Shifts

A chain of snow storms aside, my part of the world is gaining in longer days, a higher sun, and other timid signs of the seasonal shifts ahead.  But today I am thinking more about inner shifts, which announce themselves without benefit of calendar or planetary tilt, and have to do with inward seasons we may not even be aware of until they are upon us.

COVID has imposed a kind of global hibernation upon us, but I find myself wondering if confinement may not be encouraging a deeper internal composting than was possible when we were running like hamsters every hour of the day.

Two friends, a couple, are nesting in their transplanted digs in South Carolina, after 50-plus years as New Englanders.  Several others are on the verge of retiring.  One is coming out of retirement.  And so it goes.

But the important thing is that shifts begin well before these outward statements of change.  We may be aware of a new sense that the pieces of our lives are no longer sitting as well as they once did.  It’s harder to get excited about an upcoming gathering, or meeting, or deadline.  We find ourselves trolling favorite websites instead of diving into the day.  We hole up and avoiding unnecessary socializing.  We grow bored with the calendar, or with familiar pastimes.

Even in the midst of the relentless sameness of our days at home during the pandemic, important shifts may be moving within.  It isn’t what we’d have asked for, but this time can be a gift in this respect: we have so much more spaciousness to investigate what might be wanting our attention and care.

This week marks, too, a shift in the ancient calendar of sacred time, as we begin the Christian season of Lent.  As we boomerang from Valentine’s Day today to Shrove Tuesday/Carnival to Ash Wednesday, it might be a good time to ask ourselves what in us has reached a ripeness that allows for us to let go?  What feels stuck, and brooding, an obstacle to full-hearted engagement?  If we listen carefully, is there a deeper truth about our lives at this time that wants to be heard and attended to?

As access to the vaccine advances, this time will in hindsight, I suspect, be seen as an extended period of testing and reassessment.  I, too, am listening for the shifts within.   None of us will emerge from this time unchanged.  What are the shifts wanting to be named in you?