Double Whammy
Grace and Peace to you, in the Name of our Creator, who gives life,
Jesus, the Son, who loves life, and the Holy Spirit, who is the fire of life.
Personally, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Not only have my work and daily routines changed, but we are all being emotionally buffeted in ways we could not have imagined…first being hit by COVID-19 and now being faced with riots, racism, abuse of power…injustices on so many levels. It’s exhausting and demoralizing on a large scale. Thankfully, there are still moments of light…and sometimes we have to grasp at the smallest straws that becomes a shaft of light…
We used to use the expression “double whammy”, meaning a series of two bad or adverse things happening at the same time. I think we could safely say that we are in the midst of at least a double whammy, if not a triple or quadruple whammy. We are witnessing the pain and anger, the mourning and soul-but we . In the face of these massive challenges, it is easy to get overwhelmed, glaze over…and retreat into whatever safe bubble is ours. And that’s understandable. But it won’t make us feel or be better in the long run.
Our faith calls us to “care about what God cares about”, as John Cashore would say. When we put ourselves into that paradigm, we will know at least some of what to do day by day…especially the small acts of love and kindness, the small shifts in how we see the world, the small ways we notice God, the Holy Spirit at work in our lives and in our world, the small ways in which we utter words and prayers of gratitude. And there is always room for the kind of prayer that puts us into the Presence of the One who commands and equips us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength…and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Maintaining Motivation and Recovering Purpose…in a Pandemic
Here is a link to an article in the New York Times from May 2020 by Jane E. Brody https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/well/mind/motivation-pandemic-coronavirus.html
The article points to the importance of doing what is meaningful and being motivated from the inside. Well worth the read in this time when motivation can be in short supply.
Another helpful focus is on clarifying our purpose. A couple of good TED talks on purpose can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=640BQNxB5mc (by Rick Warren)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfiToT6S0j8 (by Richard Lieder)