“How quickly settled people forget how to live in the unsettled world!”

*Li, Yiyun, Must I Go, Random House, 2020, p. 327

Our bodies, the landscape and our world change constantly, but at a pace we have come to expect, providing the illusion to many of us that we have settled lives. If not settled lives, then settled expectations even in a time of upheaval such as a move, a death or divorce. For the most part we learned how to be settled people, comfortable in our expectations.

For nearly six months the pace of change has been a whirlwind, and we are coming to recognize just how unsettled the world is. Normal will be something else even once we have a better handle the on virus causing COVID-19. Our expectations no longer work in the world around us. How quickly we moved from being settled to unsettled and yet life had always held uncertainty.

Now is the time to shed our desire to control, our faith in self-sufficiency, and our self-focus and open more deeply in the certainty of God’s Love to which all are invited and grow in faith in the journey of life whatever the path.

Love, faith, journey of life may sound like pie in the sky solutions to our unease, anxiety or outright fear, but all three are very real and ground us in reality.
We are called to Love in action and to be faithful to claims of others upon us.

May our great desire to return to “normal” life be tempered by a deeper awareness of the pain, divisions and inequities made clear in recent months.

May our frustration with masks, distancing and cleaning help us know how much we value one another.

May our fear of entering society again guide us to those who care about us.

May our longing for a life without troubles and disruptions bring us to gratitude for what we have and the gifts around us.

We are not where we were, we do not know where we will be, but we are here right now.

With every blessing,
Mother Elizabeth