Week 3 thoughts
When my daughter, Ellie, was at the stage of life to be contemplating university courses and a possible “life path”, she was studying biology, chemistry and maths. Not surprisingly, some of her teachers wondered whether she might consider a career in medicine. Very wisely she said to me “It’s not for me, mum, I know I couldn’t save everyone, and I wouldn’t be able to cope with that”. Our current NHS staff are certainly facing the truth that they cannot save everyone who contracts the Covid 19 virus. My heart goes out to those who run the risk of ending the day either feeling useless and sick-at-heart, or else physically sick - contracting the virus themselves.
Those of us who are not in the health service still have to face a sense of uselessness. The father who cannot calm the fears of their frightened child; the teacher who is furloughed or self-isolating; the minister who cannot visit a bereaved family, or conduct a normal funeral.
We feel useless, adrift, and lost. We cannot do what we would usually do.
But many years ago now a teacher first told me “we are not human doings, we are human beings”. I have just googled the phrase and found it attributed to everyone from Rob Bell, through Rick Warren to the Dalai Lama. I suppose like all good quotes it resonates.
We often ask ‘what can I do?’ and when we reach a point in life when the answer to that is ‘nothing’, we are left with a sense of uselessness. But the question ‘what can I be?’ can still be answered. The right answer depends on the situation we are in, of course.
What can I be.. when everyone is angry and critical? Loving
when people around me are overwhelmed? Joyful
when there is competition for resources? Peaceful
when tempers are frayed in ‘lockdown’? Patient
when it feels like it’s every person for themselves? Kind
when everyone is struggling to survive? Generous
when hard questions are asked about where God is in this? Faithful
when the life we can live feels harsh? Gentle
when we are at our wit’s end? Self-controlled.
You don’t have to be eagle-eyed to spot the fruits of the Spirit there – a reminder that we are called to be conduits of God’s loving Spirit.
But the Spirit doesn’t come to enable us to sit around being. The Spirit comes as a gift of love to help us to be God’s holy people with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength – in what we do as well as who we are.
We cannot, in the end, separate doing and being. And so some of us are left feeling useless, whilst others fill our days with activity because we fear the feeling of inactivity. Maybe we just need to stop more and .. breathe.
So I'm going to try to remember that the Spirit is often described as breath – giving peace, energy, hope.
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