Read the full issue of this week’s newsletter here: The Weekly Liberal March 19

In this week’s Liberal, Rev. Jen Crow writes:

Dear ones, 

It’s been a whirlwind of information and change this past week. Can it really only be a week since we made the decision to close the church building, back when the schools were still open, you could find food on the shelves of the supermarkets, and our president was encouraging us to go on with business as usual? It was only a week ago. Most of us are living in one state of shock or another. All of us are living with lives changed and a future we cannot predict. We are living in a state of uncertainty, all of us connected, with so much in flux. The Buddhists would tell us this is how it always is, we just see it more clearly now.  

From this state of shock, I have been searching for what stays the same. Looking for what I can count on, cleave to, and let go of, if needed. I’ve been thinking a lot about the blessing I wrote for myself when we returned home after our house fire. How scared I used to get, and how I would settle myself down. I’m using it again now. 

I’ll share my blessing here, knowing that it won’t work for all of you, that the particulars will need to be changed to match your reality. I do want you to tell me, what might you notice now in the six foot circle around you that helps you feel safe, grounded, and secure? How can you settle yourself, or let yourself crumble with the wave of emotion that needs to wash over you, trusting that these feelings will pass, and we will begin again and again and again in love?

Will you tell me? I’m listening. 

With love,
Rev. Jen

Notice, you.
For you who thought it would never be rebuilt, the pieces never found, the structure never sound
For you who worried your family and spirit had been torn apart, never to knit back together again
For you who lost so much – the expectation of safety in the night, her first day of kindergarten, old photographs all gone
For you who wondered if you’d ever feel whole again
Swept along on a current in a river you did not choose
For you who wondered and worried how this story would turn out
Notice, you.
Notice the firm couch beneath you that sits on the beautiful wood floor, gleaming and scratched by the dog’s too-long toenails
Notice your grandmother’s buffet, refinished and strong, an anchor of weight and history flanking your side, family silver tucked inside, polished to gleaming by the hands of friends and strangers
Notice the pictures of your children smiling on top of it
Notice your favorite leather chair sitting under the window that frames the lilac tree you planted, a gift as you moved home, marking your own new beginning
Notice the relief you feel, the result of hours of effort and the washing power of tears
Notice how your children sleep soundly in their own beds most of the nights now, and so do you  
Notice this 
here
now
A web of kindness and care is visible that had gone unseen before 
Notice and breathe this clean air 
No smoke, no mold, no water here 
Clean, clear, air
Notice your home,
you’re home.