“Next Year in Jerusalem!” my brother reassured me, as I lamented our pandemic Easter. 2020 relentlessly exposed the myth of control I try to hide behind. Sometimes I fear the cracks in my spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical realms will give way and I will simply fall to pieces… after all, what else could go wrong?! I don’t even wanna think about it!
As you may know the phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem!” comes from the final moments of Passover’s Seder meal, and I have found axiom to be a Samwise-Gamgee-like strengthening companion. “Next year in Jerusalem!” Damn straight! Next year together! Next year in each other’s homes! Next year in the flesh! Next year in person! Next year… I think of this phrase as holding the journey of suffering from the past and present to hopes for wholeness and freedom for all in the future. Now that the vaccines are being distributed the idea of being together next year feels almost within reach; if we can just hang on a little bit longer.
But “next year in Jerusalem!” points to a reality more multifaceted than, “it’s always darkest before the dawn” or a poster of a cat hanging in there. I can’t help think of the profound dare it was for practitioners in the Jewish tradition to make this proclamation prior to 1948. How were they able to say, “Next year in Jerusalem” when there was no such thing as a Jewish Jerusalem or even a Jewish state? Sounds like deep hope and profound lament.
And so 2020! What a shithole of a year! So much illness, suffering, and death. Unemployment, businesses closed, trips cancelled, weddings moved online, funerals delayed, milestones unmarked or at least marked differently. Pandemics of domestic violence, loneliness, divorce, depression, and suicide, coupled with disordered use of food, drugs, alcohol, TV, pornography, and gaming.
2020 also highlights the continued state sanctioned killing of black and brown-bodied Americans by the nation’s policing forces and its racist systems of imprisonment. We feel the ideological divide of this nation… a housing crisis like we’ve never seen. An unbalanced economy dependent on fewer yet bigger high tech firms… so fragile! All the while big data tracking every move we make. We feel the rapidly widening chasm between the 1% and the rest of us. For decades the largest employer and largest segment of the economy has been small business… like vultures, online businesses flew in and picked clean the carcasses of small businesses across our land.
The Western world is in serious trouble. Trump wasn’t the cause as much as he is a witless symptom of a lost nation. The vaccine may get schools running and activate aspects of the economy but we are in a thin place. 2021 ain’t gonna be a walk in the park.
* * * * * * *
In spite of it all, our home was decorated for advent and filled with Christmas baking. We’ve been reflecting on the past year even as we set our intentions and dare to make plans for the new one. The combination of not being able to go anywhere coupled eking out an existence in semi-quarantine made this holiday season the loneliest we’ve ever known.
Just as the lockdown was coming into effect, the sale of Lynette’s parents’ British Columbia home freed them to return to Manitoba. This move gets them so much closer to their siblings and to Bevan’s family but we certainly miss them. I think this may be the first year of Pascal’s life that we haven’t gone to Langley to celebrate Christmas. The upside is that Lynette and I have probably done more Christmas baking, Lynette’s got mom’s “Chocolate Balls” down, though my cherry tarts and short bread are a far cry from grandma Klassen’s. We nearly reenacted the scene from “A Christmas Story” were they abandoned Christmas dinner for Chinnese food after I burnt our dinner to a crisp.
Pascal turned 19 this year. He’s working at a pizza shop just down the street from our home, and continues taking classes at Bellevue College. This summer he took a little trip to San Antonito, Texas to visit his girlfriend and her family.
Lynette continues her work as a public school teacher. Since May she joined countless other educators teaching online from home. It’s hard to believe that she’s been an educator for nearly 30 years; her last few years as a ELL teacher providing English Language instruction and support for elementary aged children of migrant workers and immigrants to the USA. Lynette also continues her advocacy role as a CASA volunteer. “CASA” stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate; as the title suggests a judge appoints Lynette to journey with and be an advocate for a child – or family group – who have been pulled away from parent(s), and placed in state custody. The role of the CASA is to listen deeply to the kids and all care providers so she can make wise recommendations to the court in the best interest of the children.
I continue my teaching – also now online – at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology; in May I designed and taught a course tilted, “Toward a Spirituality of Listening Amidst COVID-19.” While field research is a bit more difficult these days I am still writing, and have even been reactivating my old blog. I joined a consulting firm helping church communities flip the script of asset management, sometimes helping a church’s building fund their ministry rather than the other way around. I released a new book in September. I wrote 2020s Foresight: Three Vital Practices for Thriving in a Decade of Accelerating Change, with my longtime friend and mentor Dr. Tom Sine. And if I close my eyes and try to remember life before COVID-19 shut everything down, I got to participate in the United Nations Habitat, World Urban Forum 10 in Abu Dhabi with the Urban Shalom Society.
On May 12, Lynette and I observed the 30th anniversary of our wedding. To celebrate we took a pandemic vacation to a couple of secluded Airbnb’s in Idaho. I’m sure many people who have journeyed together for a long time must feel this way, but we have changed so much. She has changed. I have changed. We have changed. Were we not so obviously us, we would be nearly unrecognizable.
In December, my dad discovered he had an enlarged spleen, leading him to a series of tests to which will likely be either a lymphoma or leukemia diagnosis. So we are on the front edge of learning what might this mean for him, and for how my family will get to support him, my mother, and one another.
Certainly, this has been a rough year for many and with good reason. I too have struggled. I feel tired, lonely, and sad. These feelings are not bad. They are real. These feeling belong. In fact, these feelings bind us together. Whatever you are feeling – no matter what it is – you can be sure that you are not alone. Right now even as you read these words there are other people whose feelings resonate with your experience. You are not alone. I am not alone. And next year in Jerusalem!
Peace, dwight
