What can I say about this year? Just the numbers 2020 evoke a sense of dread in us. For all of us this year has been, at best, challenging, and at worst, earth-shattering. We have been spared from many of the common 2020 struggles, but we have gone through some very personal and painful experiences, as well. Someone told me early on in quarantine that, especially for those who have experienced grief, quarantine brings up the stages of grief anew. I have been thinking of that recently. Don’t we all have grief to process, traumas and wounds that have gone unhealed and unacknowledged? When I look back on this year, I see a lot of broken, hurting souls that were forced to acknowledge their wounds. I see it in the individuals who began the long process of healing and I see it collectively in our culture that began to reckon with our societal and historical sins. When quarantine first began in March, I was actually really excited to be able to have time to do some good “soul searching” for 6 weeks…when that time came to a close, I felt disappointed in what I had accomplished. How silly of me to assume I could accomplish the life-long process of healing old hurts, forgiving all grievances, discerning all future callings, and surrendering to the divine will in a month and a half! Partial quarantine has continued until now, and will continue into 2021. I still haven’t accomplished much, but a few revelations strike me anew this year.
We really, really need each other. As Americans we are very proud of our independence and our autonomy to a very unhealthy degree. I read once how suffering in developing nations is experienced communally and suffering in developed nations is experienced alone. My experience of Honduras and the U.S. affirms this. We go so far as to even be ashamed of our suffering- as if it makes us weak to feel pain, anxiety, loneliness, physical/economic limits. Mother Teresa said “the greatest poverty is loneliness.” We are a poor country, indeed. This year it has become very apparent that our actions have real consequences- that we are incredibly connected to each other and that we absolutely cannot do this thing called life independently.
This year we have often been deprived of “in-person” contact. We sense how much we have lost- school, work, church, friends, community- they were not supposed to be virtual. I’m not saying we should have risked vulnerable lives, but I am acknowledging how deep of a sacrifice it has been this year to limit in-person contact. I am especially aware of this sacrifice as we begin the celebration of Christmas- the celebration of our God coming to us in-person. Our God who saw the fact that we were hurting each other so much, that we were suffering so much- so he came to be with us in-person, to be dependent of a woman, to feel betrayal and abandonment, to weep. The lack of being in-person has created a hunger, I hope. It has shown us that we cannot take each other for granted. How many times had I technically been in-person yet not been present at all? 2020 has reminded me of what has the most value in my life, by temporarily depriving me of it- the presence of a friend, Communion at church, quality of a conversation, a village for my kids. The ugliness and suffering of our humanity has been laid bare this year. It is hard not to retreat or attack. However, I am reminded that Jesus did not leave us abandoned. He says we can find Him now in the appearance of the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, the stranger. I can find Him everywhere I look in 2020. St. Maximillian Kolbe said, “a single act of love makes the soul return to life.” Let’s come alive in 2021! Let’s be present in a way we haven’t been even before the pandemic. Let’s rely on each other and recognize the divine in each other. Let’s use this year of great loss to prioritize what really matters.