Imminent: get ready America

The early hours of the morning, before the sun decides to rise, when it’s quiet and cool and blue outside-faintly-as if color itself respects the silent surrounding world. You can hear yourself breathe, undisturbed. That’s when hope is the loudest when we are the quietest. Today is Easter, Resurrection Sunday. The churches are empty but so is the tomb. Over two-thousand years ago, a man laid down His life and then picked it up again three days later so we could have hope. We have hope now. That’s where we are now, the morning hours. A time that is so beautiful and silent that it’s almost eerie and too often we miss it. We sleep right through and when we awake, it’s as if the quiet had never come.

Only now the silence lasts all day, from the brisk early morning into the late night. This pandemic has put the world on pause and it is frightening how quickly we’ve become quiet and how quiet we’re forced to be. Weeks in quarantine makes you see things differently. People, yourself, society. The earth itself, finally able to catch her breath after the choke of pollution relinquished. The air is clearer, the water is cleaner, even the mountains stand taller. Remarkable. Unblemished reality. The reality we created just by slowing down. In the words of Julio Vincent Gambuto, we are in The Great Pause and we need to pay attention because it is very likely that we will not be here again. The world has stopped and we need to take notice.

Possibly the only thing this surreal instance can be related to, a time where life practically ceases, is when life literally ceases. That feeling when they’re gone and you loved them and you can’t tell them anymore. They knew and you knew, too but now you feel empty and the world continues to spin while you’re stuck in slow-motion. That’s where we are, only it’s a different kind of grief and we need to pay attention to the stages because there are more to come. The Great Pause is an unexpected gift amid international tragedy but most of us won’t remember the gift we have been given or the tragedies we endured. Why? Gaslighting. You’ve heard the term. If you haven’t, it’s a manipulative tactic used to make someone doubt their own sanity. The narrative of our hearts has been written and it has been released with a warning. Read the full story here.

Photo by Gabriel Duarte. written by Julio Vincent Gambuto.

To gaslight is to make someone think they’re crazy to the point where they question reality. To be gaslit is not fun, I endured it and it wasn’t until years later that I realized what had happened. Finally learning the truth had me screaming in my car in a parking lot. I felt stunned, angry, surprised and relieved all in a single instance. To be lied to, to be insulted, to be devalued, how disgusting. How disgusting that we as humans can stoop so low in the treatment of one another. Gaslighting is what we have to look out for next, America, it is coming. Let’s not let that happen. The words of Julio Vincent Gambuto paint that picture better than I can on Medium. Take advantage of the ample time we all have and read his words. Who would have thought that wistful saying, “in the now” would be forced upon us? Honestly, I couldn’t wrap my head around that concept before. There was always something to jump to or be distracted by in the present. Now, we have to be present. I understand. We are living in the now because now is all we have. Ninety years ago we had The Great Depression and now we have The Great Pause. Let’s make sure history remembers.