Dear Beautiful Human,

Dear Tired One,

Beautiful Human,

In difficult times, take some beauty with you every day. Here, for your pocket. A sigh, a song, a flower.

Do not despair. Offer devotion to God with your kindness to one another. To be human is to receive. Open your hands.

 God, tenderly holding us, is our ultimate beauty.

Do not lose hope. Change comes with a lot of shrieking in the wind. Systems change reluctantly. It was this way with Pharoah and Moses. The world is creaking and there is sadness, grief, and trauma. These are real things. There is also so much love. I have seen it.

You are loved.

Each day, a little bit of work, a little bit of movement, a little bit of beauty, creates a life.

Listen to the birds.

Write. Write your experience. Your experience is important, it is you. Tell it to the page. Remember it through words or pictures or song.

Read. Read things that challenge you and things that bring you hope. Read things in a different perspective than your own. Read things that validate your existence. Read things that validate other people’s existence. Remember that there is room for all of us—scarcity and fear tell us this is not so, if you look at God’s expansive heart, there you are, held securely. This is true when the needs of others are more urgent than your own. This is true when your needs are urgent. This is true when you are pushing for justice, when you are listening to others, when you are being quiet. This is true when you have been oppressed and you are learning to listen to your own voice and the voices of your people. You are always held.

Schedule your time on social media. Decide what you will engage with. Let your words bring life. Sometimes life-words and love-words are clear and unflinching. With everything you read, imagine the writer wearing pyjamas and trying to pay their bills on not quite enough money. Imagine the writer crying about a lost loved one. Imagine the writer praying, or alone in a parking lot, eating a bag of chips with salty fingers. Try to avoid sarcasm and mockery of people or ideas.

Use your imagination. Imagine what things would feel like if they happened to you. If something bad happens to you, find stories of that same thing happening to others. Imagine how it could be worse. Use these things as a bridge for empathy.

If you see something that troubles you, that is unappealing, rather than being annoyed with the unappealing thing, imagine living the unappealing life. For instance, if there is a camp of people experiencing homelessness near you, rather than being angry with the sight, imagine yourself under a tarp in the rain. That is the real thing. Not the appearance of the thing.

Give money away so it cannot claim you.

Be lighthearted and joyful as an act of resilience and resistance.

Read poems, listen to songs, remember that people have been through hard things so many times in history. These are epic times and we have each other.

I love you,

Rae