NA HULIAU
by The Reverend Dr. Robert W. Nelson
Most of the changes we experience in life take place over a long time, and we only see their effect after-the-fact, like moving from childhood to adulthood.
And others seem to hit us right between the eyes but affect us over a long period of time. Like, remember where you were and how you felt when you first received news on 9/11? Or when the 2008 Recession really hit home? Or when the impact of this pandemic began to sink in?
Those are powerful and defining moments between what has been and what hasn’t yet been able to be formed. There is a unique word in Hawaiian: na huliau, times of change, when we look back and can’t yet see ahead. And they’re hard.
One of those moments for me was when I was 19 years old and I was standing on top of this shear 500 foot cliff on the Jungfrau in Austria that I’d summited. I felt so thrilled and proud of myself, just like a 19 year old! And then, after enjoying my accomplishment and the incredible mountaintop vista for a long time, I looked down and tried to not to panic as I had to force myself to take the first step on that totally vertical mountain cliff. That was huliau and it was a life-changing moment!
For seven months, you and I’ve lived in na huliau. It is one of the most powerful and defining moments in our lives and our nation’s history, even in world history. It’s like we summited and viewed horizons back before this all began. And we’ve been stuck looking down ever since and trying not to succumb to inactivity and boredom, on the one hand, and frustration and panic on the other. We’re in unknown territory with a whole lot of unease. And it’s often unpredictable and confusing.
We’re cut off from loved ones and friends, from worshipping and feasting together, and looking to the day when we can be back together again, hugging, laughing, eating and sharing. We’re caught in the middle between our first shock in February and March and wondering and worrying about how and when this part of our journey ends. We find ourselves sometimes worrying about the virus and the vaccines, at risk of depression and despair, and at risk of putting our faith in phony theories or faithless persons in the hopes of calming our fears.
These hard, but defining, transitional times for us, na huliau, have taken away many of the things that define our days and our lives, the things that give a sense of well-being.
And yet, I believe—and I would hope that you too believe—that each and every huliau also gives us a possibility, in fact, an opportunity, to take a FIRST STEP and to put our whole selves into it, to imagine new ways of living, to try on new, creative routines and practices and projects. For some of us who are out of work, it becomes a time, maybe, to consider and to take on even new kinds of work. It certainly requires us to consider new and different ways of living our days. Living in the present raises faith to a PROFOUND TRUST that God is working and moving even when things seem to be going nowhere.
I believe that this huliau is a time of letting go of unhelpful or imagined thinking. It is a time for healing. It is a time for gaining insight, a time for creativity and for thinking outside the box. I believe this huliau is the time to dare to take a first step.
