There are times in our day to day travels, times in our lived experiences, and times of the Spirit where we can see clearly. These times remind me of a song released by The Who in 1967, the refrain says “I can see for miles and miles, I can see for miles and miles, I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles.” Those times, when we can see for miles are lovely. In my experience the times when we can clearly survey our emotional and spiritual landscapes, are not nearly as frequent as the times when we are blessed with the view of waterfall or sunset with crisp clarity.
The picture accompanying this post is a view I had today. I was looking over a deck into this dense fog with one tree branch standing in stark silhouette. As I looked out, I realized that anything could lie beyond the fog; a meadow, a snowy wood, a river, or a mountain range. I was in a familiar, oft visited place so I know what was there, but the fact that I could imagine anything beyond the fog was extremely powerful. One rather humorous aspect of this is, that I used to be a person for whom ambiguity did not work – at all! Now I find it kind of freeing – one unfolding possibility, after another.
I’ve reflected on this image all day, and found myself reflecting as much on another kind of fog, metaphorical fog, as I was the image itself. The image guided me in that reflective work. I am a very visual person, so images, and imagery are constant tools and portals in my life. Sometimes a helpful image can be a picture snapped with my iPhone as this was, or it might be an image I create with pencils, pastels, or paint. Sometimes I take my DSLR into the woods, or into a snowy field to visually study that context looking for patterns of light and shadow, lines and textures that lead the eye in unexpected ways. In general, visually, I try to pay attention.
I find myself thinking about so many uncertainties that exist right now. What will the future hold for me and the people and communities I care about as a new regime comes into power at the highest levels?
The question of what lies beyond calls many questions. Will healthful, nutrient-dense, GMO-free food be available, or will the structures, organizations and legislations needed to support that vision be dismantled or blocked? Will the incoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency enable or prevent Monsanto and the rest of the pesticide peddlers to continue to devastate public and planetary health? Will the health of the planet in general be a priority?
Is what lies beyond, an investment in renewable energy, a dedicated effort to address the reality of global warming, and a commitment to putting water protection as a top priority making the ancient truth of Mni Wiconi – Water is Life – a reality?
Will animals be protected? Will all people be valued? And by that, I mean all people; black people, white people, indigenous people, people of all races, queer people, people of all faith traditions, people of poverty, people with and without resources, and people who are strangers to us.
Is what lies beyond an era when power, money, resource grabbing, and total disregard for the universal personhood of humanity run rampant, or will the work of people committed to living into the future with positivity and hope be what carries our society forward?
My spiritual grounding equips me to stand in the mess of the here and now, and walk into uncertainty knowing that the communities and coalitions of people boldly stepping into the fog are as numerous as they are diverse. Why do we do it? Because there is no hope, no chance, if we wait for the future to happen to us, then fall into despair, point fingers, and tear our garments if it turns out to be a disastrous mess. We must boldly walk out to meet it, and pour all our love, our caring, our passion, and our fierceness into making the future manifest in ways that are kind, merciful, responsible, and just.
To have the courage to stand as a person of peace willing to walk into the fogbank to help bring about an age of increased lovingkindness, equality for all people, justice, mercy, and planetary responsibility, I lean on my faith traditions. This is not some wispy ethereal thing that may inform what happens when my earthly embodiment is over, not at all. My spiritual grounding informs the ways that I live, breathe, walk, and interact in this world on a daily basis. A definition of faith that I love, articulates very eloquently what I know to be true about the nature of having faith. Having faith can be understood as “being determined to live in right relationship in the midst of structures that encourage wrong relating” (Oxford Handbook of Theology, Sexuality & Gender: Oxford University Press, 2014).
Certain possible futures frighten and enrage me, however, I am unwilling to hand over the future to whatever is out there in the fog. Where there is not clarity of detail, I have clarity of purpose. Amid uncertainty, in the unknowingness of what lies beyond, I stand in my determination to remain in right relationship, with humanity, with the sacredness of all creation, with the Divine, and with myself – because my teachings demand it of me, but even more essentially – it is how I am made, I know no other way to stand.
Lynn's Reflections 
