We are in another COVID 19 surge, and because it involves a variant, it presents differently AND there’s this familiar sensation of living without security.
Here we go again, only different this time! Will the supply-chain issues continue? What exactly will be the impact with so many workers out sick? Will I get sick this time, (or again?) How do we live with that feeling?
I’m reading a book by Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr, entitled What the Mystics Know. He points out that Mother Theresa’s community, the Missionaries of Charity live without security all the time, with or without a COVID 19 surge going on. They take vows of poverty and concurrently vows of service, and hence the lack of security. Their only real possession being their unquestioned belief in what their lives mean and in what they are doing.
He writes, in part, “The sisters were not people needing security, answers, and order, but in fact people willing to live without security, with very few answers to their questions of mind and heart, and amid almost total disorder - hour by hour - with God. Is this not the ultimate nonviolent life we are searching for?”
I’m not suggesting we all take on that lifestyle and move to Calcutta to be able to navigate these unsecure times. What I suggest is we look within to find what truly spiritually supports us, therefore releasing our need to control what is going on around us, people’s behaviors, or the ways situations are handled.
Seek and find whatever it is that makes us want to simply be a better person and allow the Divine change us instead of us wanting to change others or our circumstances.
Mother Teresa is no longer around to ask, but I suspect that process is what brought about one of her most famous poems:
Mother Teresa’s Anyway Poem
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
….Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
….Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
….Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
….Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
….Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
….Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
….Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
…Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
I suspect the only true security there is - is just that. Between ourselves and the God of our understanding.
I understand that is a process and not all of us have necessarily “arrived” at that destination. Sometimes we succeed to a certain degree in that process, and then all the sudden, we struggle. Here we go again, only different this time!
No worries, there is an answer to that, too, and it’s not very complicated.
All that is required is willingness. Be willing every single time.
The benefit of such willingness is spelled out very clearly in Matthew 6:33:
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
I thank you for listening, be blessed this day.
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