A Dizzy Year

There have been deaths,
and deaths without death,
loss after loss,
sickness and wild dances
on the brink of disaster.

There has been passion,
fear, courage, dark places
and battles you were sure you would never fight.

There has been struggle,
always struggle,
to keep your peace with God
and your peace with yourself,
to hold on to that elusive spark
that lifts you to your best.

A season of winds,
unexpected, uninhibited,
unpredictable.
Winds that whirl you around
until you are dizzy
and your mind can barely catch its breath
before beginning again.

And that cry you hear
is your own voice,
pleading to God
in the midst of horrified exhilaration:
“Don’t let go, God,
Don’t let go!”

About this poem

The picture this morning is from the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton, MA. When I visited they had an exhibit of Russian photographs. This particular photograph is of a baptism in Siberia (can you imagine?). I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, be horrified, or just marvel at all the different ways we all practice our faith.

I generally spend some time here at the end of the year to look back at the past year, to put it in perspective, and grasp the lessons I need to glean from it. This has been a rough one, perhaps the roughest of my life, I’ve not been able to get my feet under me most of the year before something else came along and hit me hard. Over and over. It’s been a whirlwind.

One thing that has sustained me has been my faith, and being able to meditate each day. There is a calmness in those things that is the polar opposite of this photograph. And yet, very, very often, I’ve felt like that child in the picture, half laughing in glee at the ride, and half terrified that I would be let go to end up who knows where!

Tom