The Perfect Storm

Every time we turn our attention to the news, we hear of one crisis on top of another – rising food prices, cost of gas, gun shootings in several cities in the U.S. and war in Ukraine.  Each of these events alone present new challenges, but when they all seem to be happening at the same time, we can feel overwhelmed as we try to emerge from COVID 19.   And I have heard several people say they feel depressed and helpless as they we live this reality in one way or the other. 

Image: Unsplash/Louis Reed

However, one of the messages coming from the Climate Movement is to remind us that all life is interdependent.  When one part of our Beautiful Blue Home thrives, we are all better.  The reverse is also true.  We also experience the pain and sadness of the effects of climate change, war, and sickness.  We are all interconnected and what happens to one also impacts others.

In the past few weeks, I have been working with some wonderful people who have just arrived in Canada after fleeing conflict in their home in the Congo and then living several years in a refugee camp hoping to come to Canada.  Their life has not been easy, and they are people filled with hope, gratitude, and love. They are eager to settle, improve their English and find work.   Their positive outlook has been a blessing - a kind of visitation from God. 

“Sometimes God shows up in our lives in human form and visits us in a way we do not expect.”

Sometimes God shows up in our lives in human form and visits us in a way we do not expect.  If we open our minds and hearts to welcome the human face of God, not as I expect it, but as God choses to visit we might discover more wholeness and hope. 

Rumi, the poet expresses this so well in the poem called The Guest House.  I will offer a few lines…

…This being human is a guest house,

Every morning a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected guest …

Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond…

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of furniture, still treat each guest honourably. 

He may be clearing you out for some new delight… (by Rumi)

 -Sister Joan Atkinson, CSJ

CHILBLAINS on my SOUL

Two years into this pandemic, surely all of us have those moments when all is not well with our soul. Due to a Covid outbreak, I once again find myself cloistered in a room. Though on this frosty Friday outdoors it feels like -20°C, it is cozy in my room and yet there are chilblains on my soul. Chilblains, you may ask. On your soul, you may ask. Yes, there is a chill in my soul.

My room faces the steep incline of a hill, so I do not have ‘a room with a view.’  What I do have on this bitterly cold morning, are dainty frost flowers on my windowpane. Do you notice the perfectly shaped heart in the bottom right-hand quarter? That icy heart caused me to pause and ponder. I asked myself whether the icy finger of the pandemic has painted chilblains on my heart and soul.

This pondering brought to mind Henri Nouwen’s reminder that, “Each day holds a surprise [or more!!!]. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us...whether it comes to us as sorrow, or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts”. This first day of being newly cloistered, certainly came as a surprise, laden with sorrow. I really should have seen it coming. The most recent Omicron ‘mantra’ warned us that it is not a matter of ‘if’ we will have an outbreak but ‘when’ we will have an outbreak.

Obviously, I did not listen nor really prepare myself for this déjà vu experience of once again being cloistered in a hermitage. When seen through the rear-view mirror of experience, hindsight provides insight into what we missed. So, now I am cloistered once again. If, according to Thomas Merton, “Every breath we draw is a gift of God’s love; every moment of existence a grace,” how, despite covid fatigue, do we embrace each moment of this strange Covid existence as a graced moment? Much has been written about the pandemic offering us time to take stock, to evaluate our lifestyles, to make healthier choices for our planet.

Can I view this time of isolation as gift, as a time to appeal to the better angels of my nature? Here and now, cloistered in my hermitage, can I choose wisely to use this opportunity to offer my chilblained soul hospitality, a nurturing space conducive for change to take place within me? If I do, might these turn out to be graced moments, opening up a window to my soul to peer inside with new eyes? Might I discover what St. Bernard of Clairvaux calls, “the real behind the real”? In the stillness of my hermitage, my soul might give voice to the real reason, why all is not well with my soul. I have a sense it may whisper that by my attitude to this elusive viral enemy I am putting myself in the way of grace. Have I given this pandemic, this moronic Omicron, the power to inflict chilblains on my soul? As you and I stumble forward in this pandemic, what ongoing change of attitude will assure that we will eventually embrace the newly evolving normal with grace and confidence? Yes, these have been soul-destroying times. Undoubtedly, we all need to confront the challenges we face. However, let us also remember the joys of life and the hope that can fill our lives and that we can bring to others, even while nestled in isolation.

“You listen with only one purpose: to help the person empty their hearts”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

The well-known Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh died recently. Among his many qualities, he was known for being an extraordinarily good listener. He believed that deep listening helps relieve the suffering of another person for, “You listen with only one purpose: to help the person empty their hearts.”  I believe, we also need to listen deeply to the whispers of our own soul so as to empty our heart. There may well be chilblains on my soul. Maybe, on yours, too. But let us trust in God, who created and lives in our soul. God is not ‘out there.’ “God is in all, through all, and with all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). With God’s help healing can occur so we can joyfully acclaim, “It is well with my soul.” Even during this pandemic.

