out of sorrow entire worlds have been built

breakthecitysky:

It’s been a postcard perfect September/October so far, clear skies and cold mornings, warm afternoons with the occasional wisp of white chasing its tail across the sky.  It’s been enough to almost forgot what the fall really is, a time of dying.

Yesterday, though, the skies were grey and morose, the wind an angry and cutting thing that slices through your chest and reminds you of what’s coming.

Wet leaves, wet coughs, dry husks of corn or skin, all the colors leaching, slowly but surely, until what’s left is pale and still.

I love the fall, I hate the fall, for all it gives and all it takes away and the reminders that grief is a living thing that takes up residence inside you and hibernates sometimes but never really goes away.  You are okay until you find yourself sitting in traffic and a song comes on and you are five all over again, you are 15, you are 22. You roll down the window and take in great big gulps of air and try to anchor yourself in that very moment and eventually that fist wrapped around your heart loosens and so does the traffic and then you are home.

There is a hipsterish guy who panhandles near Lexington and 94 in St. Paul.  I see him on my Target runs, and he always has a sign that says, and I quote, “#thestruggleisreal.”  I roll my eyes almost out of my head which isn’t fair, I don’t know his circumstances.  On the way back from snagging staples for my office drawer I hit another street corner, another kid, but this one couldn’t quite bring himself to face the line of cars and hastily rolled up windows waiting for the light to change.  I’ve got friends who have worked for Healthcare for the Homeless and other advocacy organizations, I know you’re not supposed to give cash.  He had a sign, too.  It said, “honestly, I’m just looking for enough to buy cereal and some milk.”  All I could see was someone’s kid there, someone’s baby, looking beaten down and dirty, humiliated and hungry.

I scrambled for my wallet because I actually had cash and rolled down my window.  He said something, I’m not even sure what, some form of thanks and then he picked up his pack and headed for the SA across the street. I cried all the way back to work.

I started this earlier this morning, before I’d looked at the news, at more grief porn, more tears for ratings.  This fall is heavy with it, sadness and anger and violence and helplessness, the last of which is the hardest to swallow.  

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.  I say it each morning, a whispered prayer to a God I’m not even sure I believe in.  Right now, it’s all I’ve got, to try and think about ways to practice peace on the micro level.  To exhale on the freeway and not raise a finger, to bite my sharp tongue so that I’m the only one who bleeds. 

We belong to each other.  The best of us, the worst of us, we’re all we’ve got.  If you are hurting, I am sorry. If you need to scream or yell or curse or cry, I am here, and I will listen. If you need someone to cheer, I’m really loud. I fist bump like a boss, too. This world can be hard, and cold, and isolating but we are not alone, you and I. Hardened hearts will not effect change, not the kind we need, so let’s practice deep breathing and loosen the fists squeezing at ours together.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.