What a week this has been! We've watched history unfold right before our eyes, and it's been so painful to watch. I don't know about you, but I feel shellshocked and overwhelmed by it all. But I want to tell you about something that happened yesterday that brought me a breath of hope.
I'd been reading the news all morning, clicking from one article to another, anxious and on the edge of despair. What's going to become of us? I thought. We're surrounded by disasters on all sides, and even just the week ahead feels like a minefield. How are we possibly going to survive this?
I can't take it any more, I thought. I closed my laptop and stood at the window, staring out at the trees, unseeing. Finally I shrugged on my coat and went outside.
I'd heard that snow was on the way, and it felt like it. The air was heavy with it, and the sky was grey, full of low, soft clouds. The woods were silent, except for the skittering of a squirrel up the trunk of a nearby oak. He turned and flicked his tail at me, and then made his way up to his nest and disappeared.
I looked around and took a long, slow breath. It was so very quiet, so still. I could hear a car, far off in the distance. The sound faded away, and it was silent again. I felt a sudden sense of calm. My home behind me was full of worry and dread. Out here, there was just the quiet of a simple winter day.
And then, in that moment of stillness, it began to snow. Just a few tiny flakes at first, and soon a steady fall, drifting down ever so softly. There was no hurry or fanfare. This wasn't a storm, blasting its way in with wind and tossing branches. There was no wind, no noise - just the silence of a billion flakes of snow, floating down and finding the earth.
As I stood and watched the falling snow, I took a deep breath, feeling the knot in my stomach unclench. Slowly the fear and heartache began to slip away. I reached out a hand, and a snowflake landed on my palm and dissolved before my eyes.
How long has it been, I thought, since I just stood and listened? Just looked, really looked? Just breathed?
I stood there a long time, just watching. Long enough to open my heart, I think. New ideas drifted down in that quiet space.
I thought of the times before this when we've faced danger as a country. When Pearl Harbor was bombed. When we watched the Twin Towers fall on 9/11. We have gotten through terrible times before this. We can look back on those days and gain courage. We've found a way to survive and heal together before this. We can do it again.
I thought of all the millions of good people working to protect us and help us find a path through the hard challenges we face. We can trust in that goodness. It's there, shining in the darkest night. And I thought: we're all part of that light. We can all make a difference.
Sometimes it takes a quiet space to hear the truth, drifting down like a gift from above. I took another deep breath of that cold, fresh air, and then I brought those gifts in, along with a dusting of snow on my shoulders, to share with you. Be of good courage. Don't despair. Stay strong. We can do this.
We're tired from a long year of trouble, and we've been knocked to our knees by an attack on the heart of our country. But we are still here. We're not giving up.
We will find our way through this, no matter what happens.
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