Hallelujah Anyway

Listen. Here’s the truth. I haven’t felt resilient, resistant, radical and certainly not revolutionary since the election. I’ve deep breathed my way through fathoms deep bouts of fear that have left me sweaty and anxious, tension lodged in my stomach. My inner child craves sugar, has asked for pumpkin pie for breakfast and often for lunch, and that’s fine with me. I haven’t been drowning in news, but it’s also hard to avoid completely. I have been reduced to the silence of a stone, watching with ancient eyes as the match gets lit, and slaughter begets more slaughter.

But listen. This is also true. The crows circle overhead every morning, waiting for me to bring them unsalted peanuts in the shell. They insist I pay attention to them, cawing and clacking, insisting that I step out of my fear, join them in this moment of exuberant flight, of primal hunger for what will sustain life. They insist.

And this: the babies. Have you noticed the babies? These wide eyed innocents in supermarkets and drugstores, tiny hands holding big hands, so ready to smile and show off new teeth. They insist we notice their need to survive, their absolute dependence on our good will and mental health. They insist we breathe out our fear for their sake.

This is the force that pulls me up from the underworld of shadow and ash into the living world where seeds are burrowing under snow, patient as time itself, waiting for spring to blossom and bloom, to insist over and over again that cycles of death and rebirth are the ebb and flow of life itself.

Life is insisting we pay attention to what needs tending. Insists we pick up the phone and call our friends who are hurting. Call if you need me, we say, It’s going to get better.

Life insists we chant the holy names of god in the shower, while we drive, that we make up praise songs to the sun as it rises, and to the trees as they lose their leaves, as they teach us how to let go gracefully.

Life tugs at my heart and will not let me curl up in despair, insists I notice the miracle of the red robin at the birdbath. The way there is no separation between the bird, the water, the tree, the interconnected web of life that draws me in and claims me as its own.

Life insists I notice how glamorous and dazzlingly new she is every minute. She’s wearing her winter whites and flashing her big blue sky eyes. She’s a riot of symphony noises…flocks of birds nattering, restless winds murmuring, motors revving, lover sighing, babies cooing and yes my own heart starting to beat again.

Life insists we see her as beautiful even when she’s weary. She stands on the rooftop, sending up flares, singing hallelujah anyway, palms up to the sky.

Life will not let me turn away so I join her… holy holy holy hallelujah anyway. We will survive because life insists on it, because listen, at the heart of life is love, and love insists we remember that she trumps evil. Every time. Always.

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Read more stories like this in my book The Ripening: Essays on Love, Loss, Marriage and Aging available on Amazon.