What to write when the heart is overwhelmed with grief and terror?
What to write when the heart is overwhelmed with grief and terror? The grief of the loss of the world as I knew it. The loss of stability—a measure of it—measures of it. The terror of Big Brother risen from the dust of white men’s imaginations and formed into hardened masked flesh with a record 75 billion dollar budget bump.
What to write when I’m overwhelmed with thoughts that try to understand this moment we’re in, but a sage friend says the work that will be needed when the world falls apart—and it will—completely—is not the work of understanding what happened, but rather the work of making meaning from it—the work of chaplaincy—the work of theology and ethics—the work of my dissertation—the work I have been assigned for this season. Hard work to do right now in the season of the crumbling—the season before new birth—the season of dilation, disorientation, and dystopic pain. But this is the work.
So, why do I keep trying to find other work?
Because I want to feel relevant—now.
But in the striving to feel relevant now, I will forfeit being relevant then. And I will rob the world of that which only I could bring—the benefit of the perspective offered through eyes that have seen all that I have seen.
It feels haughty to say—egotistical or full of hubris. But it is not. Rather, it is humility. It is agreeing with God about the unique call and capacity of each and every human being. It recognizes I am no more than a human—and no less. I do have a divine call and capacity to impact the world. And my call right now—is for then.
So, what must I do today? I must practice making meaning.
Amen.
President and founder of FreedomRoad.us, Lisa Sharon Harper is a writer, podcaster and public theologian. Lisa is author of critically acclaimed book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World—And How To Repair It All.
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