Psalm 62: “In you alone is my soul at rest. My help comes from you.”

“If, driving ourselves through the Bible, book after book, we get past Leviticus (perhaps we aren't really expected to read all of that), we come to another book that seems far from our experience, Numbers. It tells of the Israelites' wandering in the wilderness. They are shown as a crowd of grumpy old men, grumpy old women and even grumpy kids. They are bored, angry, resentful as they move through the inhospitable desert. They have, of course, had some signs of God's care such as the manna.

But even we, amid the profusion and variety of food available to us, get bored with too much lasagna or the same old cereal. So their experience in the wasteland is not so far from our experience. We find life, at times, difficult, boring or dreary, full of worry and danger.

As we know from personal experience, not all the grumpy people are in Numbers or the movies; a good many live in Beijing, Boise, Sarajevo, Edmonton, Caracas or Dar es Salaam. Yet if we're alert, we can recognize signs that God is among us, too, that the heart that once pitied the weary crowds and fed them is still moved with pity for us. (Matthew 14:15)

Sometimes life seems beautiful, exhilarating; at other times we feel as weary and grumpy as any Israelite in biblical story. We would like something more dramatic than the Eucharist to show us that God is present, something more exciting. Anthony De Mello says:  “The divine is only found in the ordinary.”  Bread and wine are the ordinary.

God is going to be with us and help us in simple ways, in our meals with others, through our contacts with good and encouraging people. Possibly we should ourselves be the ones who encourage, give hope and inspire even when a world-wide virus attacks our world.

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!”

Reply to Fr. Don at: DTalafous@csbsju.edu

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