I give you the end of a golden string,

Just wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at 

Heaven’s gate built in

Jerusalem’s wall.

-William Blake

***

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

-William Stafford

(You can watch a lovely clip of him talking with Robert Bly about the writing process and then reading his poem here.)

***

i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere

everywhere.

-Warsan Shire

Practical theologian Johannes Van Der Ven named three layers of experience that sociologists have used for analyzing human behavior: the micro level which refers to the individual’s specific and peculiar circumstances; the meso level is the communal and institutional dimensions of living; the macro level includes global pluralities. (1) Lately my micro level of life has been going well. It is the rainy season here so in an effort to avoid riding my bike over slick rocks and roots,  I have been trail running instead of mountain biking. I am making good progress lifting at the gym and enjoying the results of my consistent efforts over time. My yoga asana practice feels productive and enjoyable. I have been having fun teaching and I experience great delight connecting to the online students who show up regularly for livestream classes and with those who follow along mostly via recording and send me little notes and updates about their experiences. I love my dog. My marriage is humming along with harmony and good cheer. I have friends I enjoy. I live in a place I love. 

And, I am remain heartbroken about the election results. From my vantage point, the parade of political appointees and cabinet nominations are horrendous. I have anxieties galore about the implementation of Project 2025, what promise to be inflationary tariffs and the rise of autocracy and autocratic tendencies inside our government. I could go on. The meso level is a cause of great concern, to say the least. Every -ism that divides, separates and seeks to destroy commonality and shared humanity seems to be on the rise and finding its expression in, and through, actual and proposed policies and court rulings. 

And the macro level isn’t much better as the earth’s temperatures rise, weather patterns intensify and the forces of power, greed and corruption keep viable solutions at bay and strategies of denial in play. It’s big, frightening stuff.

Where does it hurt, the poet asks. It hurts everywhere.  And you don’t have to be a philosophical genius to know that these levels of experience function more like a Venn diagram than a set of distinct realties. As the great ones like Martin Luther King Jr. have reminded us through the ages, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

And what is the thread that holds such suffering together? Where are the threads within this single garment of destiny that offer glimpses of light? That lead, if not to Jerusalems gate, then to the suburbs or to anything remotely Heaven-adjacent? What is the thread I follow, like a dim beacon, through the darkness of modern times? I hold fast to the thread of Love, but that sounds trite, even to my own ears. After all,  the thread of Love has many faces and many moods. Sometimes I follow the thread of surrender, Love’s face of allow, accept, and yield to what is, rather than what I think should be. Sometimes, the thread of Love is the thread of action, the thread of one foot in front of the other, of taking what one of my mentors calls “the next faithful step.” Sometimes, the thread of Love looks like entertainment and joyful distractions that create just enough distance from my concerns for hope to seep through the cracks of my broken heart while I am watching a comedian on stage or a TV drama unfold that will actually be resolved with a happy ending in 45 minutes. Sometimes the thread of Love wears the face of a compassionate friend willing to listen deeply, to empathize and to hold space for the great unburdening that comes in and through shared moments of uncertainty, anxiety and confusion. And of course, sometimes the thread of love is a good ugly-cry for all the brokenness of the world over which I have no control, but through which my humanity is touched, shattered and time again returned to the wholeness of my true nature, renewed with reminders of how precious and daring it is to care. 

I have no prescriptions to offer, just descriptions of the path I have been traveling following this thread. And, while William Stafford suggests that we don’t ever lose hold of the thread, my experience has shown me that the thread never lets go of me either. 

Okay, more soon. Keep the faith.

1. Johannes Van der Ven, Education for Reflective Ministry (Louivan/Grand Rapids:Peeters/Eerdemans 1998), 11-13.