Pandemic postcard #11: Sitting with sadness

You'll have to excuse me: I've had a hard time coming up with anything meaningful to say this week, the week we passed 100,000 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19, a week we saw naked police brutality that claimed the life of yet another black man, a week we saw his city wracked by grief and more violence that is escalating as I write this, a week when we saw yet again that the emperor has not a stitch of decency.

I'm sad, and I'm just going to sit with that sadness. 

So in lieu of a new message, allow me to send you back to this post of mine from April 2018 that is resonating with me again, and recommend two things I discovered online this week. (Apologies to those who avoid social media, but it's been a cornucopia of useful things. That said, I look forward to this week's tech sabbath!)

On Facebook, writer Luis Alberto Urrea is making posts in a series he calls Operation Uplift. He gives us a cue ("Chapter 68. Kindness. An unexpected blessing. A touch of grace. A gift. A moment’s peace. A touch of Zen. A safe feeling. A quiet shelter. The color of joy. Hope now") and one of his own photos, and people post their own words and pictures on the theme. The name is apt: I always feel a little better after I look at the latest chapter (and better still if I contribute).

On Instagram, Los Angeles creative director Lisa Hennessy is posting a lockdown journal of doodles, many with poignant written reflections about the absurdity and humanity of what we are all going through. I found this by accident and I am glad I did. I also followed her bio link to her values-based branding agency with the impossibly apropos name of fernweh, German for a longing for distant places and for exploration. That makes me feel sad, too, except it is somehow a happy sad, knowing that however distant the world may seem right now, it is still out there waiting for us.

See you next week. Prayers for Minneapolis and for us all. And try to remember--even in the worst weeks of this hardest time--that joy is "the happiness that doesn't depend on what happens," that we can be grateful in every moment, if not for every thing. (Brother David Steindl-Rast)