The noise around us continues, and very exhausting it is too. The struggle is that there is nothing to do but get through it; like so many things that happen without our choosing, the only way through is through.
What happens to us when we get "stuck" in a situaiton; when, despite all our best efforts and all our most fervent wishes - even prayers - nothing seems to change, and things remain as they are, ways we don't like.
This can happen in so many areas. It can be our own experience of ourselves (as we move into February, there is in some circles much laughing conversation about how tattered new year's resolutions now look, for example); it can be in our care of each other - when we want life to be better for the people we worry about, and there is nothing we can do to change things; it can be as we contemplate the state and position of the world - situations that look impossible or uncertain, and which do not seem to offer any possibility of change?
I am more and more convinced that the call in such times is just to stay - to hang on in there. In conversations with various people who work in community based groups in the area of the church, one of the regular things that is commented on is that we (the church here) are here for the long-term; we don't dash in and out, we are not dependent on the kind of funding that can all too easily be withdrawn with little or no notice, we are not going to disappear if things get tough. It's the kind of thing we tend to take for granted, so it is interesting to note that it is something others see about us.
It matters in our internal life too. Some of us live in and with situations that appear to offer no hope of change. It may be ill-health, it may be demanding responsibilities, it may be something much harder to put into words. But one of the things we offer each other is staying there, walking the hard - or simply long - path, not giving up when things don't change despite our best efforts and deepest hopes.
Thank God for the grace of carrying on - and thank you to all of you who do it with us and for us.