Maybe The Middle

The pandemic has been unrelenting hard. My heart is weary after too little connection and too much bad news. Case counts. Death counts. Alarming headlines. My spirit is a tattered garment blown by the breeze. Flapping about without rhythm or grace and wearing ever thinner. 

I hear a whisper. A voice inviting me to another way. A greater Spirit, the Holy Spirit, speaking peace and steady to my anxieties. Offering shelter in this storm.

And when I accept this place of refuge, I find in this same embrace, people who have navigated the storm differently; made anxious by other news and having had other fears consume them, weary them, unravel them. 

I wonder at the breadth of this place. Where the Spirit mischievously mixes those who are different like an artist tracing her brush through the splotches of paint on her palette. Breathing over the mixing; calling to life this fresh creation. A picture of new wine pressed out by so much crushing. 

Here in this spiritual place, ragged hearts are invited to share refuge without the need to share opinions. The only commonality is that we all have accepted the hospitality of our gentle and holy host. And our Host pours cup after cup of love and hope to nourish and  refresh our spirits. Fear’s voice becomes less insistent, muffled. Division seems less necessary—even absurd in the warmth of this wide embrace.

In some ways this is a middle. Where enfleshed difference comes to meet. And yet it is more transcendent. Somehow it isn’t halfway between two places, two opinions, but higher than either. Where difference isn’t what tears apart, but what provides a palette for an Artist’s touch.

Oh Artist Spirit, I yield to your brush. Trace in my imagination how to shape this sacred space here on earth. Make your bride to be a host to all kinds of frayed pieces, that she may do the creative work of knitting together what would otherwise be torn asunder.