I know we’re weary. I know we’re worried. I know we’re impatiently waiting for an answer we’d hoped would come quickly and decisively. This whole year has been about waiting and worrying and being oh-so-weary in the face of an unprecedented global pandemic. For those of us in the Cedar Rapids area, the last three months have been about waiting for insurance agents and contractors, worrying about how we can make our homes whole again after a devastating storm. And the last few days have been about waiting and worrying about our country’s future and how we as a people can be so divided, so filled with a certainty that is completely at odds with another person’s certainty.
In his vlog post on Tuesday morning, musician Peter Mulvey said, “People are good. I trust people. And that includes people that don’t look like me, or love like me, or think like me.” And I am with him. I, too, am finding my hope in trusting that people are good, that we will do the right thing in the end, that we will come through this—this pandemic, this storm, this election—whole.
Peter Mulvey goes on to say, “One way or another, the world ends tonight, but that’s nothing special. The world ends every night. That’s how tomorrow happens.” While I’m feeling anxious and stressed, it helps to be reminded that tomorrow will happen—and it’s a new beginning, a new start to the world.
While I’m feeling overwhelmed and devastated by our divisiveness, I remember the words of another musician, Carrie Newcomer, as she tells us “you can do this hard thing.”
“… Here we stand breathless
And pressed in hard times.
Hearts hung like laundry
On backyard clotheslines.
Impossible just takes
A little more time.From the muddy ground
Comes a green volunteer.
In a place we thought barren
New life appears.
Morning will come whistling
Some comforting tune
For you.You can do this hard thing.
You can do this hard thing.
It’s not easy I know,
But I believe that it’s so.
You can do this hard thing.”—Carrie Newcomer, “You Can Do This Hard Thing” from The Beautiful Not Yet
And we can, you know. We can do this hard thing. And we will do it together.
—Andi Lewis, Prairiewoods marketing coordinator