Times are different

          Lately I've had many days when I feel that I've said everything that I need to say.  Well, not, perhaps to individuals.  There are people I would like to say things to.  There are people I'd like to apologize to, and others I'd like to just catch up with.  There are even a couple folk with whom I'd really like to have a "come to Jesus meeting" - people I'd like to speak truth to, telling them how those I've loved or even I myself have been affected by their actions.  I'd like to have the opportunity to be strong and fix untruths.  I'd like there to be a sense of "wholeness" or closure or reconciliation with a couple folk.  But those are all individuals.
         For some time now when I go to write a new sermon, I've found myself looking to old ones for help to know what to say.  And when I go to write on this blog, I look at old essays I've begun but never finished to try to see if there are any of those beginnings that are now calling to me to finish them.  And now, after a month of limited contact and "shelter in place" I am struggling to write emails to my congregants that boost them, that support them, that offer the love I feel for them each day and the dismay and absence I feel when we cannot be together.  I've said it repeatedly.  And now, there is nothing more, nothing left, nothing new to say.
        For those who know me well, the idea that I may have nothing to say... well, it's new.  I usually have way too many things to write, to think.  I have 150 pages of "sermon ideas" or illustrations for anything I might want to talk about.  I have beginnings of books, beginnings of blog posts, beginnings of emails just waiting to be finished, written, sent.  They were just waiting for me to have space and time.  I have that now.  Well, I have the space even if the time may be a bit illusive.  But when there is space, when there is time set aside for writing, for speaking, for creating, I find that new words do not come easily.  And when I read the words I've written, they sound like empty echoes of words I've spoken before.
         Perhaps creativity is also a victim of this time - at least for me.  For many people crisis encourages art, spurs on new thoughts, new reflections, and new ways of looking at things.  The last time I went through crisis, my writing became prolific, my thoughts were opened and writing was necessary in many ways to process through what was going on.  But maybe in part because I've done so much "crisis writing," this time round I have nothing new.  And maybe that's okay.
        I've encouraged my congregants to be gentle with themselves during this time, recognizing that our reactions to crisis are varied and that we all need time and space in crisis to grieve, to process, to rest and to just BE.  I've reminded them that we will process more slowly and that taking the time to walk through trauma is not only okay, but necessary and important.  So perhaps I need to offer myself that same kind of grace.  I also need to recognize that where I am today may look very different from where I will be tomorrow.
        Grace, offered to others, but also offered towards ourselves, is very important right now.  The world looks different.  So do we.  And that needs to be okay.  God offers great grace.  And we can learn to offer that to one another and ourselves as well.