Some thoughts on the start of 2021

Hello, 2021

Like so many, I had hoped that 2021 would be a bit, I don’t know, easier.  Gentler.  A word that comes frequently to my mind is gentle – one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit according to St. Paul, and the opposite of how our world feels right now.  Perhaps, in the chaos of the news cycle and the instability COVID has exacerbated or created in so many lives, God is still whispering, gently, for us to pay attention – not only to creation, but to each other.

How do we do this?  There’s a wonderful commentary on the Spiritual Exercises by Dean Brackley where he insightfully notes that very few of us can really look at reality; it’s simply too hard.  The number of 400,000 COVID deaths is almost too much to take in.  The riot on the Capitol and violence in the hearts of so many invites us to look away, to want to make the situation we are in less dire—less manifestly ugly.  God does not invite us to look away from a world that is hurting, but to sit with God sitting with that world, looking for how to grow peace and love.

How do we do this?  I would say that January 6th was not so much an invitation but an imperative – a call to root out racism, misinformation, and violence.  And I do not want to say this from a place of self-righteousness or virtue-signaling, but as a difficult task in which we are all asked to take part.  After the election in 2016, I made a conscious decision to leave social media.  My conclusion was that it was making me a more angry, less connected human being.  Since the advent of COVID, like so many, much of my connection now comes on-line, but I have not returned to Facebook, Twitter, or the like.  This has helped me take each human that I meet as they are when I meet them. It has helped me see my own self-righteousness and dismissiveness more clearly. My own spiritual director reminded me, yesterday, that this how Jesus meets people – even when their demons are manifest, he sits with them, talks to them, and for those who want it, heals them.

As anyone who has come back from surgery knows, healing sometimes hurts.  Healing can leave scar tissue or even change the shape of and substance of the person or thing healed.  We also rarely heal ourselves – healing often calls for listening to experts and letting go of power and control.  Healing involves trust and humility.  This country needs healing, and racism, which still exists even in so many churches, needs to recognized as the malignancy it is and excised. The fact that the same mob that chants Jesus can erect a gallows is something with which I am sitting, something that breaks my heart. Our churches and faith clearly need to change. What emerges will look different, and that’s good. We have to trust that God still has a dream for us and for this world, but that it’s time for some old forms to pass away. 

Take a minute, today, and try to dream a better world with God.  God speaking, even now. Maybe, especially now.  Can you make space to listen? To change?

Alison Umminger Mattison

A Reflection on the New Year

Good-bye 2020

            I used to love making resolutions.  Every New Year’s Eve, there was something I knew I had to change, to try harder at, to give up or add in so that I would move in the direction of becoming the person I wanted to be.

            In these waning days of 2020, I thought that I had given up on resolutions.  Unlike many people, I am greeting the New Year with my immediate family healthy (knock wood) and still here, with a job that still provides health insurance and pays for our needs and wants.  Like many people, I realized last year how little control I have over many of my life circumstances, and more humbling, how little power I had in my own tiny microcosm.  As a teacher at a college that continued to meet in person, which would not have been my choice, I learned something about making due in challenging circumstances.  I found myself walking in darkness and looking for greater peace, and thanks to many friends and deep faith in this unfolding Mystery, I believe I am kind of, sort of, ready for 2021.

            One of the great things about the Spiritual path is that while there are many commonalities to our journeys, we each travel slightly different roads.  I wish I were a naturally cheerful person—I am, kind of, but depression and anxiety have been lifelong struggles for me.  This year, more than at any other time, I have prayed for a gentle spirit.  I have worked at cultivating hope.  The daily meditations from the Henri Nouwen society turned out to be the sustenance that I needed in this season, and I would not be entering 2021 with any degree of energy without the friends I have made on this spiritual journey.

            Much in our lives is beyond our control, but many of us still have choices—not only about what to do, but how to feel.  Cultivating hope and praying to see *every person, no exceptions* that I meet as one of God’s beloved are my challenges for 2021.  As with most resolutions, I will probably fail a bit along the way, but I think goals matter, so those are mine.

            As I look back on 2020, I feel exhausted, but also heartened—I tried harder than I ever have to encourage my students to succeed and to affirm their resilience.  I was more honest with my spiritual directors and small accountability groups, and tried to listen to their wisdom even when it was hard to hear.  When my life started drifting into anger and despair, I made myself wake up early, make time for God, and take the steps to move it back on course.  And I saw so many fellow travelers do the same.

             I truly pray that 2021 will be a year to move America itself towards a more common and hopeful vision, with greater racial and social justice enacted with both righteousness and love.  I will try to show up with daily faith that we can change ourselves, our families, our friendships, our country, and this world, by living more simply and with greater love.  There is no need, at present, to wonder if any of our work is needed.  It is.  The challenge for each of us, this year, is to stop waiting and start becoming the people we need to be for this world to be better.

            As 2020 draws to a close, take a minute to review the year.  Who and what sustained you?  Can you thank those people?  Thank them.  Where did you see God at work?  Maybe it wasn’t obvious at first, but keep looking.  Pay attention.  Be grateful for those moments of insight and consolation.  Where was God missing?  Where did you lose connection?  Where did you do less than you could have to move your own life and this world towards greater faith, hope and love?  Pray over those moments.  Ask for strength and insight to do something different this next year, knowing that God is present.

            And if you are seeking greater spiritual guidance—find it!  When we ask with an open heart, we receive.  If you are looking for perfection in your fellow humans on this journey, good luck—but if you want fellow travelers with sincere hearts and kindred spirits—they are out there.    What is your deepest desire for 2021? 

— Alison Umminger Mattison

We are always invited, don't delay...