~ A Joy Warrior's Journey
You can tell me the how of it all that you want,
explaining the way the light rays bend
around the curvature of the earth,
and how their travel through the atmosphere
produces all these colors. It doesn’t change things
or answer the why. There didn’t have to be beauty.
But here it is, glowing, and touching our souls.
I say it is a gift, a love note from the Yes,
just because.
First comes spring, the great out-breathing
of the winter’s dreams. Then
summer, the inhalation of light
to feed and grow them. Now,
autumn, and the out-breath of
the earth, carrying its completed
forms until the winter rest,
the deep inhalation, in whose
darkness earth conceives new dreams.
It took only minutes for the accident to unfold. But after it, everything my friend Holly and her husband had known as their life had irrevocably changed. He was okay, but first responders had to help him crawl out of his totaled truck.
At first, there was the shock of it, and then the clearing of debris, the assessment of damage and of what was left. It’s no easy task to figure out what to do with a seriously altered reality. I watched to see how my friends would cope.
“It’s another pit in the road, for sure,” Holly said. “But we have shovels.” Those words were enough to assure me that they would find their way. What she was telling me was, “We can cope. We can do this. We have been through trials before.“
Believing in yourself, in your strengths and your resilience, is the first step in moving forward.
A couple years ago, a storm demolished much of another friend’s farm. As she worked to adapt to her altered world, she kept repeating to herself, “This is my life now.”
The life she had been living was gone. But her mantra helped her to see, first of all, that her life was still hers, however changed.
Repeating “This is my life now” let her see its changes from a fresh perspective. Instead of surrendering to the situation in hopeless resignation, she realized this altered life was hers to live and welcome, whatever it might hold. She was free to do with it whatever she chose, and she chose to live it as creatively as she could and to uncover all the possibilities it presented.
Life can slam the door on our familiar lives at any moment. It brings devastating weather, accidents, illness, loss, betrayal, wrecked plans. But it’s never what happens to us that counts; it’s how we respond to what happens that matters.
We learn things about ourselves from our trials, about what truly matters to us, about our capabilities and values, about the depth of our faith.
Nevertheless, the shock of sudden and unexpected change can be painful. That’s when it’s important to remember that HOPE stands for “Hang On, Pain Ends.”
As the pain of shock lessens, we begin to adapt to our altered reality. We pick up the pieces. We learn to pace ourselves, to conserve our energy, to look for resources, and helpers, and ideas. We learn to be patient; recovery takes time.
The fact is life goes on – even when we wish it didn’t. The direction it goes depends, to a very large extent, to how open we are to seeing that every setback, every obstacle opens the door to new possibilities. The key is to look for what’s good, to draw on our resilience and ingenuity, and to keep on keeping on.
We get to decide who we want to be in the face of the unknown. We can see ourselves as victims or victors, to be overcome by our circumstances or to be one who overcomes them and turns them to good. We can fall into the pit in the road or remember that we have shovels.
Wake up saying, “This is my life now,” and welcome it for all the potential it holds. Then do your best, moment by moment, to squeeze all the juice from the day that you can. Life’s a crazy place. But it holds as much joy as sorrow. Be brave and bold. Dare to claim life’s goodness and beauty. Every day that you get through has its gifts. Every day you’re alive, you’re a winner.
Wishing you courage and peace.
Warmly,
Susan
Photo, property of author’s friend
This. To walk in this gold feels a privilege.
To hear the crunch of the brush
beneath my boots and the whispering
of the breeze through the dry dancing leaves,
to watch the hawk soar and heaped clouds
sail the endless blue, and crimson leaves
twirling down from the trees as if their fall
were part of some grand ballet.
This. Every miraculous detail. Such a gift.
Such a priceless gift.
One of the things that the Great Yes wanted to experience
was being a maple tree whose leave would turn red in fall.
And so it did.
And on one perfect October afternoon
when the air was cool and the sun warm
and shining through its red leaves,
the maple danced, and the Great Yes sang
from within its very atoms in absolute joy.
A host of lore abounds
telling how your coat,
dear woolly bear, predicts
what winter will hold.
The greater the brown,
the milder the season;
an abundance of black
means plenty of snow.
Here’s what I know:
You’re a sure sign
that winter is next,
and if I was smart,
I’d be digging out
woollies of my own.
No matter what life wrote on your pages today,
there was this, this maple glowing on the corner
of a street somewhere. It was part of today, too,
even if you didn’t see it with your own eyes
or give it a thought. It was here, radiating its glow,
causing a certain light to rise into the air, lifting
its song to a brighter scale. It helped
hold us up. All of us. And it didn’t even care
if any of us knew.
