Happy New Year!
I trust you had a good Christmas season. Happy New Year!
As we welcome this new year, a theme keeps coming up in my mind that I’d like to reflect on. ‘Dislocation,’ simply explained, is the state of being displaced from that which is familiar. It is a state of disorientation where nothing seems to make sense. It can either be physical and/or psychological. Physical dislocation may involve being displaced by conflict in your country, and now living in an internally displaced people’s camp (IDP), or it may even involve fleeing the only country you have known and surviving as refugees in foreign lands. I was reminded during Christmas of the child Jesus and his family who had to flee their homeland to escape a blood-thirsty king. Please offer your thoughts and prayers for many in similar situations today. And may they be guided back to their homes.
Psychological dislocation can be due to various personal factors such sudden career loss due to layoffs or even retirement from a job to which has one’s identity has been inextricably tied. Ironically, for some, it happens because they feel tied to a job which holds no interest but to which they can’t see any more promising options. Dislocation also comes as a result of loss of relationships, whether having to let-go or being let go.
We see and experience dislocation in different ways. But beyond the angst, the ambivalence and the disorientation synonymous with dislocation, there is light at the end of the tunnel, hope of finding your way, of finding stability – hope of a bright future.
‘The Storm’ from my ‘Light II’ album recalls my experience being caught in a storm and lost. This experience seemed to last like an eternity but somehow I was miraculously saved and found my way back home. Enjoy this track and share! Happy New Year!