Monday Morning Musing: The Worst Part is Over

Last week I had my annual appointment to have my eyesight checked. When the optometrist dialated my pupils, he put in the eyedrops that sting just a little. Now, I need to tell you that I have been declared an "unsuitable candidate" for contact lenses (long ago) as anything that approaches my eye: fingers, eyedrops, or yes, contact lenses, prompts a "stronger than usual reflexive response." Back to the optometrist....when he finished putting the eyedrops in, he quipped "the worst part is over."

I found an odd amount of comfort in that statement and as I sat out in the waiting room while my pupils grew large and sensitive (thanks sunglasses) I pondered both the statement and the solace it brought me. Is the worst part really over? Will our country return to the vision our founders had for a democracy governed by level heads and sound minds? Have my critics uttered their last? Are my children entirely safe, now? Will we finally take climate change seriously and begin to steward Creation in ways that heal it and us in the process? Will we never again be plagued by a global pandemic that takes our loved ones from us in staggering numbers? Is the worst part really over?

There aren't good answers to my musings, but that I found such succor in one statement about something as specific as eye drops told me a lot about the state of my spirit in that moment. So in this season of turning - seasonal, vocational, and personal, I have decided to name the signs that I see in the world that testify to the hope that the worst part may indeed be behind us.

For us this day, when the mist has settled over the water and the rain thrums steadily on the rooftops and the leaves fall in slow procession, a poem by the beloved and brilliant Lucille Clifton:

won't you celebrate with me

won't you celebrate with me

what I have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did I see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.