Waking up

This week the smoke has been blocking out the sun, and I’ve felt a kind of dulling, confining of my own curiosity and joy. As the smoke smothers the earth, I’ve felt a kind of spiritual smothering. I’ve felt enclosed in my own emotions, reinforced by the negative emotions around me.
It has been hard to maintain energy for my work because, in hospital chaplaincy, there is always plenty sadness and grief and despair to go around. It has been an especially sad week. I had four deaths in a 3 hour period to start my work week, and the stories of tragedy and more deaths have piled on since. I love being able to be there for people in those sacred times — but no matter what an honor it is, the grief does add up when there is so much at once. And when the fog of smoke is thick from ground to sky…. Finally, I found myself with tears streaming down my face yesterday as I watched a Zoom meeting, wishing my friend and mentor who died last year was still here so we could pass goofy notes during boring speeches like we would have been doing if he were alive. You know the grief is adding up when you’re crying at a zoom meeting.
This morning, I yearn to remember what is beyond those oppressive clouds of smoke and sadness, and breathe deeply of the expanse. So I imagine the sky at my favorite spot in eastern Washington. I imagine breathing in that dry, clean air, looking straight into the sky so the 3-D stars fill my vision and I feel like I could dive into a pool of them. I breathe deeply again, and again.

Back here on earth, I find myself holding a soft, purring kitten and having my coffee, and I’m able to savor that feeling and that taste more freely. Just a few moments remembering what is beyond my perceived reality helps put me back in balance. The memory of the night sky grounds me this morning.

May the memory of the awe of the expanse, and the reality beyond whatever distortion may shield your heart from it this morning, bless your day and your week to come. 🌌🙏

Fire

Hiking through a burn area, comforted and coated by snow, the ground protected and renewing underneath.

When I posted a picture of fireweed last week, I didn’t expect to be thinking so much about Fire so soon. I received an emergency alert today that “a super massive cloud of smoke” from California is and Oregon is headed our way tomorrow. The alert warned: “you have today to prepare.” Later the news said the smoke was “hovering menacingly over southern Washington, biding its time.” This week several of my colleagues have had their bags packed and ready to evacuate as a wildfire closer to home has closed highways and destroyed four homes….

The week has been a rough one clinically, too. There was one day where the highlight of the day was seeing a young person not die in the emergency department after attempting suicide.
“Thanks for saving my life, doc.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”

The year began with wildfires in Australia, then COVID came, and now there are fires here. The natural world seems to mirror the rage and devastation in society, with our centuries of hatred and oppression of Black lives and brown lives and indigenous lives and queer lives and need I go on…

It would be easy for me to go too quickly to a hopeful aphorism to tie a bow around this post. But the reality is, sometimes you’re just in it, and the fires sweep or creep in and the smoke chokes and the virus slowly or quickly continues to snuff out lives of people who continue to die far from the people who love them, and it seems like friends and family of my friends keep dying, social distancing compounding their grief and loneliness….

I’m not depressed or hopeless or despairing. There are still young people who don’t die, and tears of relief in the eyes of doctors who just an hour ago braced themselves for another beautiful young body they could not save, and a devastated family they would have to inform. There are always neighbors that rebuild and communities that come together. And eventually the rain comes and the smoke clears and you can breathe again as you continue to mourn and fight for all those who cannot.

And sometimes you’re just in it, and every breath hurts.

Wherever you find yourself today, know that you are loved. Dig deep, and find your Hope, and hold on. There are others who will hold on with you and for you, and we are in this life together. 💞🙏