Gathering

The sky has opened and the clouds have receded for now.  The day began cooler at 59 degrees fahrenheit.  Today is Monday.

The thing we most need in life is one another.  This fact has now been lifted up in a lot of conversations - especially around the newest epidemic of loneliness.  There is a deep instinct for humans to want to be in community.  Showing up is an important life skill.  Some do not have enough time to showup in all the places one might like, but the act of appearing to gather and commune with others is a life-saving and life-affirming act.

This is probably why the pandemic really made an impact.  So many felt lost and confused, let alone frustrated and even angry about having to stay isolated.  And even worse - if someone in the household was infected, there was even a more extreme form of isolation within ones own home (if you had one) that was recommended so others would not fall ill.  The whole experience was a wake up call to each of us – we need one another in both form and substance.

In the world of reentry, it is a big theme:  belonging.  There is a desire to be sure that the ones coming home from an environment of tyranny and violence are supported.  The support is not in the form of any particular item that is provided, like a bus card or a bag full of stuff that was taken away long ago;  but in the form of care, understanding, presence together.  The feeling that one belongs back in community and with others who will be there for moments of confusion and sadness, helps to orient and reconnect those parts of the human soul that may have been crushed from the experience of living in cages for so long.

The fact of faith-based congregations is another obvious illustration of the deep need to be in community, to belong, to have a place that manifests the connection that human beings need - and to have histories, traditions, customs that affirm both the light and shadow of our existence adds richness to the experience.  The Jewish High Holy Days are a infused with what human beings need to remember - to self-reflect, to acknowledge errors and omissions, to seek forgiveness, to offer forgiveness, to remember ancestors and loved ones who have passed, and to remember that through all of it - to celebrate life (an experience that implies misery, as one teaching has said).

It is in the circle of life - weather that circle is in the light or deep in the shadows of the night, that we can follow a path to appreciating what we face, individually and collectively.  It's like walking a labyrinth at night, in the middle of a forest, where (if you are lucky) someone has put down a few candles to show the way.  One step at a time, one enters the circle of life.