Where should we begin?

It’s been a rough week, so apologies for being a bit absent. Weather woes, moving woes and full time job woes have really been taking a toll on my mental health this week. It’s overwhelming at best, leaving me little time to recharge. I should tell you a story.

But where should I begin?

As I already have typed in a previous blog post, I don’t always start at the beginning when I write my stories. Sometimes, I need to know what happens at the end to write the beginning, or I write the middle part of the book first and piece it together. And while life isn’t always that way, anticipating the whole story helps one gets through a tough time. Jumping in at any part of a story is better than nothing.

Where should I begin?

The end of this week was supposed to culminate in moving the rest of our stuff to our new house. But here I am, still sitting in our rented abode with almost two feet of snow on the ground. A snow drift still blocks one of the doors to the building, at least the last time I went out to check, because snow plow drivers are overwhelmed by the blizzard that still rages on outside. Mother Nature has stated very clearly that the best laid plans can be just that – PLANS. A monkey wrench in the form of a blizzard and then dangerous cold wind chills have canceled any ideas the other half and I had of getting our stuff to the new abode.

The beginning of this week was one of promise. I looked forward to being in our new home instead of just visiting with boxes and smaller pieces of furniture that could easily be carried. I was counting the days until we could move the bed and the desks, the cat trees and the television stand over, as well as the stuff we’re using day to day. I was excited, though the promise of winter storms loomed along the peripherals in my mind. I had a full week of work ahead of me and knew I’d be tired, but I didn’t know then that we’d be short staffed at work due to vacations, coworkers being stranded because of the piling snow, and other issues at play. I didn’t know then that this would be one of our busiest weeks on record and that I would be so exhausted I could not even decompress when I got home.

Life’s funny that way. When you try to envision the end, sometimes the middle and even the beginning get in the way.

Relationships with others are like that too. Sometimes, we don’t know the beginning or even the end of whatever kind of “ship” we are in – comradeship, coworker-ship, friendship, relationship. We come into another person’s story at a weird time. Sometimes it’s at the beginning, but often it’s smack dab in the middle, maybe into a chapter they would rather forget. On occasion, it’s towards the end, helping them into the next world. We could be deuteragonists or foils. More often than not, we are side characters rather than secondary ones. We may even be villains too.

Where should we begin when learning other people’s stories? Should we learn stories from the beginning, just walk alongside someone in the middle or maybe envision the end? How do we go about finding common ground and building relationships with those who may be different than us, all while working on our own stories and the struggles each and everyone of us face?

I’m currently in the middle of a book entitled When the Saints Go Flying In by Joseph Yoo, an Episcopalian pastor in Texas whom I stumbled upon via Instagram when a reel he made trended for me. One of the saints he examines and connects to in the book is St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American (Mohawk) saint canonized within the Catholic Church. Scarred and nearly blinded as a child by a smallpox epidemic that took the lives of her parents and younger brother, she was called Tekakwitha, which in the Kanienʼkéha (Mohawk) language means “she who bumps into things.” The lesson Yoo draws from her story is that like St. Kateri Tekakwitha, we bump into things, or rather people, all of the time. It is with those whom we bump into often that we form relationships and build stories. And it is in learning those stories that we begin to see that even though all of us are different, we all can find a common ground and drop the “us versus them” mentality that divides us. It is in fostering relationships that we write stories together rather than apart.

Where should we begin?

May we all be inspired to continue bumping into people. May we find ways to begin learning the stories and helping to write the chapters that make up this part of a person’s story, repairing the messes we have made in the past. May we seek to be welcoming of all, ever loving, ever joyful, searching for peace as we hope for a better future for all.

We have to begin where we are now.

Stay magical.

Write your own story.

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