WHIPLASH (2025-19)

One of the drawbacks of challenging myself to pause each day and write something of substance, during the season of Lent, is that I look at daily encounters with philosophical if not poetic eyes. It rarely translates well into what I write, because it is so unedited and doesn't have time to mull around in my head before I wrap it in words. However, the process of thought during these forty-plus days leading up to Easter has facilitated an open awareness, which keeps me alive and growing. All in all its a healthy exercise, but it is really tiring.

This year my Lenten practice has been especially taxing. My thoughts whip back and forth between profound love of my Savior and my fellow humans, gratitude for the environment in which I have been placed to live out my life, and distress at the current state of our governmental leadership. I am blursed (blessed and cursed) with a medical diagnosis of ADHD, which I celebrate for the creativity and flexibility it affords me, and which I curse for my inability to remain focused on singular topics that may not hold my full attention at any given moment. I add here, as a side note, that my inability to remain focused on something does not mean it doesn't matter to me. 

I currently live with a painful case of mental and emotional whiplash. I go from the peace and comfort my Savior represents to me, to distress over aspects of my religion that don't feel like they align with how I interpret the Savior would want us to be. Just as I am pondering and praying and trying to work that out, along comes Elon Musk, anointed by our newly elected American president to whip us into shape economically. My thoughts go to that opening scene in the movie Far and Away where the Irish land barons force the commoners who lease their lands to crisis behavior. Why would I trust someone who has acquired incalculable wealth on the backs of others to do what is in the best interest of we who work the land? Then I get more distressed that people I generally consider to be intelligent, God loving members of our community would buy into what is happening. 

My head hurts.

So does my heart.

I flip, with no time to process, between the following:

I adore my neighbor... I am sorely disappointed in my neighbor.

I am a patriot like my mother was... I am ashamed of what we are doing in America.

I'm a believer through and through... I am full of all sorts of questions.

I like who I am... I don't even know who I am.

I know who I trust... I guess I can't trust them.

We must be fiscally responsible... we must care for each other even at our own expense.

I yearn for peace... I must be willing to grow,  and that involves tension.

I am excited about a family gathering... I feel tension in family gatherings.

I am worried about the amount of garbage we are creating... I just want to be able to throw away something and not feel that it demands so much of my focus.

I love that I can access music for free... I am saddened that we will lose quality music because we don't pay for what we use.

I should send money to places where USAID used to send medication but now doesn't ... I really want that pack of Oreos.

I'm walking stiffly through this moment with a severe case of whiplash.

Is anyone else?