We are fastly approaching the one year mark of the two week pause of Covid 19 and as we approach this monumental moment, I am filled with both hope and heartache. Hope in the fact that my faith has taken a decidedly new turn to Jesus, but heartache in what I still see before me.
One year ago today I was about to celebrate my 47th birthday. I could see what was coming and I was already prepping (as was all of Western New York it seemed, at least at my grocery stores...) Toilet paper, meat, chicken, cheese, bread, bread FLOUR, was literally MIA and for weeks we wondered silently if it wasn't just the corona virus that would kill us all, but our selfish desires to not run out of food....
To say it was a trying time is an understatement. For those who have never lived through such chaos with a large family, the burden to make sure my family wouldn't either starve to death, or not be able to wipe their butts, was almost as traumatic for my husband and I. We tried everything to find toilet paper and meat (because of course, we were almost out of our yearly supply of beef from the cow we purchase.)
Imagine trying to plan a meal for 10 people three times a day seven days a week for what started out as two weeks, and eventually led to months and months of closure and no work.
And fear. Fear. FEAR. So much fear. I lost myself a bit during those times. I am only speaking for myself, and perhaps I should of clarified that at the beginning so that no one thinks I am condemning or shaming anyone. We all have to come to terms with our fears and that is something I believe we can wrestle with our entire lives. But the fear was very real and intense at the beginning. No one understood how this virus spread. We would hear of people who never went out ever who contracted it. We heard of people riding in the same car who got sick. It was enough to make anyone's anxiety go through the roof. And it really reminded me (looking back of course) how easy it is to say one thing, believe one way and when faced with the trauma, event, etc, do something completely different. My husband has always said, "An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal..."
We were locked out of churches. Couldn't buy clothing at the stores. Malls were closed. Restaurants were closed. Since one of my daughters had a compromised immunity, my husband was working from home for the better part of a month. (We have since discovered, she most likely could tough out the virus if we get it.) It was a very difficult time for everyone. We watched as the other side of the state was literally in a war zone of people dying by the hundreds daily. It was surreal.
But as the months wore on, and more was discovered, we began to adapt as only humans can and have done since the beginning of time. We adapted and over came. I even had my mammogram in May (we hopefully are doing better about all of our annual visits that are desperately needed for prevention). Life was starting to open up in the world. My husband went back to work (honestly, not sure how he could do his job from home... ;) ) My children went back to work in public and we told them be cautious. For the first few months back at work, I washed their clothing daily and made them shower as soon as they got home.... (don't even ask me now- I'm lucky if some of them bathe daily anymore....)
It was still a tense time, but churches opened back up in our area (praise Jesus) and we finally got to go receive Him in the Eucharist.
It was such a brutal time for my children, though. I don't think we will recover as a nation, or world really, over what we did to our children. And in some places are still doing to them. To give some back history on what I mean by this if it doesn't make sense: I had the awesome privilege when I first graduated from college for working for the YMCA at the Salvation Army. We opened a child care facility actually at the Salvation Army for moms who were trying to get back on their feet again and also for all the transient families who found themselves suddenly staying at the homeless shelter. It was both rewarding and heartbreaking, but it brought to light the fact that a majority of our children in our country are very close if not living in less than desirable situations. Fast forward to today and one doesn't have to go very far to hear stories about inner cities who have all but lost a great majority of their kids online for school to realize this. Even in the district I live in, there are stories of children who are not present. Online, or physically. It's heartbreaking. I know homeschooling is an amazing option for so many, I am presently doing that for my younger ones-but the reality is, not everyone has that capability, nor the resources or ability to home school. And that is just a fact.
The mental anguish some struggled with, the emotional anguish some struggled with, the giving up attitude some struggled with, was very hard as a parent to watch. Ricky and I cheerleaded often and we tried to be as positive an influence as we could. It was sometimes very hard to balance the concerns of the world in our minds with what our eyes were seeing in our children, but we tried desperately to give them such positive love and comfort. It definitely had it's moments, games we ordered, tennis in the street, 200 pieces of chalk that had only four colors, hiking with half of western New York at local places (since there were no bathrooms open, we had to keep it close for a certain mom of many and her tiny bladder). All the puzzles we worked, the bread we baked. The cinnamon rolls we learned how to make. The sour dough starter that's still kicking today.
Eventually we realized that life needed to begin to move on. People were being safe, but the message was still doom and gloom. All summer long, my kids visited friends, worked, played sports, and we visited family. We tried to live as much as we could. Restrictions were put in place to make some things more difficult, but we tried to make the best of a ridiculous situation. The fall brought about more closures and suddenly we were once again being pelted, no, slammed with "we aren't doing enough to fight this virus."
It was quite maddening how the news manipulates us to believe it's our fault. And what was more depressing, was listening to the people who believed it.
It all brought something to mind as I began to question my own sanity and wondered if I was the only person who couldn't figure out WHO decided Covid was not going to be the cause of death for us. What planet were we on that we suddenly got to pick what would be the cause of our demise. I was always led to believe we didn't really know when, how, or what we would be the cause of our death, but we had to live and live for Jesus. That's not what I was seeing anymore. I was seeing people afraid to be near one another. Even healthy people afraid of each other. Conditioned to believe everyone can spread this unbeknownst to one another. The Eucharist dropped from above, things handed to another in a plastic container. No paper at school because covid. Books must sit for 96 hours, because of covid. It was, is, crazy the things we have witnessed in the name of safety.
Now I can already hear the one who thinks I've gone too far. AMY- this was and is prudent because we MUST save grandma. I can honestly tell anyone who says that to me that if we really cared about grandma- we would've been like the protests last year (that went on largely during massive outbreaks but were told they weren't super spreaders....) and marched right to Albany and demanded our governor be removed for what he did to our nursing homes. And that's all I'll say about that.
