Introspection: And Life Ground to a Halt

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And Life Ground to a Halt

I will populate you with human beings...  The cities will be inhabited, the ruins rebuilt...  I will cause you to be inhabited as you were before.

Ezekiel 36:10-11 (CEB)

It's down to this

I've got to make this life make sense

Can anyone tell what I've done?

I miss the life

I miss the colors of the world

Can anyone tell where I am?

From "Away from the Sun" by 3 Doors Down

Elijah had been trudging through the wilderness alone for forty days when he finally reached Mount Horeb.  There, he took refuge in a cave and rested for the night.  God told Elijah to leave the cave and to stand on the mountain, because God would soon be passing by.  Elijah emerged from the cave and waited for God.  First, there was a powerful wind.  Next, there was an earthquake.  After that, there was a wildfire.  It turns out that God was present, not in the wind, the earthquake, or the wildfire, but rather in the stillness and silence that followed.¹

In the silence, Elijah heard the voice of God; in the stillness, he realized that God was indeed at work; and, in the solitude, he learned that he was not alone in his struggles.

On the day before Ash Wednesday, when I reflected on the story of Elijah's experience at the Mountain of God, I noticed the Lenten themes of silence, stillness, and solitude.  During the season of Lent, many Christians fast from something in order to grow closer to God.  Silence is a fast from distractions; stillness is a fast from busyness; and solitude is a fast from performing for others.  I began to consider that maybe, during Lent, I should seek ways to somehow practice these things, but I was not sure how I would do so.

For the first few weeks of Lent, my Lenten project for the year kept me busy and distracted; over time, however, silence, stillness, and solitude seemed to close in on me.

A lot has changed in the last couple of weeks.  For me, it feels almost as if life suddenly ground to a halt.  I didn't spend very much time at home previously, but now I spend very little time away from home.  Everywhere I would normally go is now closed, and everything I would normally do has been cancelled.  I've been working from home, which is something I never particularly wanted to do.  Instead of going to church on Sundays, I've been streaming church services online.  Picking up a takeout order or visiting a restaurant drive-thru is now what passes for an excursion.  I've been taking walks, not at the park or the college campus where I walked previously, but around my own neighborhood.²

This is my life amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sudden changes in life have brought with them some anxiety.  I always experience pollen allergies this time of year, but, because of the pandemic, symptoms I would normally ignore put me on edge.  I also find myself falling into a scarcity mindset.  I'm afraid of running out of things, especially since I'm becoming increasingly nervous about leaving the house.  I'm not afraid of catching the virus, since I'm probably healthy enough to survive it.  I'm more afraid of unknowingly passing it along to someone more vulnerable than I.

My focus for the year is cultivating courage, but I don't really know what that means right now.  I had hoped to practice courage by doing things I had been hesitant to do, but some of those things are not possible at the moment.  I feel that lately I've been acting less from a place of courage and more from a place of necessity.  I'm not sure that I need very much courage to simply do what has to be done.

Right now, I'm trying to carry on with my life as much as possible.  I'm not pitying myself.  I know that this pandemic is affecting everyone, and I realize that, right now, many people are struggling a lot more than I.  I know that some people are suffering in ways I cannot even imagine.  I don't feel that I'm missing out on anything during this time of seclusion, since there is very little out there to miss at the moment.  I'm really just trying to process these sudden, radical changes in my life.  Some people say that this will be a time of learning and growing.  If there is some great spiritual truth to be learned in this season, I don't yet know what that is.


Notes:

1. 1 Kings 19:1-18
2. Before you ask, yes, I'm keeping a good safe distance between others and myself.

The photograph featured above was taken by Pixabay user Pandorah.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.  For use on this blog, the image has been cropped.