Revelation and Revolution

A Year of Essays: January 2, 2022

Two weeks ago, our friend, Cheryl, stopped by on her sojourn to the Southwest. An eclectic and eccentric, Cheryl is on a spiritual and personal and professional quest many of us take, just not quite so boldly. “Revelation and revolution,” is her motto. Since her visit, I’ve been contemplating those words.

I’m not one to do New Year’s resolutions. One day at a time, Sweet Jesus, but let me take the wheel. [NOTE: I’m neither Christian nor religious, so the “Jesus” bit is colloquial. I know he was a cool cat, and we’d’ve hung together…no pun intended.] Every day, though, is a revelation and maybe a revolution. Some of these revelations are impactful and create, yes, revolution.

Presidents’ Day weekend 2007. Grading done. Roommate off for the weekend. Recovering from a toxic relationship break-up four months earlier. Thinking maybe I should jump into the dating pool, but a little scared of the deep. An email ad from Match.com — “try us for free for the next three months.”

I created a profile, entered some key terms, and clicked around to see if anything caught my eye. An image of a guy with shoulder length blond hair and piercing blue eyes stared back at me. I read his profile. I was hooked at “gourmet country.” After emails, then talking on the phone, we met for dinner. We pulled into the restaurant at the same time and parked next to each other. Four hours of laughs and chatter, none of it sexual. My sister asked how it went: “I enjoyed it, and I hope there’s more.”

That was almost fifteen years ago. A revelation that caused a revolution, both good and lasting. We seek those revelations daily, maybe hoping for a revolution. The most meaningful revelations are between each other, when one says, “Me, too.” That empathetic bond creates relationships that carry us along, sometimes just walking the same path for a while, sometimes walking together forever.

That “me, too” can also be an end. That can be a revelation that is also revolutionary, ridding ourselves of the injurious. Painful they might be, they are the right revelations so we can become revolutionary.

While I’ve pondered Cheryl’s maxim for myself daily, my thoughts also turn to the state of our world. The pandemic has been a revelation, and it has caused many a revolution in people’s lives, individual and collective. Bruce went to the market this morning and noted that NO ONE wore a mask in the store, and then he said: “Maybe this is the one to get so we have herd immunity.” A revelation to hear a nurse, my nurse, say this, and maybe a revolution upon us that will allow some sense of normalcy in the near future.

Every day, I want to awaken to find a revelation — in a story, in a student, in my spouse, in my pets, in my friends, even in my foes — for each can lead me to a revolution. And it can be fabulous.