Reflection
March this year has been an incredibly difficult month. At a time when we are used to celebrating the rebirth of Springtime, we have been faced with daily bulletins of sickness and death. We have all suffered loss in one way or another. Reflecting on this, columnist David Brooks wrote a very thoughtful article in the New York Times in which called this pandemic a plague.
“The plague today is an invisible monster, but it gives birth to a better world. This particular plague hits us at exactly the spots where we are weakest and exposes exactly those ills we had lazily come to tolerate. We’re already a divided nation, and the plague makes us distance from one another. We define ourselves too much by our careers, and the plague threatens to sweep them away. We’re a morally inarticulate culture, and now the fundamental moral questions apply. In this way the plague demands that we address our problems in ways we weren’t forced to before”.
We can analyze the truth of his words and see the problems of our society in a clearer focus. Perhaps our common experience of isolation, vulnerability, and fear can impel us to break through some of the destructive barriers that have been erected among us and so give birth to a better world.
Prayer
Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
Action
Read the article and reflect on it. The Moral Meaning of the Plague , by David Brooks, New York Times. March 27, 2020
Suggested Reading
Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Isaiah 43:19-19
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16-17
Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.
Francis of Assisi
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.
Marianne Williamson
The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.
J. Pierpont Morgan
I think we need to do some deep soul searching about what’s important in our lives and renew our spirit and our spiritual thinking, whether it’s through faith-based religion or just through loving nature or helping your fellow man.
Louie Schwartzberg
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Henry Ford