Liz Rasley

It still feels heavy, this week and this current moment we’re in.

But also, I feel a glimmer of hope. Do you?

Hope in a small way, in that it seems like things are shifting, and finally, voices of black people and POC are being heard. It’s about time. It’s actually late, really late, in coming. Past time, in fact.

But not too late.

We can still change. We can still learn and listen and try. And if we mess up, ask forgiveness and try again. To me, that’s a start.

To be clear, while I’m hopeful in all of us, I fully realize that we are only in the first mile of a M A R A T H O N. Change will be slow and hard and not pretty.

When I think about all the changes that have appeared in my life or ones I’ve had to work for, that’s how it goes. It’s challenging and hard. Some days, I don’t want to do it, to be quite honest.

I want what feels comfortable.

Change feels weird and awkward for a while, and also, it can be an ugly mess, upturning all I knew and upsetting the whole apple cart. For me personally, positive change always arrives with a great deal of chaos in the beginning. Just like how it is when you clean out a closet. You have to take it all apart and make a mess and look at things and take a moment before you can put it back together for the better.

The truth? I want a magic wand.

I’d rather do all change that way; wave it into being by just a swish of a magic wand. I want to be on the other side of a positive change instead of stuck right in the uncomfortable middle of working through it, which feels a lot like wading through slow-moving quicksand. I don’t want to murk and muddle through.

Even though in my heart, I know this is where I need to be and where the work of redemption and healing is.But, here we are, no magic wand. But we have something that’s the same (even better, I’d say) than a magic wand. It’s just a bit slower.

We are muddling through the walls we built from each other, together.

We are starting to figure out how to work through being together in a healthier way, instead of sticking like glue to our sides like the boys and girls during a middle school dance desperately longing to be with each other, but not sure how to make the first move. That’s hope. That’s a start.

Will it be slow and painful and long-suffering and awkward and weird? Yes. Just like my middle school years and what seems to be middle age.

Will it all be worth it? Yes.

“These wooden tombs//we’ll break them soon,

And fashion them into flower beds”

Wood and Nails, The Porter’s Gate

Hope, hope, hope. That’s what I’m starting to feel again.

Maybe soon, we might be getting somewhere.