Here we are in the middle of a year that was supposed to be big.  At the end of 2019 and at the beginning of this year, we all read things like this:

This is going to be the year that……. (fill in our own blank)

It is a year of change to be sure, maybe not the change we were planning on or hoping for, and, maybe it is the change we need.  

There are different kinds of change.


We change a light bulb.

We change our clothes, or our hairstyle.

Those changes are easy. They are done out of necessity as in the light bulb, or a sense of boredom in the case of our hair.

We may change the way we eat, or our address, or our job.  Now we are entering areas that may need a little more incentive, improvement of our health, or our way of life.

Change is often looked at with the how easy it is to make, or maybe its how convenient it is for our lives.

We don’t like to be inconvenienced, and inconvenient change is often pushed aside for another day.

Up until this year, when we contemplated a change that impacted the world, we, or at least I decided it wasn’t a convenient time. A lot of us have reached a place where convenience or comfort does not enter into our decision to act.

When we think about change, real change and what that means to us, we are not likely to take the necessary steps to sustain that change unless there are extenuating circumstances.  Like a pandemic, or unanswered killing of black humans. We have been given all that and more this year.

Grief is like that.

Grief changes us; it is inconvenient, and painful.

We don’t like it, and it’s not going away.

A common response to grief is; “I just want things to be the way they were.”  I’ve heard the same sentiment about the current situation too. In both cases, we are being called to a new normal, to a change in the way we live, the way we respond, the way we love.

It’s ok to not like it. It’s ok to want to be comfortable. It’s ok to feel all of our feelings, to let them be expressed, and then allow them to help us make the changes that are sustainable, the changes that will change the world, the changes that will call us into the fullness of our being, and give meaning and purpose to our lives and the lives of our neighbors, family and friends, and yes of the world. We may think we are not powerful enough to change the world.

It’s our world, if we aren’t powerful enough, who is?