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Belonging to the Now
“I’m not waiting for anything to be different to live
Every day, I lift weights heavier than my heart so I can say hello my name is ready to whatever comes my way.
Break my spirit and I’ll have two spirits break my spirit again and I’ll have four.”
- From Never wait to live by Andrea Gibson (full text and reading at the end)
It is the beginning of September: the start of what we think of as our congregational year. We return to two services. Full RE begins again. Connections Fair will happen soon. And also, the challenges of our world and our country are still here, still present in our broader life, for many still present in our personal lives.
And my hope is that you can belong to the now.
What does that mean?
I admit, I’m still figuring that out for myself.
Broadly, Andrea Gibson’s poem Never wait to live has been sticking in my head. The poem was written as the poet and activist was living with terminal ovarian cancer. “I’m not waiting for anything to be different to live…” There’s a clarity in their line that rings in my soul.
The clarity asks “What are you putting on hold Jim? What are you waiting to live into until the country is calmer? There will never be a time when ‘perfect’ arrives? What can you live into today?”
The clarity in one way says something familiar. Rest, joy, passion, love, connection, community, belief in the beauty all around us…all of these can foster resilience and all can be resistance. Resilience in reminding us that there is good around us to live into. Resistance in living joy and pleasure in structures that question whether or not you should be allowed to have joy.
And all of this exists alongside our personal and systemic pains, griefs, challenges, sorrows. We do not have to ignore challenges to also do something that is life giving and nurturing.
So I begin my month reading Andrea Gibson’s poem. And asking myself how I might be most in my life right now. How might I embrace this that is here, and live into what is most robust and possibility-filled and love-filled now?
Never wait to live.
Andrea Gibson 1975 - 2025
The kindest thing I ever did for myself was decide to never think this thought "as soon as the cancer goes away I’ll start my life. "
This is my life.
I’m not waiting for anything to be different to live
Every day, I lift weights heavier than my heart so I can say hello my name is ready to whatever comes my way.
Break my spirit and I’ll have two spirits break my spirit again and I’ll have four.
I’m not as alive as I was before I was diagnosed.
I’m more alive.
I’m as bald as I was as a baby, which to say, every day I’m being born, but the other night I died Laughing, when making out with my partner I said run your fingers through my hair.
Do you know you can sing and cry at the top of your lungs at the same time.
Do you know how to run for your life and not against it?
The key is to never warm up to the idea of a promised future
No one can do that without giving today the cold shoulder.
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