Rev. Vanessa Titang

Tag: coronavirus

  • A Prayer for the Ordinary

    A Prayer for the Ordinary

    In this great heavy time,
    We have faced trials only our ancestors long passed could know,
    We have had great worry laid upon our chests,
    with the turning of the clock,
    Forward
    Into another year,
    Let us find peace,
    And make peace with the days that have passed,
    Let our expectations be as much as we can bear,
    And yet our hope for the future ever growing,
    In this year,
    Let us see life with eyes brand new,
    With an appreciation from the trials faced,
    Of the new day, of a baby’s breath, of the privilege of monotony
    Let us celebrate spirit when the ordinary occurs,
    For oh do we know
    The grief of lost normalcy,
    Let us be joyous
    For it is a new day,
    Joyous,
    For this now is our time,

    Spirit as we awaken
    To the renewed beauty and gift that is life,
    May we find comfort and protection,
    From the world’s great unknowns,
    And knowledge that in our struggles
    We are not alone.

  • The “Bad” Year

    The “Bad” Year

    The New Year is coming, its right around the bend. I am acutely aware of its presence as I have a service scheduled 12/27 for me to lead at Unitarian Universalist Church of Castine, with of course the theme being New Year. Well, the theme I have selected is “Letting go”, but really its related to the new year.

    This year—2020, has been a lot to take. It has been a rollercoaster of emotion as we have had our lives upended with Coronavirus, and normalcy left far behind, somewhere in March or April. I want to talk about the fact that this year has been a trauma that we need to come to terms with, we need to let go of any feelings we have about the year, and just see it be as something that has come and gone, because that is what life does. We have long been talking about what a horrible year 2020 has been, and yes it has been traumatic, but labeling it as “bad” makes it seem as if when the ball drops on 2021, everything is going to be resolved, and whatever hurts we had in the previous year are going to be healed. They, unfortunately, are not going to be. We must still come through whatever feelings we have about what has happened so far and find peace with it.

    I found several quotes that jumped out at me about letting go—why we do not do it, and why we need to. But the one that really got me, that I do not think will fit into my sermon as I have been piecing it together is this:

    “No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.”―Haruki Murakami

    I do not know the author, and I do not know the context, but I feel like the message it gets across is sharp. It is hard to let go of the memories of things that hurt, that tried you, that scarred you. And we keep this baggage close, and memorialize it, not recognizing how much harm it may still be inflicting by us doing this. I wonder how much of this year we will do this about. 2020 will become a memorialized year of the great pandemic, and it will solidify in our memories as a worst time, that we cannot bare to repeat again…

    But what if we let go of the value judgment on the year and just recognize how we have grown around the obstacles it posed. Further, doing this may help us brace for the reality that there is no clean, clear end to what we like to think of as “2020”. Facing the realities of time, and current predicaments letting go of attachment to 2020, and judgment of it, allows us to heal hurt around the memories therein this time.

    I lost 2 beloved individuals in 2020. One, a friend, died causally related to the coronavirus; the other, my grandmother, passed in a predicament of ordinary surgery gone wrong. My natural inclination is to curse this year, and want nothing more than it to change, so that the trauma will be left behind in another year, and so that a new day will bring about something new, something radiant, something to resolve these pains. But nothing in 2021 will bring back either my friend or my grandmother, I know this, nor will it necessarily make the pain of their loss any better. I know this deep down, but something in me still just wants that celebration of a new year, a new beginning; particularly to what we all hope is the end to Coronavirus.

    It is December, and a vaccine has begun overseas, and not yet here in the US, but it exists. And how effective it is, and how bad the side effects are is yet to be seen.

    But it exists.

    There is hope. Really, there always has been hope. Yes, there is hope within 2020.

    Trying not to see the year as bad has made me recognize how much of what I am viewing as bad/good is just an illusion of human definition. It makes me be realistic of my expectations for a new year, and it makes me have hope that things can change (at any time). I will try not to call 2020 a bad year. To do so only gives it more power and makes it more painful. Maybe I should see it as the difficult time, or a trying time. Or perhaps, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” just like it always is.

    I will let go of 2020, in my encapsulation of 365 days as a bad period of my life. For regardless of how difficult it has been, or how painful, it still is 365 days of my life; 365 days that I do not get to repeat. I can reflect on it, I can experience fear, pain, sadness, joy, happiness, et cetera about it, but it is still a piece of my life. This is what the quote I singled out picks up on — no matter the suffering it is a part of our lives, it is a part of us. We do not get to recreate this time. But, I feel we can hold these memories, but not hold attachments to them that will only scar us more. Thus I will try to remember this time, that we call 2020, I will know the challenges faced, but I will let 2020 go. I will pray for easier tides as we go forward into the future, but I will be aware, from the lessons this time has taught me, and that this time has taught us all.

  • Pack Animals

    Pack Animals

    It is mid-November, and we have been stuck in the “Twilight Zone” that is life amidst the coronavirus for approximately 9 months now. Nine months has brought us to the start of the winter holiday season, and the Thanksgiving seasons here in the United States. In summary these are the months that we are supposed to huddle close together with family and friends to make it through the cold of winter months. And yet, we are unable to do this. For fear of the virus, for ourselves, for others, we keep distanced at a minimum of 6 feet.  

    We quarantine in homes; we keep outside travel to a minimum. We cancel our winter plans to travel across state lines to be nearer to distance family and friends. Here in the hour that we most need each other we are amid an uptick in the virus. Why, is irrelevant, but the fact that it is here and very real is known to all who have had to suspend life, to be well protected. 

    And when we can visit on another, it is short lived, and feels like it is not enough. The short visits, that are masked and distant, that are made with overprotective arrangements are a sharp reminder of what we are missing in our daily lives with this virus at hand. Holding on to hope was something that we started this with, now it seems silly to talk of hope, when that is all we are trying to do, hope that things will clear up, some time, someday, some way.  

    As winter months set in, homes are lonely, holiday presents are passed through the mail only, and not hand to hand. We are feeling now through the loss, the immense need of our human nature for community. So, we will make community, where we can, via video messenger, but it still is missing what we need—a handshake, a fist bump, a hug.  

    I wonder if this is what our ancestors felt when loved ones had to go on long epic trips overseas, into unknown lands, to find a way forward for their people. No, it is not the same, but I can see how the feeling of loneliness, fear, frustration, may be shared with these experiences. In a technological age, that has political strife and division, we are being reminded to come closer in other ways, through our human nature, as pack animals.