time.
• Virtual church, the flexibility and creativity of our children’s and adult worship creators, the “virtual coffee hour,” where we meet people we wouldn’t, and the often “just-talk-to-friends” in-person coffee hours.
• More time to watch the birds and squirrels, to catch the alarming “nature-red-in-tooth-and-claw” moments when a hawk descends on the poor little critters. (“Putting food on the table,” says my husband.)
• The incredibly thoughtful dinner bringers, including the amazing Sarah, who provides healthy, delicious food every Thursday. Just because she loves us.
• My friends, who, matter-of-factly and with good cheer, demonstrate for anti-racism, at noon every day.

Try making your list — it is fun and eye-opening. I’m stopping because of space limitations, but I realize I can go on and on and on, and will do so. Amid genuine hardship there are silver linings. There are blessings. There is goodness and joy.

In a later care package, Phyllis offered 58 Pandemic Prayers, in honor of her 58th birthday. I close with three of them.

May we be sanctuary for one another.

May we let separation knit us close.

May we dive to the depths of our being and bring up blessings we didn’t know we had.