There are Always Signs. Do you see them?
I have been crafting my end of year podcast for weeks now. Silently going over all the things I want to wrap up. Carefully holding the challenges that have been going on around me. Searching desperately for some answers or signs of hope and healing. Yet each time, my brain would get stuck on topics I am bothered by. The disconnect in our world. The lack of empathy and compassion we have as a society to allow others to be different than ourselves. The joyous diversity this world holds, yet the horrible disdain humans have over the differences that make us…it is mind bending to me. This concept that there are circles of people around me that wish my kind of people, Jewish that is, were not alive. That someone would believe to their core, without knowing me, my family, my people…that we are not worthy of living a simple and joyous life like everyone else. But even that topic, as overwhelming and charged as it feels, leaves me quiet. Unable to say just the right thing that would matter.
Yet even when I searched my brain for something important to share that comes directly from my own inner circle, I am left with wonder. How it is that my mom was robbed of another 20 years of living (like her own mother and grandmother had) by cancer. How my brother-in-law is slowly being silenced by his own brain, as Alzheimers rears its’ final stages. How devastating diseases are that take away our family members way too soon. Before we’ve had enough time. Time we were certain we were going to have.
But even those deep thoughts have left me without a clear message of hope and healing…
It made me wonder what kind of year I’ve had that I could not create my usual form of gratitude and compassion for another year gone by. I have been enjoying my world, one day at a time…haven’t I? I have been laughing more, crying less and noticing the tiny sparkle in the eyes of my children…that brings me so much joy. Yet why I couldn’t create this year end post, was so confusing to me. Until I accidentally came upon a poem that I had written. One that was motivated by the mere colors in the sky. And when I read it and read it again, I knew right away, why I was stuck.
I had been looking for answers. I had been looking for clues on how to stop the madness. How to make the sadness and disconnect in this world and even my family…stop. I was searching for a puzzle piece that just didn’t exist. In reading this I was reminded that sometimes there isn’t a lost puzzle piece. Sometimes you just need to look more deeply at the puzzle in front of you, and rearrange some of the pieces, in order to complete the picture. And that is what this poem has reminded me of. Seeing the sky that morning stopped me in my tracks, making me certain that my mom was sending me a message from above. One that needed my attention. And maybe, just maybe, it needs your attention too.
That is what I want to leave you with today, as we round the corner on another beautiful trip around the sun…what occurred to me as I stepped outside, with the streetlights still lit and the orange sky about to burst into day light…but not quite yet.
There are always signs. Do you see them? Or walk right by?
There are signs. Do you see them?
Do you pause long enough to understand them?
Or do you keep on moving? Faster and faster
With thoughts running amok
Only later to think about that thing. That sign.
Maybe there was a message deeply embedded.
Maybe if you had been still you could have heard it.
It could have changed your day, your week, your year.
I seek the signs, praying for a message I have missed. One that was too quiet or too loud, and was easily misunderstand.
This morning’s sky caught my eye. I wondered what you were telling me…The way the sun shined gently in the background. How it didn’t take over yet shared the space. I noticed the shift from darkness to light. And the streetlights somewhere in the middle of both.
I saw my life in that sky. The places I have wanted to shift from dark to light
With only sunshine to see
But have had to wait.
I saw myself in those street lamps.
Still standing in the dark, yet wanting to move on.
I felt hope in this morning’s sky.
And I knew you felt it for me too…
My ability to be present.
To resist the urge to take over.
To allow life to evolve, twist and turn
Just as it is supposed to.
Because sometimes in rushing to the end
We miss or misread the signs.
Missing the journey, the moments, the love…
The ones that were saying…
Be still. The light is coming.