Reflections on 2020
It seems ironic now that the year 2020 – a number that expresses perfect vision – became filled with so much complexity, uncertainty, and anxiety. If we try to read 2020 as a story, the storyline is complex and the interpretation may take years to unfold. The events of a year, like any good story, sometimes need deep reading and pondering, and new eyesight, insight, and understanding to grasp the message. If the year 2020 was a parable, what does it all mean?! And how long will it take for us to fully live into it and grasp its message?
In the days immediately preceding the full unveiling of the impact of the coronavirus in March and the subsequent shutdown of much of our lives, I spent nine days on the road for a personal civil rights tour. I spent time in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma, Alabama. I stood outside 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and walked the museum and park that commemorated the deaths of four young girls and the struggles for justice and civil rights. In Montgomery, I stood for hours in the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice where I stood under the ever-rising stones that named over 4000 persons in counties across the U.S. who had been lynched. I drove the road between Montgomery to Selma that people had walked in the opposite direction in a march for voting rights. And I stood in the streets of Selma and walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, along with thousands of others on the 55th commemoration of “Bloody Sunday.” I saw John Lewis through the crowd there on his last visit on March 1, 2020, and later in the year mourned his death and wondered why the bridge continues to be named after a Ku Klux Klan leader rather than in honor of John Lewis. I bookended my trip with a visit in Indiana to my dear friend Michael Cobbler, from whom I learned so much about the struggle and fight for justice, and in Florida with my dear friends Cindy and Phil from whom I have learned much about deep soul-wrenching loss and resilience and trust.
This trip then became enshrouded by all of the many events of 2020, and I lost the time to reflect on the trip and so many things I learned and experienced. But as a parable, the meaning deepened as I wept in the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, and saw the long history of racial injustice and white supremacy in the U.S. continuing to take away life. I wondered whether in the year 2020—a year that could express perfect vision—could we see in new ways and could the struggles for true and deep and meaningful justice be sustained? I struggled through the election season and post-election and saw and felt again the deep-seated threats to voting rights. I don’t carry the depths of that trauma in my bones, but I have been carrying it in my heart. I realize now how much that trip has been living in me since March. It has been informing my life in joining a Black Lives Matter march in Cedarburg, accepting an invitation from the mayor of Cedarburg to be one of six persons on a city-wide Diversity/Equity/ Inclusion Task Force, and deepening my work with my friend and colleague Rev. Marilyn Miller in building and deepening our work in our partnership Leading for Racial Equity LLC. The meaning of parables unfolds over time as we gain new insight and see our experiences in new ways.
For many, this has been a year of incredible pain and suffering. Many families have lost loved ones to COVID-19 and haven’t even been able to say goodbye. Many are suffering from unemployment and facing possible coming evictions. Children have lost time in classrooms that can impact lifelong learning. The elderly have been quarantined apart from family, and women have faced difficult choices of leaving their jobs and lost future wages to care for children. Collectively, as a society, many have lost faith in science and have formed a growing distrust of government and democratic principles. If the year 2020 is a parable, how do we unpack its deep and unsettling meaning?
In the year of 2020—a year that could express perfect vision—we have been enmeshed in confusion and complexity; in lack of control; in forced isolation and reflection, and yet when we squint for meaning, we can see love and hope and justice poking through. I pray that we will carry the fullness of the events of 2020 with us to give new meaning to our lives together in 2021 and all the years to come.