Embracing our wild, broken and beautiful world
Some days I wonder if I can hold the contradiction at all: the world is both a mess and a miracle.
War is raging. Climate disruption is accelerating. There is food insecurity, collapsing social supports, and democracy is fraying. Patriarchy and capitalism are chewing up our lives.
Loneliness is everywhere. Many of us feel unsupported, untethered, and we are running on fumes. There is never enough money, never enough time, never enough community.
My life is no less messy than the world. My old patterns still expect to run the show, and sometimes the weight of it all is too much. I give up hope regularly.
That’s the mess.
Then comes the miracle.
Peepers sing on the first warm day like they never stopped believing. Forsythia burst into bloom. Poppies push through the ground even while the weather refuses to settle. We plant gardens that we expect to harvest.
The owls have babies, and I get to witness them entering the world. The vultures are back, happy to clean up the winter road kill. Snow geese by the hundreds descend on the lake and are raucous and unruly.
People keep showing up on street corners to fight for democracy, fair elections, and justice for all. More and more of us are choosing care over cruelty, protection over silence, decency over greed. Minneapolis stands as a shining example of what care in community can look like. People risk their lives, and lose their lives, in the service of resistance.
It is a miracle that, as an old woman with a life full of messes, my true self still rises up and demands that I do the good work that is mine to do.
It is a miracle that I find my own way to resist injustice, build community, and love other people. It is a miracle that my creative life saves me again and again, and that I have the time to make weird, wild creations.
No matter the state of the world, I have the freedom to help make it more beautiful every single day, and it is entirely up to my ingenuity and creativity to decide how.
I am stunned by how much mess this world can hold—and by how many miracles carry us through the mess.
