Chew on this

A theology of metabolizing the worst

I couldn’t write for weeks. Months, if I’m being honest. Every few days I’d make myself sit down and stare at the blank page or the blinking cursor. You have to get these stories down. You have to write whatever small record of history you know. You have to say what you’ve seen.

I’d scribble a burst of phrases, news stories, scattered memories, strange words that hardly seemed true when I spelled them out. Then the phone would ring or the Signal chat would buzz or the urgent email would interrupt. I’d leave the writing unfinished and get back to work. Groceries, rides, vigils, supplies, protests, fundraisers, prayers—a thousand needs pulled for my attention, pressing more urgently than the artist’s need to create.

It was a personal, private loss in the midst of enormous collective grief; of course I kept it quiet. But the disorientation was dizzying all the same. When we cannot do what we normally do, whenever we become unmoored from what once held us fast, we find ourselves flailing, farther and farther from shore.

What has our life become, overshadowed by threat or tragedy? How did this happen? Will things settle down again—or are we hurtling toward a breaking point? Who will we become on the other side?

The year is only a quarter gone, but already we have metamorphosed. The past months in Minnesota have crammed together such jarring contrasts I can barely catch my breath when I try to take it all in. Terror, injustice, violence, death; generosity, compassion, solidarity, love.

I have witnessed, heard, spoken, and done things I never thought possible. I have been changed, we are still changing, and I want us to flee across the bridge to safety, to the other side—but I can’t. We can’t. Not yet.

It takes time.