Even In The Toughest of Times: Look For a Silver Lining

Was I deceived? or did a sable cloud

Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

I did not err, there does a sable cloud,

Turn out her silver lining on the night

And casts a gleam over this tufted grove.

--John Milton, 1634

We can all recite the litany of woes and ills visited upon us in this remarkable year of 2020.  We recite it so often now, usually in disbelief, as in, “How can so much bad happen in such a short period of time?” 

COVID-19 and a global pandemic. Shut down and lock down. Economic collapse. The death of George Floyd and the ensuing days and nights of rage and anger and heartbreak.  A November election shaping up to be ugly and divisive and tribal and unprecedented.

And the year is only 190 days old or so! 2020 is barely half over.  Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?  Here’s a first class ticket on the Titanic! Or as the perpetually down hearted and pessimistic donkey Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh might conclude, “We’re doomed.”

Or…maybe not. 

Maybe we might be able to actually glean some silver linings from that which has been a train wreck of a year so far. Maybe we might actually find some good among all the bad, some hope among all the pessimism, and some courage among all the fear.

I want to do that. I need to do this: to find hope.

To see hopeful places and movements and ideas and people amidst all the wreckage. I have to do this, to be an explorer for the positive in the midst of all the negative. My faith compels me: my belief in the basic goodness of human beings and my belief in a God who is constantly pushing Creation towards redemption and renewal and rebirth.  I’m not denying what’s broken.  Not imagining it never happened. No. But always, I need to look for the light where it is tempting to only see the shadows.

I can do that. We can do that.

And so, I am grateful that the pandemic has reminded me of one great truth: how much we humans really need one another: for care and mutual support and love and laughter. Since mid-March when I first shut the front door and stayed in, I’ve actually connected more deeply and more consistently with those I love. 

There was the surprise 85^th Zoom birthday party for my Mom last May. Thirty five folks from across the country showed up to wish her the happiest of birthdays. Who could have imagined that party last January? Or my weekly Zoom connections: with my choir friends on Wednesday evenings every single week, as we laugh and joke and check in. “How are you?” Or my weekly Zoom meeting with grad school friends, friends I’ve loved for more than thirty years. We never gathered so frequently pre-COVID.

COVID has actually connected me more to others, not less. I hear the same from other folks about socially distanced beer and wine gatherings in a neighborhood driveway. Precious time with children now that youth sports are on hold. “We actually eat dinner together every night now,” they tell me. In the church I serve we actually have seen an increase in folks coming to worship and classes and fellowship—who knew the virtual might sometimes trump the face to face?

Silver lining: staying connected, one to another.

And I am hopeful, that the rising up of millions of my fellow citizens in anger and frustration at the sin of racism, filling the streets, pushing for real change, seizing this singular moment to imagine and hope; that maybe this time America will have the courage to face itself in honesty. To begin to redress that most original of civic sins: dismissing the other because they are “different” than you. 

Who could have imagined “Black Lives Matter” signs appearing on suburban lawns and church yards, or folks of all ages and religions and classes and races, so many people, taking a stand, taking a knee? Statues representing an oppressive and violent history toppling over? Corporations committing to more diversity of voices and employees. Mississippi finally taking the Confederate flag off its state flag?

I know this movement is still in its infancy, that it will be mighty hard to actually move beyond symbolic acts and protests to actually achieve real and lasting societal change—a just society—but hope for this I must. We must.  It will take long and hard work to begin to undo 400 years of injustice but what if we have finally begun this journey as a country? 

Silver lining: waking up to the truth of who America is while also dreaming of who she might become someday, one great day.

Give me hope. Show me a silver lining in the midst of the storm clouds. Enough with the bad.  Look for the good. It’s out there. We just need to look for it with eyes of faith. 

Onward.