Fr. Don's Daily Reflection
Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”
Occasionally some tragic event like the death of a fellow student will hit our college students with the need to value the present more. Their “present,” however, usually lasts only a few days.
Then it’s back to:
“When is spring going to come?” “Next summer we're all meeting at Lucy's cabin on the Fourth.” “I'm just coasting.” “I can't wait ’till the weekend.”
For most of us, with the arrival of COVID-19, that “present” seems to be hanging on.
The present and the hoped-for future vie for attention. We hope for the “good old days” when we knew there would be final exams, graduation in mid-May, followed by June, July and August and ending with the return to classes (in a room with real people within touching distance!) and football.
In the shadow of COVID-19, we live in uncertainty. When will it end? We hope soon – or sooner! It certainly won’t hurt to pray for an end.
“Stay at home” makes living in the present – often in the same building! – a necessity while we hope for an end. But living here and now can mean valuing our time, our family, our friends, not taking for granted the people we live with or see all the time.
Unfortunately for the unemployed, the present means food shelves, seeking/accepting neighborly and governmental assistance, being stuck with the same place, the same people, day after day.
Our thoughts in this time of having to distance ourselves from friends makes all the taking for granted that we have done seem doubly wrong.
But the stimulation of the future keeps breaking in. Balancing the future and the present falls to each of us. Good news comes when a friend in Hong Kong calls while sitting in a coffee shop (!). A friend in northeastern China encourages us when he says that schools and businesses are re-opening.
All the good times, all the great people, all the wonderful opportunities are not in the future. There is so much now that we should embrace and cherish while it is before us.
Families in the present crisis can find themselves with a renewed sense of each other’s value. We can choose to see it as a time to learn patience with each other's quirks, odd habits, laziness or excessive energy.
It helps others and takes our minds and hearts off dear "me" if we can direct our thoughts and energies away from ourselves to the good of others.
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!”
