Showing Up, by Molly M. Remer

We may let connections thin
and interests slide,
forgetting that it takes work
to nurture and tend
to what we love,
that following what is easy
can be the wrong direction,
one that eventually leads
to the withering of what we value
and to the shrinking of our worlds.
We must evaluate the balance
between effort and ease,
yes,
but let us remember
that both are essential to thriving.
Let us lean into effort sometimes,
when there is meaning on the line,
put our backs into it,
feel sweat on our brows
and the satisfaction that comes
from choosing to immerse ourselves
in wholehearted living,
in presence,
in the work of reaching out
and holding on.

This past weekend, I went to my oldest son’s next college campus. The green spaces were filled with students working on art. The halls of the buildings were lined with art by high school students there for a visiting show. The art gallery was filled with diverse works of many mediums. The speakers for the day were filled with enthusiasm for their subjects, talking about study abroad trips to Paris and being part of the chorus or the band. We pass the student theater, abuzz with activity, and listen to a young man playing rippling tunes on the piano in the atrium of the library. This school is in a rural Missouri farming community, where we passed tractors laden with hay on the potholed road. Their mascot is a mule (“the only college with live mascot in Missouri!” they proudly report. The mule’s name is Molly, so I like her right away). Missouri is a “red state” and yet the students handed me the school paper with a front page story about protests at the capitol and a large color photo of someone holding an “Impeach Elon” sign. I happily picked up a library button proclaiming “libraries are for everyone” and another saying “what’s more punk than a library?” as well as snagging a “plant queer” sticker from the LGTBQ+ alliance table for my sister. The History table gives me a bookmark reading: “Don’t make me repeat myself.” –History

When we return home, I see a meme on social media that says: “Ten minutes online will show you everything that is wrong with the world. Ten minutes outside will show you everything that is right.” I think about the students and professors, each one alight with enthusiasm, with passion, for their work, their projects, their art, the contributions they are making. This is what we need. We need to see, spend time with, and BE people who are involved, connected, committed, and passionate. People who are creating instead of destroying. People who are connecting instead of controlling. People who are reaching out to offer what they can, who create and care, and who show up.

My local library is a treasure trove. A gem among gems. Each summer they offer robust free programming for all age groups including adults. We make mushrooms gardens and fairy lamps. We make charm bracelets and water bottles. My daughter and I attend a fiber arts tea party. Every month, I walk happily up the steps and into my writer’s club, filled with people I wouldn’t normally expect to bond with and yet who all love to write and who are on fire with the potential and possibility of their ideas. This library has an active social media page and as libraries come under threat of funding cuts and censure, they post a list of ways you can help libraries. I read it expecting to be encouraged to write to representatives, to attend protests, to send postcards and make phone calls, but what it actually says is this: Show up. Get a library card. Come to our events. Check out our books. Use our audio book app. This is how you demonstrate what matters, by being there and taking part.

As I touched on in my last FAR essay about the field of belonging, I know it can be hard to stay hopeful as communities burn and winds howl and tides rise and the world shakes, and, yet, the life practice is to return, to start where your feet are, to commit to holding on and showing up. We cannot save everything or do everything, and yet we are here, which means there is good to gather and good to be done. We are our own proof of the holy, the sacred alive within us right now. And, so we pause, we open our eyes, we open our hearts, we open our hands. We offer what we can offer. We share what we can share. We create what we can create. We do what we can do. We remember that one of the most radical acts of all is to pay attention, to refuse to be hijacked by despair and disregard, but to reach out anyway, to persist, in carefully and lovingly tending to our own part of the web. 

I think about the local community garden with a work day and community meal every Wednesday. I think about silent book club at the library. I think about the monthly art shows hosted by the local arts group. This month’s is an environmental art show. My husband, our two youngest kids, and I have all contributed pieces to it. This Friday we will go and admire the pieces created by this community, some expressing hope and others despair about this beautiful planet we inhabit, but all communicating love for this land we walk on together.

This is it, I think. Go to the things. Show up. Make art. Reach out. Connect to one another. Do work you’re proud of. Make things that matter. Share what you know. Give what you can. This is what we are here for. This is what we can do. 

Sacred Earth,
teach us to immerse ourselves fully
in life’s rhythms,
to embrace both the work of our hands
and the gentleness of our hearts.
May we cultivate wild hope
like the blackbirds building their nests,
reaching toward the sacred
even in uncertain times.
Grant us courage to ask questions
without fear,
to love the mysteries that unfold before us.
Help us give back to the earth
that sustains us,
remembering that ordinary love
can heal extraordinary wounds.
Bless our connections,
our intentions,
and our capacity to grow,
allowing us to walk with open hands,
picking up what is sacred,
letting go of the rest.
May it be so.