Fr. Don's Daily Reflection - May 27, 2024
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
From Fall of 2020, we reminisce:
Cindy, writing from New England, confesses: “I have been feeling sorry for myself. A bit later this May I was supposed to go to the Willamette area in Oregon, give a paper at a conference, hang out with friends, spend a week with my son, and then rent a car and with a retired prof from New Haven drive down the Coast toward Monterey, etc. Of course, all that is off the table. In my struggle not to whine there’s been a deepening of gratitude.”
She goes on to say that she realizes more and more that gratitude, the opposite of whining or self-pity, is a hard practice – like daily exercise – not simply a feeling.
“Your continued use of Psalm 62 has reminded me of this, and how this practice makes a difference in the day. . . . And, of course it is true that most of the planet is really, really suffering – and me? I’m disappointed in my travel plans! Instead, I can talk to God – even complain a bit to God. How lucky I am to know that God's there to complain to!”
Like Cindy, a colleague and I made reservations in February to see alumni, to have an event, etc., in the California Bay Area. All that was shadowed in the uncertainty of Covid-19. And we can do very little about it though, of course, self-pity is always an easy option!
These are times when it’s good to hear (phone, FaceTime, Zoom, email, note in the mail, etc.) from a friend with a positive, a hopeful attitude, or to find among your companions in quarantine a smiling face, an upbeat mood – even in the staff!
The family of a deceased Michael G. wrote this of their father: his life rested on one consistent pillar, his Catholic faith. (I think we could expand that to refer to the faith of any believer, whatever faith.) He described faith as “the bird who sees the light and sings while the dawn is still dark.” Why not: hope is the bird who sees the light and sings while the dawn is still dark?
Psalm 27: “I believe I shall see the Lord’s goodness / in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord; be strong; / be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord!”
