November 2020 Reflections

A visit to an old church building with rustic wooden pews (and safe-social distancing with masks on every face) felt like coming home again. I keep coming back every Sunday morning, and no matter where I land, I will be forever grateful to this congregation for providing me a safe-space to come to church in the middle of a pandemic.

Aside from the terrible language, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is one of my very favorite shows out there in the world. It was so nice to laugh so much this month..

My candidate won this election, but lots of the people that I love had the opposite experience on November 7th. While I was celebrating, they were grieving. I know this kind of grief because it was my own in 2016 when my candidate lost. Part of engaging in the larger political conversation means holding these two tensions at the same time. To treat an election like this one as a simple contest of different political parties is to ignore and undermine the vast array of nuance and complexity that each of us hold about an election.

The Covid-19 test wasn’t so bad. My test was negative, but I so empathize with the fear and anxiety that comes with a positive test for tens of thousands of people in our country every single day.

Our faith in our election process is central to our democracy. If our voting system is corrupt, we should know that and do something about it. The opposite is just as important though: if our voting system is not in fact corrupt than these attacks on it are actually harmful to our democratic system.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am capable of cooking and serving my own Thanksgiving turkey.

Left to our own devices on Thanksgiving Day, Frank and I binged-watched The Queen’s Gambit and this was a perfectly acceptable way to spend the day (aside from the time spent in the kitchen and at the dining room table).

A gratitude practice, even in its most basic form, makes every day a better one.

On to December!