-Sister Magdalena Vogt, cps

An Encounter on a Winter Walk

Early Sunday morning I embarked on London’s Thames Valley Trail amid brilliant sunshine, gleaming snow and –12 C weather.  As I walked along the River Thames, a thirtyish man walked from his small tent at the river edge up to the trail. He asked if I was one of the women who had left some Tim Horton’s donuts for him. I had not.  He introduced himself (I will call him “John”) and we shook hands; his enclosed in thin gloves and mine in bulky fleece-lined hide mitts. Asked about being cold with his thin jacket and flimsy tent, he stated that he was warm enough.  He then spoke about a sixty-one-year-old friend. The man’s bicycle had been stolen. A month earlier, the man had suffered an injury caused by a tree falling on his ankle - the same ankle that had been fused following a previous injury. The friend had crawled a fair distance through the scrabble along the river edge to John’s tent and John arranged for an ambulance to transport his buddy to the hospital. John had not been able to locate his pal and was concerned. He wondered if his friend would be able to walk again. When I told John that I would pray for him he asked if I went to church on Sunday. He was on his way to meet a pal at a nearby church.  He described a church in east London that had become so crowded that a second site was opened across the city.  John asked if I knew anyone who might need help for tasks such as clearing snow from their sidewalk.  He liked to help older people. I had no suggestions and we amicably continued along our respective paths.

This weekend a convoy of trucks and a multitude of supporters in Ottawa are angrily protesting mandatory vaccines, obligatory masks, vaccine passports, and other covid restrictions.   I reflected on my chance encounter with a man who was living in a tent in -12 C weather.  He expressed no anger, blame, or frustration about living in a tent, covid restrictions, or food insecurity.   Rather, he was cheerful, grateful for an anonymous gift of donuts, concerned about others, and confidently lived his faith in God.  I wondered if John would have felt welcomed and at home in my church. And I thought that if Jesus should make an appearance in our city whether he would feel more welcome and comfortable in John’s church than in mine.

-Sister Pat McKeon, csj

St. Elsewhere

I have not thought about the TV series, St. Elsewhere, in years. Not until this morning, when my dear friend Jack referred to it in an email, he sent me.  Do you remember watching this American medical drama in the early 80’s?  I watched it in South Africa. The show was about the lives and work of the staff of fictional St. Eligius Hospital, an old and disrespected Boston teaching hospital.  According to Wikipedia, “The hospital’s nickname, “St. Elsewhere”, is a slang term used in the medical field to refer to lesser-equipped hospitals that serve patients turned away by more prestigious institutions.”  

You may be wondering where I am going with all of this.  It all started when my quirky mind jumped into gear while I read this in Jack’s email, “… one must admit, [it is hard] when one wishes for St. Elsewhere, when here is the moment we have.”  Of course, the moment Jack refers to is this pandemic with all its endless challenges and restrictions.  For me, as you already know, the moment is here, nestled in my room during this particular Covid outbreak. As well you can imagine, hunkering down in my hermitage for the fourth time, was not high on my to-do list.  I had other plans.  Still, once again, I had to face, as John Lennon put it, that “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.”

At some point during this alone time, I began to wonder what God’s plan might be in all of this untimely stint of isolation.  “I know the plans I have for you...plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” we read in the Book of Jeremiah 29:11.  Did these plans have to include yet another stint of being sequestered in my room?  As wonderful as it is to make plans and dream about being elsewhere, we should not be surprised if God brings us somewhere else.  Ah, yes, there is that saying that we should let God be God.  Still, sigh, I would like to have a say about my destination St. Elsewhere! 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

— Jeremiah 9:11

There are times in our lives when all of us would rather be anywhere else but where we are.  Sure, being in isolation once again is reason enough to wish I were anywhere else but here. Where else would I rather be? Where is that place called Elsewhere? Obviously, this is not about Fernweh or Wanderlust. This is something different.  In my present situation, I am wondering if it is because I am tired of being alone with myself. It is one of life’s ironies that, no matter how much we want to get away and be elsewhere, wherever we go, there we are.

Yes, wherever I am, there I am. But more importantly, God is there too.  One of my favourite scripture quotes, “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you” (John 15:4)  invites me to be rooted in God, my home, my dwelling place, the place where I abide.  Home, then, is wherever I am and not elsewhere.  Which begs the question, can I be happy here and now, sheltering in place during this “winter of [my] discontent?” In my warm home St. Here, instead of wishing I were elsewhere, can I be fully present here and now?  Yes, I can. With the grace of God, here and now, though I am weak, I am strong.  So here I am, with myself, in isolation, choosing to be content and at peace with my situation in St. Here, not hankering for that place called St. Elsewhere.

During these frosty winter months, the sun rarely shines into my room, except briefly around noon.  What gift, to feel the sun’s warmth on my face here and now. Warmed like this, I count my many blessings and refrain from stressing over things I cannot change. Instead, I will shine some warmth by calling a friend and sending emails to those I know feel isolated and lonely. Perhaps you, who read this are one of them.  Be blessed, my friend.

Sister Magdalena Vogt, cps