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At first, sheltering in place felt rather pleasant. I had been praying for a simpler life - surely staying at home would cut down on my tendency toward busyness. Yet, almost immediately, I began cleaning out closets and drawers; drawing up new schedules of daily tasks. While I was no longer driving hither and thither, I was still driven.
Eventually, the limitations imposed on me did work a change. Like a gentle rain, stillness sunk in and softened the crust that had held my life in one form. In the quietness of my new circumstances, I began to focus on one task at a time. While I was having fewer encounters with others, the encounters I was having were more meaningful. The nightly news images of others dying or dealing with illness, unemployment, loss haunted me. Yet I also noticed trees as I walked in the neighborhood, children on their scooters and bikes going up and down the street, birds at our feeders. The colors of my life were a bit more vibrant than before. In the midst of the inconveniences and losses, I was sensing a peace within myself.
One of my heroes, Joseph Bernardin, spoke of this kind of peace. Before he died, he said, “What I would like to leave behind is a simple prayer that each of you may find what I found - God’s special gift to us all: the gift of peace. When we are at peace, we find the freedom to be most fully who we are, even in the worst of times. We let go of what is non-essential and embrace what is essential. We empty ourselves so that God may more fully work within us. And we become instruments in the hands of the Lord.”
May it be so for all of us.