Enough – A Meditation on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
By Vicki Waineo
In all these long months
Rife with confusion, boredom, isolation,
The ho and the hum the same four walls
With only a square of blue light connecting us to our friends, neighbors, loved ones, strangers, trolls.
It’s been a long hard season
of death, reaping, killing, destroying, tearing down, crying,
Throwing stones, war, hate, loneliness
and Just. Not. Listening. We can sit in that and break and moan
and fall on our faces flat on the floor and holler out
Why Me to a God we often doubt and feel forgotten, rejected
So deep in the bleep of humanity’s nasty underbelly
But this is where we turn the page on the rage
And roil and calm the boil of our
Mistrust, our anger, our self-righteousness and panderings,
Pondering turns to wonder-ing and a single small spark
Just one spark is all and then we know in our soul that this is not the whole
Of the truth that there is and has been
Always so much more so much wonder to hold in awe
that we’ve chosen not to see but once you see you cannot un-see
Cannot turn away from the hope of the truth of the promise
Of tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.Then your sorrow drowns
down down it goes as hope flows
Free and joy floats all the way to the top with a pop
and we pause and give thanks
One foot in the mire, but hearts full, pounding strong and free
And we enumerate one two three
All the joys that have come even within this season of confusion,
seasoned liberally with delights unexpected,
New babies with toothless grins and chubby wubby cheeky weekies
Gardens we planted — small and large and okay
maybe we just stole some tomatoes from a neighbor, but still we gather together on that same blue box or along the blocks
six feet parted, smiling behind our masks, arms aching
to hug friends, neighbors, kind strangers.
We gather our stones, line them up at the ready for when we can
rebuild again, we find other people’s treasures
that we part with freely as we Kondo our homes
making space in our spaces so our minds
have room to think and plan, listen and share,
cry and laugh and weep, and dance. Yes, dance like no one is watching because nobody IS watching
Maybe the kids are watching.
Absolutely the Lord your God above all
and in all and thru all is watching and his love
everlasting eternal sets your feet on a rock
So you can Rock and roll
Rock the baby
Rock your fine self to a place of love and peace
Strength and truth
In the blessed assurance that the seasons will go round
And round and this, too, shall pass and nothing is new
under the sun, son, beloved one
Sit in your grief and stew and wail if that is what you need right now
But hope, take up hands with that grief, hold them together and know
Ultimately that God knows the ways and means and that,
That.
That, my family
Is enough.