The poet Qoheleth tells us there is a season for everything and a time for every matter under heaven. Fear or anxiety did not make the list in Ecclesiastes chapter three, but wisdom and science confirms that fear has its’ time, its’ season. For the last several months, and particularly the last several weeks, our awareness and anxiety has grown regarding Covid-19. The World Health Organization tells us about the pandemic. The President tells us of the state of the nation. The Center for Disease Control tells us what we can do to prevent it.
It is enough to make one want to run for cover and hide. I encourage you to be different. Now is not the season for absence or hiding, but a time to be present.
First, remember to be present to self. While it is important to be informed, staying constantly connected to media and to anxious conversations will only exacerbate fear. I encourage you to find time throughout the day to put down your phone and disconnect from all the other voices. Take time to be present to yourself and allow time to just be. Take time to unplug and breath. When you sigh, it is often your body’s way of saying that you are not getting enough air. Take a breath, a deep one, be present, and find the gratitude in being who you are as someone lovingly created in the image of God. Parker Palmer reminds us that “self-care is not selfish.”
Be present to others. With talks of quarantines and staying away from crowds, it is very easy to isolate in unhealthy ways. While it may not be wise to be in large groups or confined with others in close quarters, loneliness is not healthy either. Think deliberately about how you can be present to others. To hear a voice and see a face and share a laughter is a generous gift. Sending a note or phoning a loved one can be life giving. Remember that you need not be alone. Community occurs in sharing. Just as there is a time to disconnect, it is also important to know when and how to connect.
Be present to the sacred. It is easy to see only the profane and broken. Virus outbreaks, sicknesses and deaths are a reality, but it is not the only reality. The earth shimmers with the transcendent and too, too often we pass right by it. To paraphrase a line in one of Alice Walker’s novels, “I think it makes God mad to walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” When I slow down enough to catch a glimpse of patches of green, green moss growing in the crack of a sidewalk or hear the murmuring chorus of spring peepers at night, perhaps it is a gentle, holy nudge by God saying, “See this, hear this.” We are not abandoned to go it alone. Sacredness blooms in the many acts of kindness and compassion happening all around us. Let us partner in such acts.
Please know that this current time of upheaval and uncertainty need not be an existential threat, nor something you must bear alone. We face this season together. Take a breath. Be.
The best advice I have heard. Your words are from the spiritual not the clinical.
Thanks Greg
Greg, I am sharing with my friends at The Cottages. This mirrors beautifully the thoughts that I have. We cannot isolate ourselves and focus only on the fear. Thank you!
A timely word well-said, Greg! Thank you for your priestly heart.
Thank you for this! Great advice! Our God is in control and He is with us!
Absolutely love this! Thank you for sharing your faith so eloquently with us!
Thank you dear Greg for a much needed reassurance in this time of anxiety. Blessings to you and family. Toni
Sharing with my perpsThank you for the day brightener.
Thank you, Greg for your words of encouragement. I will live
by faith and not fear!
Thank you for this!! Great advice!!
Thank you Greg for sharing this with us. It is something I have been wanting to share but could not say it as well as you have done. Beautiful job. Panic is one of the worse things we can all do now in a time like this. God knows the plan and we have to go with that. Thank you again.
Greg, Shortly after I read your excellent observations on anxiety I took our dog outside. I could hear three hawks circling above me. I invited my wife to come out and enjoy their “joyful noise onto our Lord”. They were surely singing “How Great Thou Art!”
Everyone needs to hear these positive words. Thank you for sharing.
Excellent advice!
Thank you so much, Greg. Wonderful advise for a time like this.
Thank you, Greg….we needed to hear this. Great encouragement.
Caring pastoral advice! Thank you for this, Greg. Best to you and yours!
Thanks so much for this great message , Greg ! We all need to remember that God is in control of it all . We are still a brother ship that needs each other.
Words of hope, contentment and joy – knowing and acknowledging who we are as His children. Thanks for the well written reminder!
Thank you Greg, You always know how to say what we feel.
Living at 1800 Clairemont Lake makes me wonder if you ever come to Emory? It is a couple of blocks and we have chapel every Wed. at two p.m.. I wish you would be close enough sometime to share some words of wisdom for about 20 minutes. Getting old does have challenges but it so comforting to know Who is in charge.
I received this post from a friend that used to attend your church. This gets to the core of what walking through troubling times is about as a believer. Straight fire! Thank you, Greg! God Bless you for all you do! 😉