Sunday, August 9
Mary Beth Zibilich
The last few weeks have been unsettling. Every day, new stories about confrontations between non-maskers and maskers go viral. Videos show a woman throwing food out of a Trader Joe’s cart, an older woman having a temper tantrum on the floor of Costco, a young man breaking the arm of a security guard in Target, and a man pulling out a gun at a McDonald’s, the “hap-hap happy place.” And my husband and I come home from Publix with our tales of encountering “ugliness.” I have found myself giving other shoppers “the look.” Hiding behind my mask, I have uttered “filthy language from my lips” (Col. 3:8). Perhaps you have your own stories. Many of us are angry and filled with what Shakespeare calls “tiger-footed rage” (Coriolanus 1.311).
I have stopped reading our local Nextdoor.com because the “tedious arguments” beget name-calling. Labeling each other “sheep” and “Karens” is not very neighborly. Fighting about whether learning will be face-to-face or virtual is not edifying. Even on a UNC basketball site, some fans are attacking the university for displaying a large Black Lives Matter banner in the football stadium. As much as I want to leave those forums, I have been drawn into some of these debates--debates that only leave me tense and angry. Shakespeare warns us: “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot/That it do singe yourself” (Henry VIII). Scripture exhorts us: “My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:19-20).
A society depicted by William Butler Yeats seems akin to our current situation: “Things fall apart. The center cannot hold (“The Second Coming”). Fear drives our words and actions, and we want to fix our broken world. The poet Emily Dickinson, however, reminds us that “In this short Life that only lasts an hour/How much-how little-is within our power” (1292). Too often, my focus on the “how little” leaves me feeling hopeless.
Countering these feelings of despair and hopelessness is a prayer from Richard Foster:
Hope in God
How, O Lord, can I have hope when this world is such an
insecure place?
Natural calamities destroy.
Economic uncertainties abound.
Human beings kill.
I AM the light of the world.
What, O God, is reliable? What is secure?
Not people.
Not institutions.
Not governments.
I AM the way, the truth, and the life.
I fear, Lord, that evil will win out in the end.
I worry that my efforts will be for nothing.
I feel overwhelmed by powers beyond my control.
I AM the resurrection and the life.
You alone, O Lord, are my hope. You alone are my safety.
You alone are my strength. May I even with my fears and
anxieties, my insecurities and uncertainties swing like a
needle to the pole star of the Spirit.
Amen (Prayers from the Heart)
