Let's Make It Something Better?

It feels like our country is in chaos right now. I take that back.  It IS in chaos right now! There is a feeling of vulnerability. So many demographics have been attacked verbally and people in powerful positions are making life he** for a lot of people.  Our future is uncertain. It might very well fall apart as a democracy. It might become something worse. Or it might not. We could actually become a better democracy. Is that even possible? I think so.

I know I’m not the only one who has experienced a time when life seems to just fall apart at the blink of an eye. You lose all sense of control and you do not know how things are going to turn out but it looks and feels BAD! If that happened to you, where did it take you? Did it take you to complete and total destruction? Or did you find yourself in a place you never expected to be but it feels so right and so much better! People of faith would call it a blessing. Others might call it serendipity.

I suffered a concussion in 2019 that resulted in post-concussion syndrome. Talk about turning one’s life upside down. My brain could not do the whole music teacher thing and my contract was eventually terminated. I no longer could do what I had been doing for 25 years. The work, the relationships with students and colleagues, all went POOF! It was a loss for me. Grieving was involved and it added frustration to my recovery.

Yet, now I strongly think I am where I am supposed to be, working as a church musician. I LOVE it! I’m not going to pretend life is perfect. I still cannot work full-time and I may never be able to again. Yes, I still experience symptoms and have reduced function and endurance. Maybe I would have ended up in the same place without the whole brain injury thing, but I am not so sure. In our move from MN to WI I probably would have just gotten a teaching license in this state and found work in the schools. That option was shut down before we even got here though.  I would not call it fate but I would say the chaos that came about after that brain injury set the stage for a big change in my life that I may not have taken advantage of otherwise. A change that brought a lot of joy to my life.

Let’s compare it to a bathroom remodel after a pipe burst. It’s a mess and the bathroom must be redone. You still have the basic structure but as long as you are ripping out the drywall you might as well put in the jacuzzi tub you envisioned when you bought the house. Gotta pull up the linoleum? Hey, let’s upgrade to heated flooring that benefits everyone in the house. Make it into a better bathroom than it was before all the mess!

So I wonder and I ask you, could that happen for us as a country? How about we explore various possibilities that could eventually lead us into a better democracy? Could this be a time of significant progress in fulfilling the vision and possibilities of our constitution? Sometimes just the right amount of falling apart leads to something better.