To hold pain and joy while living in a time of crisis

A couple days after Heather and I got back from our mini-moon (mini-honeymoon), I stumbled upon the beautiful poem below from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.

In a very personal way, it speaks to what I’m feeling as I try to hold the big emotions of our wedding and re-enter my workplace with its spreadsheets, meetings, and silly little emails.

But in a more expansive way, it reminds me of the ongoing challenge of living in the both/and of what it means to be an informed human in a globalized world right now:

Of witnessing the joys of my kids running around while knowing Palestinian children are being starved to death and torn apart in Gaza; of enjoying dinner with friends while knowing many folks five blocks away can’t afford even a portion of the meal we’re enjoying; of having hope for the future while not yet seeing how we might possibly get there.

Of, to borrow a phrase from the poem, being absolutely “devastated and stunned with joy” at the same time...and maintaining a tender connection with both.

As you read the poem, I invite you to feel for how it connects with your story and how you’re experiencing the tension of the both/and in your own life and communities.

For When People Ask

I want a word that means

okay and not okay,

more than that: a word that means

devastated and stunned with joy.

I want the word that says

I feel it all all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird

singing only one note at a time,

more like a Tuvan throat singer

able to sing both a drone

and simultaneously

two or three harmonics high above it—

a sound, the Tuvans say,

that gives the impression

of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands swirl,

how the churning of opposite feelings

weaves through us like an insistent breeze

leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,

blesses us with paradox

so we might walk more openly

into this world so rife with devastation,

this world so ripe with joy.