The Weight of Looking Back

Rev. Katherine Sherrill, MA, LCMHCA, MT-BC 

Many of us can name where we were when significant historical events happened or when your personal life changed dramatically. This type of episodic memory is important and for many captures key turning points in our personal and communal lives. I imagine a year ago none of us would have predicted the future and where we are now. In March 2020, the radical change of our lives was going to be two weeks to a month, and now, in March 2021, it has been a year of Pandemic Life. 

Anniversaries like this are hard, especially, when we think of anniversaries more commonly as something to celebrate. Anniversaries like this one make it difficult to look back because it forces us to acknowledge grief, loss, fear, anxiety, and the truth that the future still feels unknowable. We are wrestling with the question of, “What has the last year cost all of us?”

I have heard clients, peers, friends, and family who are all struggling with the idea of what has been lost. On this anniversary, it is easy for thoughts like this to overwhelm us. We as a community have collective grief along with our own personal loss. In the face of collective or communal grief, I often turn to the Christian tradition of lament. Laments are psalms that are crying out to God. They are angry, distressed, lonely, and hopeless. However, somewhere in every psalm of lament is a core of assurance. There is a testament, which recounts a powerful example of how God remains steadfast to his people.  Loss can easily isolate us, but it can also unite us. 

I invite everyone for the month of March to dig into the big anniversary questions. What have we accomplished? What have I gained? And finally, what do I need to lament? All of us at SCG have heard these big questions. We are honoring a difficult anniversary with you. I encourage you to invite grace into your glance back. Give yourself permission to dream, to lament, and to honor this past year. It has been one unlike any other. That uniqueness can easily be brushed over, but I encourage each of you to dive into this anniversary. There is so much of its story yet to be written.