Scripture is always something I like to turn to when I'm struggling with humanity. And a few Sundays ago, the gospel reading should of smacked every.single.Catholic in the face. It was the sixth Sunday of Ordinary time and it was the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The gospel was from Mark chapter 1 verses 40-45. It was the leper who came up to Jesus and knelt before him and begged him to make him clean. Jesus was 'moved with pity, stretched out his hand, touched him, and said to him, 'I do will it. Be made clean.'"
Now the gist of that story was that Jesus had told him not to tell anyone and to go show himself to his priest and offer his cleansing for what Moses prescribed. But the man told everyone and Jesus was no longer able to go anywhere without being followed. But did you get what happened with Jesus and the leper? Jesus TOUCHED the leper. Leprosy was bad during that time. So bad, people were not allowed to go certain places. Were banned from public. No one dared touch them. If you are familiar with the Saints, St. Damian of Molokai, went to live with the lepers on Molokai to take care of them. He eventually contracted the disease and died. His story is quite remarkable and I encourage you to find it. But his story along with this one, reminds me of what we as Christians have sometimes forgotten. We were not called for a life of comfort and safety. Perhaps, quite the opposite if we really believe in what it means to be a true follower of Christ. It's no mistake that all but one apostle died a martyr. Jesus made it abundantly clear that to follow Him was not going to be easy. We can easily put ourselves in a bubble and pretend we are outside looking in at the past and think that things are different now. They are not. And while we might not be in third world countries serving some of the neediest, poorest, sickest people in the world, being at home during a pandemic, might be as close to becoming missionaries as some of us will ever come. Jesus TOUCHED the leper.
And have we really decided that is not what is happening? Did we decide that we would not become victim to this virus and would at all cost separate ourselves from one another? We were not made for isolation. We were not made for online learning either (and that is a story for another day). Are we really that afraid of one another that we shudder when someone puts their hand out? We mask, we use way too much hand sanitizer (to be honest, I've stopped using so much of that because it's really not good for us.) Y'ALL...Jesus TOUCHED a leper. Did you see that? Did you read again?
I don't want to die. My human self decided long ago that I love life and I love my family and I love my husband dearly. But God did not design it that way. And if we loved Jesus the way we should love Jesus, we would understand that more deeply. I am reading a really good book about St. Elizabeth of the Trinity and listening to a podcast about it, and the ladies this week spoke about how marriage and the chaste life are a glimpse of what Heaven is like. It's a bit more than I care to type out, Abiding Together Podcast is easily searched, but the gist was that in marriage, the husband and wife have a love that resembles the love of God of His people, unconditional and unwavering. The religious life sacrifices that bond of love to give their love and life completely over to Jesus. Knowing that one day they will be with God and will feel that love. But the point that I feel was being made is that, this life was made to be temporary. Our goal should always be Heaven. God did not make us to live in this world forever. Heaven is the ultimate love beyond any Earthly comprehension. He made us to be with Him in Heaven for eternity. It SHOULD be the goal of each and every one of us. And we let shiny objects distract us from that goal often. Remember what I've said, Jesus touched the leper.
Just like we let scary pandemics distract us from that goal as well. How many people died of the Spanish flu? The bubonic plague? How many babies died because of Herod's fear of Jesus? The American Heart Association says 655,000 people die each year from cardiovascular disease. Experts predict over 600,000 will die of cancer this year. We are human and our human hearts forget that death is imminent. My husband and I discuss death a lot. With his job, it's sometimes impossible to avoid. He takes risks not everyone takes and it requires us to always be in check with our lives. He always tells us that when he dies, he wants us to remember that he lived a great life. He had the best job, he had an amazing marriage (he really says that... ;) ), and he loved his children dearly. He tells us that all the time. He gets it. He also doesn't want to lose any of us, or miss out on things of this earth. But he knows this life is extremely temporary compared with the next.
We have let fear guide us and make us think we must do everything humanly possible to live as long as we can. We are avoiding living by doing this in some regard. I can't begin to list the amount of people I've spoken with who claim our lives will get better with a vaccine. But will they? Are we that afraid of death?
Do you want to know what I think?
I think the one thing we truly need to be doing, is praying for more faith. Asking Jesus how we can grow less in fear and more in faith. A mustard seed is super tiny.
Jesus was very explicit in Matthew 17:20. "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
Did you read that? Read it again.
Faith in knowing that God has every aspect of your life. Faith in knowing that God is the author of life and if we don't start living like we believe that, well, I don't know about you, but the 10 plagues He brought about to the Egyptians makes me think we might want to start living like we believe. I'm not saying He's going to bring plagues if we don't straighten up our ways, but the Old Testament is full of things that make me think it isn't impossible.
I hate Covid. I hate whatever sinful nature brought it to this point. Whether someone experimented with bats or ate them, something doesn't smell right. But what I am trying to understand is perhaps this mess this last year was brought about to bring us closer to our Lord and the understanding that we are not immortal and many of us missed that. Perhaps we were supposed to grow in longing for the loss of the Eucharist and the sacraments, but instead, we grew accustomed to not going to Church and not receiving Jesus. Instead of longing for Jesus, we grew farther and farther away from Him. One just has to look at churches that are open right now to see that. When things started opening back up, did we put our faith as a priority? Or did we go back to the shiny distractions? Don't get me wrong, I love things getting back to normal, but I see more than ever the reminder that death is one pandemic, one diagnosis, one loss away, so the normal for me, will never exclude Jesus. Or the Eucharist. Satan is master of disguises, friends. I've told you before, he wraps sin up in pretty packages and makes them very enticing. "Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14).
Let us pray and remember that Jesus touched the leper.
