RBWords - Volume 32 - Number 8: August 2019
Something to Think About
r.b.words – vol. 32 – no. 8 – aug. 2020
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT –
The calendar year 2020 will forever give us something to think about! Besides being a difficult election year, we have endured, so far, the coronavirus pandemic and riots as well as (in the case of Louisiana, etc.) the impact of Hurricane Laura! The virus seems to hang over everything from the economy to the U.S.Mail to religious faith practices to education at all levels. Our public health authorities have not been uniform in their recommendations, and this has not been helped by elected officials who ignore any of those recommendations. They are not the only ones who ignore them, to be sure! Colleges and universities are frantically trying to save the semester by offering in-person, online and “hybrid” courses in order to keep the virus from spreading on campus. The results can be easily undone by what happens off-campus in student gatherings. (Face masks and social distancing seem so antithetical to one’s college experience!) Story after story appears in the media of the impact of the coronavirus on people who have lost their jobs or their homes or their long term health because of after-effects. Even those of us whose inconvenience seems paltry compared with those stories are feeling a kind of “corona fatigue.” We just want it to be over with and wish more folks would wear masks and the researchers find a vaccine!! There is that uneasy question as well about what the next virus-without-a-vaccine will be and how ready we are to deal with it!
We Catholics have had our sacramental/devotional lives seriously disrupted and have had to experience “live stream” Mass, and parking lot communion or reconciliation. Religious education directors have had to develop new programs. Weddings, funerals and baptisms are reduced in attendance. How long, O Lord! For the time being, praying for the sick, the caregivers and the researchers is a good thing to do in addition to wearing a face mask and observing social distancing. At least that’s what I’m doing. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
It Has Been Said
English-speaking tourists abroad are inclined to believe that if only they speak English loudly and distinctly and slowly enough, the natives will know what’s being said even though they don’t understand a single word of the language. Preachers often make the same mistake. They believe that if only they speak the ancient verities loudly and distinctly and slowly enough, their congregations will understand them. Unfortunately, the only language people really understand is their own language, and unless preachers are prepared to translate the ancient verities into it, they might as well save their breath.
Frederick Buechner, LISTENING TO YOUR LIFE