I’m a creative type, thus I tend to have big feelings. I also have a mind that loves logic, so I’m usually able to talk myself down from the cliff when my feelings get too big for my own good. Too sad or mad or worried. “What is true?” is a common question I ask myself. “Remember…remember” is another personal mantra, and it points me back to what I know in my heart and mind and guts to be true. My faith. The basis for my whole being. It works. And I’ve had to utilize it’s grounding effects these last weeks. When Facebook and the paper and NPR are overwhelming me with so many awful things I feel like unplugging completely.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’m peri-menopausal and my hormones are out to lunch, but my feelings have gotten so enormous I’ve felt trapped under their weight. And this isn’t even personal grief. That’s a whole different level of sad. This is a more existential, less experiential heartache – over the suffering of refugees in massive amounts, being met with xenophobia and hatred in many places. Over the political circus our country is living through, and encouraging. Over the here’s-what-we’re-AGAINST mentality that many in my faith family are embracing these days (or years) instead of here’s-what-we’re-FOR. It’s enough to make me lose my freaking mind.
I just about did.
But then I remembered.
That thing I mentioned earlier – the faith on which my whole being is based – brings me back down. Because no matter the circumstances which the world, my country, my own life face, God is circumstance-immune. What is true is true outside the confines of space and time, and certainly outside of Donald Trump’s ridiculous presidential candidacy. No matter who is elected, no matter the fear we face, no matter the un-Christ-like behavior that his followers demonstrate, the God of the universe doesn’t change. Can you imagine if that wasn’t true? If the whole thing was really up to us to handle? “Oh. Crap.” is my censored response. But thankfully, the one who made the mountains and amoebas and babies and sun has it all held in capable, metaphysical, eternal hands. So I can come down from the cliff of insanity. And take a big ol’ breath of the air I had nothing to do with creating.
As the news keeps on coming I’ll have to do a lot more remembering in the weeks and months ahead (why oh why is the presidential race so unbearably long?). A lot more breathing. And maybe less Facebook surfing. But hallelujah for something to remember. And that it doesn’t all come down to me. That’s some good news.