You can do this

God did not say ‘you will not be tempted; you will not be troubled; you will not be distressed’… What God said was, ‘You shall not be overcome.’”

                     Julian of Norwich

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It comes at us from all sides

Bad news

Dark news

 

Another wildfire rages and homes and lives are destroyed.

Covid explodes and the Emergency Rooms are overwhelmed.

Politicians literally mandate their constituents harm.

The Greedy flourish.

Righteous people get sick and die.

An authoritarian party robs people of freedom in the name of freedom.

The planet tilts toward climate disaster

 

And nothing seems to help!

People of good will are shouted down.

Vulnerable people are disenfranchised through voter suppression, and worse

Injustice flourishes

Inequity is the name of the game in toxic capitalism.

 

We echo the words of faith!

“Love wins!”

“God has this!”

 

But if we are honest, most of us wonder sometimes

How if love really wins, and how, if God (who is love) really has this

We get governors helping children get sick

And politicians robbing people of their rights

And people refusing to protect other people, and doing so while claiming “Jesus.”

 

I mean really?!

 

It is a right mess out there!

Do we dare believe that “all shall be well”?

 

Or at the very least, do we dare believe that we can handle what is going on,

and do so without becoming angry, bitter, and cruel (ourselves).

 

I have found I can hold on to one thing.

 

That God is indeed, everywhere.

More specifically that God (Sacred, Something beyond) is part of my DNA

That Sacred is woven into the fabric of my being,

woven into the fabric of others,

woven into the fabric of this creation, this fragile planet).

 

This does not mean that there will not be troubles (duh)

This does not mean there will be no distress.

This does not mean I won’t be tempted to do such things as despair.

 

What it does mean is that the thin thread which binds me to the Sacred,

and to the earth

and to the animals and birds

and to other people

 

that thin thread of love and life

cannot be broken

 

ultimately love will win

and ultimately I will not be overcome

at the worst I will be reunited with the One from whom I came

I will move from communion with the Sacred to union with the Sacred

 

And so, as we are told so many times in scriptures

I do not need to fear

I can trust in God

Trust in love

 

Even as people like DeSantis and Abbott do what is evil

in the eyes of love

Even as the greedy fly into space while children starve

Even as fearful racists work to destroy our electoral system

Even as the Delta variant spread

 

Even as