In New Territory

I’ve been writing and posting daily for over a month now. At first, it was quite exciting and I was so filled with ideas that I had to keep a list of everything I couldn’t write about. The possibility of helping others (and myself) through a time of crisis was a strong motivation—strong enough to move me into action. I’ve now run out of low hanging fruit. Most mornings now, I wake up early without a clear sense of what is important enough to write about. I wonder if I am just writing to prove something to myself or if I really have something worthwhile to contribute.

As the stay-at-home orders remain in place in this semi-indefinite way, the initial adrenaline that fired me up is gone. At first, I felt a clear purpose; to survive and to help others during this time of crisis. But crisis, when it goes on for more than a few weeks, becomes life itself. The burst of energy we needed to psychologically and physically survive the radical change has come and gone—like a rocket booster that burns to get the ship into orbit and then falls away once we escape from the gravity of what used to be. Now we’re in a new orbit—weightless within the space capsules of our homes and apartments.

When a space ship is in orbit its unimpeded momentum forward is perfectly balanced by its endless falling toward the gravitational center of the object it is orbiting. It is perpetually falling but never crashing into the object it is orbiting because it is simultaneously heading out into the vast emptiness of space. This situation is not really forever because everything eventually slows down. Orbits decay and objects circling around planets eventually fall into the gravitational center.

Are we humans orbiting around some inconceivable center of gravity? In spite of all our stories of self-importance and self-direction are we merely following the trajectory that was set in motion before we came into being? Perhaps our lives really just an endless falling that is both free and constrained. Freely orbiting, we are headed toward our eventual unification with that center of gravity when we will fall from our life of orbit. Will we eventually burn up and come to rest in the center itself?

But I digress.

This place of uncertainty is (as I just demonstrated) actually quite an interesting place. I don’t like it as much as the beginning place. I’ve lost a certain sense of confidence and purpose. Some things I say and write feel quite clear and of obvious value. But as I move into this new territory, I’m not as clear. While I like the initial energy of new beginnings, this place of less clarity, if I can bear the uncertainty, is where something truly new is more likely to emerge.

My prayer is that my actions (and yours) might be of service to something larger than ourselves. That in this territory of uncertainty we may be guided and protected. That we may use our lives to support each other on this journey of being human.