When You Hit the Wall

Vestry member Jane Coulter opened the August vestry meeting with this devotion:

Three weeks ago, I felt great. It was still summer. My girls had not been on a single Zoom since May. We were all happy.

I used to be a distance runner before my knee gave out. Once, in a marathon, I came off a bridge at mile 20 and saw a man sitting on a curb. He was a young, fit man. He was not injured or bleeding, just sitting and crying. Unable to put one foot in front of the other. He had hit the dreaded Wall. I kept running. Gosh, I thought, I feel great, but it’s coming soon, isn’t it? The Wall.

One week out from school, there it was: the Wall. Virtual school was about to start for my first and fourth graders. My muscles clenched and my breath shortened at the thought of Zooms.

Last year there were two boys in our first grader Martha’s class whose faces never showed up once in a Zoom square. Her friend Tara, who Martha had played with every day on the playground, showed up only sporadically on Zoom. The class cheered when she did show up on her birthday. It did not go unnoticed to Martha that her friends had disappeared. I worried for those children who didn’t show up on Zooms.

On the third day of school this year, my older daughter fell apart trying to deal with our faulty internet and crawled under her bed. We called her teacher who asked to FaceTime her so she could talk to her face to face and assure her it would be OK. I simply sat on the curb of the bed and cried for this teacher who refused to let our daughter disappear from sight. I cried for all the public school teachers who will disappear from Zooms when they lose their jobs after twenty days because fewer students attending their schools means fewer teachers.

My devotion is to think about the children who have disappeared from Zooms, the children who are struggling to be on them, and the teachers who continue to show up for them.

I like the simplicity of the prayer attributed to St Francis, the cadence, with no need for superfluous words. However, I needed something a tad bit more specific for my house, my home, and for this unprecedented time, so I wrote this:

Lord, make this house a home of peace.
When there is chaos, collect my soul.
Where there is fuel, a balm.
When there is a meltdown, grace.
When there is confusion, clarity.
When there is huffing, a hug.
For all the feelings, dealings.

Help me not so much want to be alone as to know quiet.
Nor need to be with others as to appreciate friendship.
To freely give apologies more than expect them.
It is in listening that I am heard.
There is a point in the disappointment.
For it is in teaching that I will be taught.

Amen.