I am heartily fed up with our lock-down situation, as so many people are—though I know we must do it. I believe we are doing the right thing. Except that some people aren’t, so very few—and their selfish actions threaten yet another break-out of the virus.
Even more, I am heartily sick of the media coverage constantly barking on about what happened 7 months ago and using words like ‘fiasco’, as if some break-out was not inevitable. As if it changes anything. Blame-chasing is their only game, as it if were a public service, when what we need is solidarity, support and encouragement. Had they assisted in building community confidence, we might well have been out of this by now!
It is at this time that I turn to some words of the hero of my student days, then already dead, who really did know what it meant to endure a long, long, long struggle, beyond my imagining.
Martin Luther King Jr wrote these words at a time when he too acknowledged the struggle to maintain hope and faith:
In recent months I have also become more aware and more convinced of the reality of a personal God.
True, I have always believed in the personality of God. But in past years the idea of a personal God was little more than a metaphysical category which I found theologically and philosophically satisfying. Now it is a living reality that has been validated in the experiences of everyday life.
Perhaps the suffering, frustration and agonizing moments which I have had to undergo occasionally as a result of my involvement in a difficult struggle have drawn me closer to God.
Whatever the cause, God has been profoundly real to me in recent months. In the midst of outer dangers I have felt an inner calm and known resources of strength that only God could give.
In many instances I have felt the power of God transforming the fatigue of despair into the buoyancy of hope.
I am convinced that the universe is under the control of loving purpose and that in the struggle for righteousness [humanity] has cosmic companionship. Behind the harsh appearances of the world there is a benign power. (1960)
I found these words in an anthology which accompanied and enriched my life for many years, but I have never been able to find the original context or source.
They remain a challenge and encouragement: First, to recognise that he, along with everyone else, had times of deep angst and despair. Then, to recognise that ‘God’ is not so much an intellectually satisfying idea (if it ever was, for me) as something that encounters me in everyday reality: the unexpected, sometimes wonderful, often unknown presence, which simply holds things together in the face of great odds and constantly invites us into a place of calm, acceptance, and renewal.
From this place, accepting that we do not have to hold the world together nor fix it, or anything, comes a renewed strength to make some kind of positive contribution. Not great. Not special. Not calculating. Just offering a hand, a cup, a smile, a presence, a word.
Behind all of that is a being power. Cosmic companionship. Wow!