2020: The Power of Communal Healing

As we near another divisive election in another year of division, we are seeing a pain even deeper than we have experienced before. A year of uncertainty, a year of sickness (in more ways than one), a year of fear, a year of sadness.It is simultaneously shocking and unsurprising.

Whether physical, emotional or mental, desperately or slightly, we are all suffering, all in need of healing. I’ve seen pundits write that while we may not all be in the same boat (and, in fact, many don’t even have an umbrella much less a lifejacket), we are all in the same collective storm. I see so many commenting that we cannot let the election divide us more - we cannot let this be reason to ignore the suffering, to not care. At the same time, it is also important to remember that many votes come from a place of suffering, a feeling of pain, a need for saving. 

My reform Jewish upbringing came with many traditions. These included quite literally standing at times with strangers (neighbors) while they were grieving and echoing prayers of healing with them as they held sick loved ones close to their hearts. And as we stood in the synagogue our rabbis asked us to “say a prayer for those who have no one to say one for them.” Spending our energy, our time, to blindly send prayers into the world without discrimination for the stranger in desperate need. Similarly, “thoughts and prayers” have taken over the digital wires via social media this year. A story of pain, trauma and loss goes viral or we see a friend post heartbreaking news, and we are quick to let them know, in our still busy and filled days, we are spending precious moments to send what might exist of our own healing powers. My own family has been on the receiving end of these thoughts, prayers, and outreaches of love many times over the last decade, and I can personally say, though they seem like just words in a time when words can’t bring back a lost one or single-handedly turn back time, it is magical what power they can contain. The feeling of endless circles of arms around you, literal and figurative, brings a level of peace that is hard to describe. Yet outside of these moments, outside of a holy space, how often are we ourselves feeding the brokenness and sickness? How often are we refusing to provide that level of unrestricted compassion necessary to help heal?

We have an election in front of us that needs us. So of course I will make a call to let your voice be heard through voting [Vote! Vote! Vote!] and to do what you can in your community to ensure other voices are heard as well. 

But I think it is also important we remember why we head to the polls; Why we all care about those in leadership positions who we may have limited if any contact with. Because we have concerns matched with hope, pain matched with a yearning for healing. I believe 2 things are critically important here…

1. To understand the American struggles, to understand the American pain, the truest source in the age of misinformation is the source itself: ourselves and our neighbors. 

2. Our leaders are not the only ones with power to heal our pain, to lessen our struggle. We have a responsibility and a power here too.

This year needs us doing everything we can to help heal our communities. We may feel at times we are powerless in this -- the forces causing this pain seem overwhelming and unyielding, and we seem small in this ocean. But the healing moments at places of worship or online social forums and the times we ourselves are navigating the raging waters of trauma, saved by friends, family and even strangers, prove otherwise. We just need to be willing to see the pain in front of us. 

As we near this critical election, a common question I hear is “But how could they vote for him?” Depending on the asker, this question could refer to either “him” on the ballot for the presidency this year. The interesting thing about this question is it seems to be rarely asked of the people who could actually answer it. Many would claim the answer doesn’t truly matter this year - that our lives are on the line, our future is on the line, the foundations of our country are on the line and the only thing that matters is that the person who can correct our course sits in the Oval Office come February. In slight irony, I would say that might actually be the common answer we would get on both sides if we actually were willing to have the conversation we are refusing to have at this moment. 

It is time we asked. In a world where there is newfound weight of the simple greeting “How are you doing?," it is time we reached out with genuine curiosity. Not with the goal of changing people’s minds or votes but instead, even when that might not be possible, giving them a listening ear as they do the same for you; For us to better understand each other, to help hold each other during this time, to understand the pain that probably won't be fully healed in 4 years and will need our collective work in the long run. Because, once the dust has settled in the aftermath of the election, we are each other’s neighbors, fellow Americans all fighting for a better tomorrow and all in need of healing.

I’m Not the Only One: Dealing with Grief in the Time of COVID

Physical distancing, necessitated by COVID-19, has left many of us feeling an unprecedented level of loneliness. Important events like birthdays and graduations have been postponed, morphed into strange digital events, or completely ignored. Even the casual get-togethers and accidental run-ins with old friends that we used to take for granted seem like events from some hyper-social alternate universe.

While this has been difficult, I’ve tried to contextualize my experience by appreciating my privileged ability to work from home, while others are forced to leave their houses for work or be fired. These “essential” workers risk their lives every day in order to provide for themselves and their families as well as to ensure services like food service and healthcare experience limited interruption. Unfortunately, my relatively sheltered and privileged reality came crashing down one morning several weeks ago. On May 8, I awoke to the news that my aunt—who had bravely battled cancer for seven years—had taken a drastic turn for the worse. She was ending her chemotherapy treatment and would be under hospice care for her few remaining days.

After months of intentionally avoiding family gatherings, mainly so I didn’t risk exposing my aunt’s already weakened immune system to the virus, I now had only a matter of days left with her. But even the decision to rush to be with her—something that under any other circumstances would have been a no-brainer—was now one with significant potential consequences. What if our family coming together would cause one of my grandparents to get sick? Could we really withstand another loss? While we did ultimately spend my aunt’s final two days together as a family, it largely occurred from a distance of six feet and behind the cover of masks that concealed all but our tear-filled eyes. 

After her passing, we were confronted by the question of the funeral. My aunt was a teacher for 27 years, meaning that in addition to family and friends, hundreds of former colleagues and students would certainly want to attend. Given the reality of the pandemic, however, the funeral was limited to immediate family, and seating was arranged in a socially distanced manner. Funerals are never enjoyable, but sitting in the church that day, with its cavernous ceilings and endless rows of pews—making the already small gathering feel even smaller—left me with a depth of sadness I had never before experienced and hope to never experience again. 

In the midst of this immense sadness, however, I’ve been blessed to see the lengths at which people are willing to go to comfort each other in times of hardship. A few weeks after the funeral, nearly one hundred of my aunt’s former co-workers organized a parade. They walked (in a socially-distanced manner, of course) down the street while my family and I sat in the front yard. They stopped and shared stories about the ways in which my aunt had touched their lives and made a positive impact on them. Despite the physical distance, I left feeling a close, personal proximity that I had been lacking these past few months. It was a simple act that took no more than an hour, but its impact will be felt for a lifetime.

I am far from the only person who has experienced loss during this time. Countless others have lost friends and family members to the virus, unable to visit them for fear of infection. More still have lost jobs and are facing what looks to be the greatest global economic downturn in decades. On top of all of this, the inequalities that have for too long gone unaddressed in our country have reached the point where they can no longer be ignored. The stark divisions in ideology regarding how we proceed from here have left almost everyone with feelings of uncertainty and distrust. Distrust of one another, of the government, and for some, I imagine, even distrust of themselves and their long-held beliefs.

As these examples and countless others illustrate, grief and anxiety are widespread phenomenona that touch each and every one of us at some point in our lives. Despite this fact, we often view them as discrete experiences that can only be understood through our self-centered worldview. If anything good can come from this crisis, I hope it is a broader understanding of our collective affliction. 

It is easy to turn inward during this time. To fall back and wallow in self-pity at the grand injustice of my personal grief. But this is neither a healthy nor fulfilling way to deal with such an experience. Rather, I am trying to think of others who may be going through a painful experience and how I can reach out and comfort them. As I experienced during my aunt’s parade, small acts of kindness and connection can have significant and lasting effects, effects that I hope anyone struggling can feel. But it requires us to set aside our egocentric tendencies and connect through our common struggle of the human experience. As the campaign I am working on would say, #LetsGoThere!