I had a recent brief conversation with author Jane Kirkpatrick, by email, after listening to her video presentation to a group of women at the Women of Worth event sponsored by the Rolling Hills Community Church in Tualatin, Oregon. May was her first speaking opportunity since the pandemic began. Her presentation was titled Hope: Orientation of the Spirit.

One of the challenges throughout the pandemic has been the struggle for people with mental health concerns. It also laid bare the inequities among the population, including those who lost jobs because of work places being closed, and essential workers who had no choice but to go to work, no matter the risk, so they could feed their families.

Our family did work out ways of connecting, while obeying health guidelines, and managed an outdoor distanced, mask-wearing gathering on a very cold Christmas Day. Even that 40 minutes was better than not at all. We were able to send our gifts for our grandchildren along home with them and we had worked out a plan to each make a part of the Christmas dinner that we exchanged at the time with a Zoom meeting after we had eaten our dinner.

We kept in touch with family and friends by phone, reading stories to our grandchildren over internet. Our adult children and their partners helped initially by getting groceries and other essentials and leaving them on our front porch. Bright moments were conversations by phone, Zoom calls, and porch to sidewalk chats. It has just seemed so long for everyone, and here in our region, we have a little ways to go yet.

Jane Kirkpatrick agreed with the observation of my eldest who works in counselling, as Jane also did in her career, how the people they work with are sometimes barely holding themselves together.

In her talk, recorded and shared in her Story Sparks newsletter, she outlined the acronym HOPE, which stood for Hearth, Open, Plan, and Engagement, illustrating them with quotes and stories from her experience and others who shared with her.

One story in particular stands out. Jane tells a story relayed to her by a woman in her 80s of growing up without a mother and of having a rough life and how one day she fell and scraped her knees. She remember these 75 years later the kindness of two women who came to her aid just after her fall. They didn’t rescue her from her life, but they paid attention to her. One woman hugged her, held her close and the second took a white embroidered handkerchief from her little black purse and dabbed it against this little girl’s bloody knee. She felt cared for. And the woman said, in that moment, she wanted to be just like them when she grew up.

Jane reflects on this story, “There are people all around you… who if we just notice and engage in their lives, we can make a difference. We can be the living embodiment of what God would have us be, to be loving and caring in this world.”

Thanks, Jane. I, too, tried to make a difference when I could.

Looking back on this past 15 months of pandemic and having received the vaccine, parts 1 and 2, I recognize for me, that there were times of discouragement. When I couldn’t hug my grandchildren or my adult kids. Or even my friends. It has seemed like such a long time with little personal contact. It dragged on through spring, summer, fall and winter, and especially through Christmas, a time noted for family gatherings.

The encouragement that came, sporadically, was time of opening up a bit, when we could move about a little more freely, and connection with our faith and family and organizations through Zoom. Even short visits outdoors with family members. And gardening, an essential for this time of year, can also be soothing.

And now we have hope of coming out of the pandemic, at least. I will be glad for that and look forward to gathering with my family again, as restrictions ease. We are still being careful as we ought.

Other news comes that is also distressing, but that is for another post.