“At the end of my suffering, there was a door”

-- Louise Gluck, winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature

All of us have morning rituals. We hit the snooze button—some of us more than once—we brush our teeth, drink coffee, and eat breakfast. Some of us run or walk our dogs. I know some boarders who talk to their mom or dad driving to school or walking from West Campus. Added to our morning rituals this year, we now take our temperatures, log it in our phones, and grab a clean mask (hopefully!) before running out the door. Walking out our doors in the fall of 2020 feels a lot harder than in years past.
 
Yesterday, Louise Gluck, the Jewish American poet and writer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In her poem “Wild Iris” she writes: “At the end of my suffering, there was a door,” reminding us that difficult times create openings for us to reimagine ourselves and the world.

Likewise, in this time of losing the familiar rituals of fall—homecoming dances, sports games, and trick-or-treating, to name only a few—the challenge Gluck insinuates in her poem is: at the end of a difficult time, can we recognize the doorway and find the courage to open and walk through it? Can we create new ways of engaging in classrooms, in political discourse, even in the way we spend time with family and friends? Can we become better listeners, seeking to open more doors of opportunity and understanding, to discover new ways of understanding race, identity, and the American story?

In this season of new beginnings, with the falling leaves and changing temperatures, God invites us to cross new thresholds, whatever form they may take. 

--The Rev. Katie Solter

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