“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” -- Rainer Maria Rilke

This favorite quote of mine from younger days kept surfacing as I studied today’s scriptures; especially reading Jesus’ caution: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now”. Can you imagine how the disciples felt when Jesus said that? After all they had just been through and then being told they would have to wait even longer to hear the rest of what Jesus had to share with them.  How difficult that wait must have been for them. 

And how difficult it is for us today. We are all waiting.  Many of us are anxiously wondering what comes next, like the disciples were.  Frequent discussions revolve around getting back to ‘normal’.  But after being confronted with so many hard realities during this pandemic, I wonder if is going back to ‘normal’ is the right thing to do? 

Maybe this is our time to try something different.  I know many of us don’t want the disparities in our nation to continue. We want jobs that pay enough so families only need two jobs instead of three or four to pay their bills. We want an end to food insecurity, police shootings, global warming and gun violence.  What we don’t know is how to get there. 

Faith Spotted Eagle has done significant work around trauma in Native American communities.  She says it is important for the healing of survivors to have their stories told. The point is not to shame or induce guilt in those who (or whose relatives) inflicted the violence or let it happen. It is about freeing all of us from denial.  When we hear these often horrific stories, we can better understand how we got to where we are today. Stories about the trauma from the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 or the Trail of Tears in 1838-1839 can give us insight into why our communities look the way they do now. Then we will have the foundation we need to build communities that more closely connect to the teachings of Jesus. 

Not knowing how things will work out, not being able to see how to get ourselves out of our current mess is an uneasy place to be.  However, what gives me hope is remembering how often I have been happily surprised at how well things turned out when things didn’t go the way I wanted or what I thought was best.  

We all need to do what we can where we are and trust that God will help us get to a place where all his children have enough to eat and can live without fear.  How we get there will significantly challenge us, but already there are people working with unlikely allies to create solutions. This crossroads we are at gives us the opportunity to experiment, to try different ways to live together. May the Spirit of Truth guide us as we navigate theses tough choices to create a more equitable world.  Then we will be able to transition into the time where we can bear what Jesus has to tell us.