Quiet center
"A life without a quiet center easily becomes destructive... In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared."---Henri
J.M. Nouwen
In the hectic daily struggle to survive in today's extremely competitive world we rarely, if at all, have time to reflect on the purpose and meaning of what we do. Many of us, through no fault of our own, often have no time for other than to assume that our daily routine is what life is all about.
This unexamined life, driven by market forces to compete robot-like for everything life can offer has to be the only explanation why we live in a world where many treat others as inferior beings for the color of their skin, religion, gender, (lack of) education, subordinate social, and marginal financial, position.
In competition there are winners and losers. The sad thing about it is when we look around we see a heck of a lot more losers than winners.
Holy Week is traditionally a time for an examination of conscience and atonement for our sins to God, country and neighbor. This time around a deadly virus is challenging us to go deep inside ourselves and into our quiet center (we create if we don't have one yet) where we discern our role (active participant, passive bystander or gamechanger) in the creation of a society where living conditions for the majority are deplorably subhuman.
Since God is love and empathy and sharing are hallmarks of love, then the most damning sins we can commit are hate and greed which, singly or together, cause a great many of us to live in conditions unworthy of human beings. We are thus challenged to discern how much of these two evils fuel our drive to compete and figure out how we might atone for them and move on to more loving, more cooperative and more compassionate lives.
Communists see the problem as economic with a political solution. Christians, however, should see the problem as material (food, health, jobs, etc.) but with a spiritual solution (love and compassion, cooperation and sharing, etc.)
In the fifties, Sammy Davis Jr. sang "Stop the World, I'm Getting Off." In a way Covid-19 has stopped the world for us. But there's no getting off, just the once in a lifetime opportunity to go inside our quiet center and there realize that, as Christ's death exemplifies on Good Friday, "Life is not a possession to be defended but a gift to be shared."
May our visit this week to the quiet center of our life mark the death of our hate and greed so we can rise with Him on Easter as new men and women who, imbued with love and compassion for all, are able to share with everyone the best of who we are and of what we have.
A blessed Holy Week and a glorious Easter to everyone!