The mornings are filled with fog now
as if the earth were filling her bowls
with some luminescent porridge
to help the sun ward off the autumn chill.
It softens our wakings, letting us linger
in the world of wispy dreams a while
before the illusions of the day solidify
around us, pulling us once more
into the stories of our lives.
The orange of the remaining maple leaves
gleams in the filtered light, a bright
reminder to write into our stories
some scenes of lustiness and joy.
A handful of weeks ago, the fields were newly plowed.
Along their edges, trees in fresh green watched
seeds and prayers fall into the turned soil.
Beneath the circle dance of sun and stars,
sprouts rose in neat rows and put forth leaves
that marked their kind, beans in this field,
corn in that, each growing taller day by day.
And the trees, whose leaves turned emerald,
watched and whispered their praise
as the crops reached their fullness, and drying,
turned gold, and were gathered from their fields.
Now the trees turn golden too, and crimson,
and release their leaves to dance across
the empty fields, singing to them, “Well done.”
“Climbing up the mountain,” the man said, “you can count the number of water heaters that you see in the debris. That gives you an idea of how many people upstream have lost their houses.”
* * *
From behind the house a thundering sound crashes down the mountain. You run to the balcony to see an avalanche of mud and trees and doors and roofs and lumber roaring down the creek not 100’ below your house. Torrents of rain have transformed your yard into a lake, and it’s rising.
“Mommy! Mommy!” your 7-year-old screams, running to you and wrapping her arms around your legs. You see the neighbor’s truck from up the hill tumble by in the mud cascade.
The house is shaking as if it’s in an earthquake. You wrap your arms around your daughter and lead her to the fireplace, thinking maybe it will stand and support this part of the house.
“Stay here,” you tell her as the power fails. The house is dark and the only sound is the roar of turbulent mud washing away the world. You rush to get your cell phone and a blanket from the couch and snuggle next to your daughter, wrapping the blanket tight around both of you. You try to call 911 but there’s no signal.
* * *
I’ve watched dozens, maybe hundreds of videos in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, trying to get a clear picture of the extent of its impact and to learn how on earth people were coping with the unimaginable situation they faced.
Members of my own family were in Milton’s path. Thankfully, they are all okay and escaped irreparable damage. But I felt the sting of apprehension as the storm neared them, sending tornadoes across their city.
I’ve been heartened by the preparations and responses I’ve seen in Florida. While the destruction they face is impossible to assess yet and rebuilding with be a monumental effort, an organized response is in place.
The situation in western North Carolina is another story. The region is inland, not subject to hurricanes. The residents had no reason to expect what was about to befall them could ever happen.
The scene I described at the start was lived out by countless mountain families. And for many days, they were without help, stranded, with no power, no plumbing or running water, no cell phones, no internet, no radio, no transportation and a landscape torn to shreds and heaped with debris.
Some may still be waiting for rescue. Rivers now flow twenty feet from where they were before and are clogged with debris. Roads and bridges are washed out. Whole little towns have vanished.
The situation is different in North Carolina than it is in Florida. With no experience to draw from. the response is more haphazard and spontaneous. The locals have banded together and are working out what needs to be done and how they can do it. The obstacles are enormous.
To complicate matters, cold weather is setting in, and families have lost literally everything but the clothes on their backs. It’s been below freezing at night already.
Donations are pouring in. Local folks are organizing them, mostly setting up centers in churches, and they’re working on ways to get the supplies to those who so desperately need them.
On November 2 a large number of churches will be taking a second load of supplies up the mountains with a team of pack mules. The man describing the effort paints a clear and chilling overview of the situation and its challenges in his YouTube video, “Western NC update. OPERATION MOUNTAIN RELIEF” (He’s the man who made the statement about the water heaters in the debris.)
If you click “more” in the description below the video, he gives information about how you can donate and what is needed. Take the time to watch it. He plainly explains what’s real for the people there.
It’s not too late to organize a little collection effort of your own and get a donation into his hands. And it’s never too late to enclose both those who suffer and those who help in your prayers,
Congressman Chuck Edwards, Representative from North Carolina’s 11th District, also has a web page listing places that are accepting donations and listing what items are most needed. It lists the phones you can call to see what their current needs are and how to get contributions to them, however small.
Events are moving fast in our world. It’s easy to lose sight of events that happened two days ago, let alone a couple weeks before.
But sometimes events cry out for our continued attention. Give some of your attention to the people who need help, those in the North Carolina mountains and to those around you. After all, as James Crew’s poem “Neighbors” says, “Kindness is what keeps us alive.”
May you have a blessed week.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Jack Drafahl from Pixabay