“The Divine Heart is an ocean full of all good things,
wherein poor souls can cast all their needs;
it is an ocean full of joy to drown all our sadness,
an ocean of humility to drown our folly,
an ocean of mercy to those in distress,
an ocean of love in which to submerge our poverty.”
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque
I went back to the grocery store yesterday…
The sign reads, ‘meat custom cut the way you like”
I ask, what meat???
We’re all hunkered in and down in the house…all together.
And right now, we’re all having to make sacrifices…
Consider changing the Sheriff’s big messy diapers…
they have now become a massive joint effort…
I actually took my chances today and in a moment of desperation, I went to Target.
I walked in carrying my own Lysol wipes.
I bought the Mayor a dart shark board.
Plus some sidewalk chalk…but it’s now supposed to rain for the next three days…
of course it is…
Luckily we can play darts sharks and fish
in the house.
Or fill an empty water bottle full of dried rice, screw the cap on tight and shake it
till our heart’s content, or I’m crazy.
And in the middle of all of this new craziness that we’re each finding ourselves
living in, I really don’t know what should be considered new, normal or merely insane.
I have a dear friend in Florence, Italy…I’ve tried getting in touch with her now
for over a week…not a word.
Each day there is a new tally of loss.
Italy has not experienced losses like this since WWII
And what about Spain?
Iran?
France?
The US?
My state of Georgia.
My county?
My city?
I walked outside this afternoon and I heard the birds.
This is such a wonderful time of year to hear the melodic symphony of singing.
I can actually see Spring rounding the corner and I think life is oh so normal.
Oh so rhythmic.
But yet I know it is anything but normal and our ‘oh so taken for granted’
rhythm has been broken.
We only think that we are living with inconveniences.
We grumble.
We grouse.
But what we are seeing, experiencing goes far beyond inconvenience.
This goes beyond our grumbling and complaining.
And I think it is slowly dawning of those who had thrown caution to the wind and went on
living life as if nothing was different…I think maybe, just maybe, they might finally
be getting the memo…life is now very different.
I had read a friend’s post today and she said in all of this craziness she had actually forgotten
it was Lent—and it dawned on me that I too had forgotten Lent as well.
But then I considered the thought that I hadn’t actually forgotten Lent…but rather
I am living Lent.
We are all living Lent.
In this desert wasteland that we now find ourselves wandering,
I am assured that both good news and Hope remain.
Victory is waiting for us on the other side of this desert.
We just need to keep making our way through the barren wasteland because when we do,
we will find Christ waiting with open arms…in part because he walked this desert long
before we ever took the first step.
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:55-57
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