Pain, Presence, and Love as Availability: Reflections From an Apocalyptic 2020
How to summarize a year? I’m a fan of year-end lists, to start. We share what books we’ve read, other media we’ve enjoyed, and maybe some goals we accomplished or new ones for the approaching year. The better question today is, how could we ever capture in words what the year of 2020 looked like or felt like?
Yesterday, on the final morning of 2020, in between some morning reading and goal setting for the coming year, I found myself watching the press conference Andre Hill’s family held. Andre Hill was recently murdered by a Columbus police officer who, as we know now, had more than 90 complaints for excessive force and violence. I listened to Andre’s family members share about their beloved father, brother, and friend, and it invoked in me a rage and despair I’ve felt an uncountable number of times this year.
It was a year where we wanted to do so much, but doing very little was the most heroic option. It was a year where we seamlessly shifted from learning how to bake banana bread to learning how to defund the police overnight. We went from sharing home workouts to analyzing city budgets and demanding they be more equitable in a blink. It was a year we reckoned with the forces that we live under and asked, “Why? How long? What’s a better way?”
I learned a lot this year because I saw a lot this year. I saw the intersection of personal and communal shrink, the gap between micro and macro enclosed. I saw it close last June, after the world saw George Floyd be murdered in a similar fashion as Andre Hill. I felt it shrink during that first Saturday morning protest. It was a similar rage I felt yesterday, as I watched my city deploy an army’s worth of heavily armed police officers in less than 5 minutes. We left just before the teargas started flying.
A couple months later, in August, all of the students I teach in Columbus City Schools were given personal devices for virtual learning. 2020 made me wonder how to measure the character of a city who deploys hundreds of heavily-armed officers in 5 minutes but takes 5 months to deliver below-average laptops to its students. It forced me to pause and wonder what to call a city with enough money on hand for tanks and teargas, but needs to borrow money for basic necessities for its young learners. Tanks and weapons of war in 5 minutes, school laptops in 5 months. Apocalyptic, a word uttered to describe 2020 often, feels fitting.
I saw the gap between personal and communal close when folks paraded around mask-less while a student’s father died young of Covid19. It was a year of decisions, of seeing how much “this right here” affects “that out there.” It was a year on full display, forcing us to examine much and reflect often. It was a year of heartbreak and agony, of little decisions with big impacts. Covering one’s face for a few moments could mean saving the life of a stranger you’d never see. Shopping locally could mean helping a struggling business stay afloat.
Throughout all of 2020, we were all seeking things to keep us sane. We were baking bread and exchanging podcast recommendations, organizing and protesting. We were finding creative ways to not only pass time but remain engaged in it. I often asked myself how to stay available to the idea of love. I found it often in the form of books, exercise, and our little kitty named Willy. Sadly, we had to recently provide Willy a new home due to an intense allergy my wife has suffered through for years. In the 4+ years we had him, and especially this year, he taught us a lot.
Willy gave us the gift of his presence, of love as a posture of availability. No matter what was happening out there, and how it was impacting us in here, he curled up on our laps and slow-blinked his loving gaze day after day. He offered his pure and uninterrupted attention. One of the most healing things of the year was counting on him plopping down on my lap during Zoom School. He became such a presence on the screen that students would ask to see him each day. Willy became so intertwined with our daily rhythms and movements that he only ate when we were in the kitchen or living room. He reliably began chirping outside the bedroom door each morning around 6 to welcome us into the new day. He was a grounding force for us, and we all needed grounding in 2020.
One of my favorite things I read all year was Kiese Laymon’s letter to LeBron James after he won his 4th championship, where he thanked him for his good decisions that have been salvific for his community. He thanked him for loving Black people with his decisions, and he did it in breathtaking fashion. There may be no major lesson here other than LeBron is an American hero, and his continued commitment to caring for his hometown is the type of good news we need every year. Also, we shouldn’t have to depend on rich celebrities to care for our cities and our children… but when they do, it’s a story worth extending thanks.
We saw the movement for Black lives gain worldwide attention and momentum like never before. Of course, this and everything else was politicized and scrutinized. What some called politics or a radical threat others might’ve called a re-orienting of our society towards love and justice. This takes me back again to the intersection of personal and communal. Love, as a posture of availability, as our little Willy offered us each day, empowers us with a contemplative mind to accomplish out there what we long for in here. The more solitude 2020 offered the more I craved it. The more noise happening out there, reminded me how important taking care of in here is.
We all found it in different ways. Gerald May offers this quote to ponder as we enter a New Year.
“Contemplation happens to everyone. It happens in moments when we are open, undefended, and immediately present.”
I do believe, more than ever, a contemplative mind is a prerequisite for effective work in justice and love. However we find it, continually inviting ourselves to a posture of love as availability will make our efforts to drive change more powerful. Practices that ground us in here give us a way to remain available out there. If we’ve learned one thing in 2020, it’s that our little decisions make large impacts. This has always been true; maybe this year demanded our eyes be open to it.
So, as we say a rather emphatic goodbye to a year we will exit in a blaze of hand sanitizer and toilet paper, I remain open to love as a posture of availability. Love, as the gift of offering our full attention to what is right in front of us. Love, as the powerful force that leads us to protest, and equally the little nudging towards gratitude for our existence. Love, as the collision of everything out there and in here.
Here’s to a better future, or for the love of God, at least a better year. Happy New Year. May we make ourselves available to the love that is always there, and always here.
