A Different Kind of Fatigue-- Carolyn R. Wilker

 

 

I read an article this week about fatigue. Not the physical sort where one works too long and gets exhausted, or the kind where people struggle with chronic illness. This kind of fatigue deals with the kind of watchfulness and care we’ve been carrying around since early March. 

Think of a life guard charged with the careful watching of a pool full of gleeful people splashing around—children and their parents—and the eagle eyes the life guards must have. And the break they need once people are out of the pool. This kind of watchfulness, albeit, is a different kind than we have been practising, with little relief in sight. Add to that the many reports of where the virus pops up and where the curve is flattening and the potential of a vaccine being developed.

I see all this and have to dial down the news but not dismiss it completely.

Situational awareness, as described this week by Globe and Mail writer Jillian Horton, refers to this kind of watchfulness since the pandemic was first declared. Not just in one country, but in countries all over the globe, including us. People are getting tired of doing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop.

The CERB benefit has helped many people, including some members in our family. Some companies offered delays in payment of certain bills, others offered free resources to help anyone in those positions, and that was good when we all needed to stay safe and limit our coming and going to only those things that were entirely necessary.

For people with continuing jobs, working from home, we had the reassurance of knowing we could pay our bills. We could buy groceries and necessary prescriptions. 

Jesus fed people, he healed them and brought comfort to many in distressing situations.  What can we do when so many are hurting?

For companies aching to get back on their feet at a critical time, it has to be hard financially, and for those companies that closed, an even harsher reality. Supporting local business, including restaurants with take-out food, is one thing we can do, where we have the means. 

In our extended family, we had two deaths in early July within 24 hours of each other (not by Covid, but still painful). One family decided on a donation to the Food Bank of their community; that was a place we could make a contribution. 

 

Our resources may be limited, financially, or our physical energy limited. We can exercise good judgement, do our best to keep up the practice of physical distancing, wash our hands, and wear our masks out in public, where distancing is not possible. And maybe that’s all you can do.

All this is essentially the commandment to love others as we love ourselves. Be well, stay safe, and help where you are able. And maybe for some, it's a 'listening ear' or something fresh from our

garden.

Believe in the Value of Your Personal Story by Rose McCormick Brandon

Give yourself permission to believe in the validity of your own narrative. Bill Zinsser

I'm a member of The Word Guild, an organization for writers who are Christian, and the group that sponsors this site. Each year hundreds of us enter work published during the previous twelve months, vying for awards in several categories, fiction and non-fiction. The first year I entered the competition my work was shortlisted but didn't place. The next year I placed first in personal experience and second in another category.
        The year after that, I entered two of my published articles. I thought both were good, very good in fact. You can imagine my surprise when I didn't shortlist, never mind place. At first, I was miffed. Something must be wrong with the judges. Yes, for sure, it had to be them, it couldn't be me.
        After the awards gala, I received, as is the organization's custom, copies of the pieces I entered with comments from the judges. Two articles. Different judges. Almost identical comments that went something like this: This writer knows how to tell a story. (Thumbs up.) Then each went on to say how disappointed they were when my personal essay descended into stories and quotes from other so-called experts. "I wanted to hear what you had to say," one commented.
        One judge wrote that I'd begun well, hooked the reader, then lost the reader when I gave my voice to someone else who wasn't nearly as interesting. (He said that, I didn't).
        I remembered my previous shortlisted and winning essays. I'd written from my heart, opened a window for the reader to see into my soul. Somewhere between year two and year three, I'd decided my views needed confirmation from others. I know how this happened. I wrote a few articles for a magazine that sculpted my outlines. They suggested who to interview. I followed their advice. I had to or my work wouldn't be published. Some subjects require confirmation from experts but I'd carried this practice into my personal experience essays - a mistake.
       Each writer comes to the task of writing with her own life experiences. Those experiences shape us. I can quote other writers and I still do but I'm careful now not to give my voice to someone else. The writer's voice is his greatest asset.
      You'll notice a quote from Zissner at the beginning of this post. The reason I quote him is, you guessed it, to confirm that the judges of my work were right - my story has value. For that reason I need to treasure it and express it in my words not in the words of a stranger.
       You may not be a writer but you have a story to tell. Tell it from your heart as simply as you can. Tell how your story connects with God's story. His big story is what makes our small stories significant.

On a small scale, we have repeated a portion of early church history in our own personal stories. The life of the believer is the life of Christ in miniature. C. H. Spurgeon

Keep all God’s salvation stories fresh and present. Micah 6:5 (The Message)

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Rose McCormick Brandon is the author of One Good Word Makes all the Difference and Promises of Home - Stories of Canada's British Home Children. Visit her blogs: Listening to my Hair Grow and Promises of Home.

The Spectrum of Life Ruth Smith Meyer

Life presents us with a whole gamut of experiences. 2013 has certainly already imparted much thus far—both elating and distressing, personal and world-wide.

Just in the last few months the distressing has almost seemed over-powering.  On a larger scale: the Boston bombing incident, the Bangladesh factory collapse, the news of the three Cleveland women held in captivity for ten years, the New Orleans Mother’s Day shootings, the killing of Tim Bosma, a young innocent, husband and father.  There have been recent stories of political people who seemed to be reliable seriously violating that trust, costly actions taken at the expense of taxpayers only for political gain. In our personal lives, we’ve experienced the ups and downs of a cancer journey and physical ills.  This line of thought could be further expanded with more incidents.  One could think if there wasn’t bad news there would be no news at all. Life could get discouraging.

Then quietly, we become aware of the other end of the spectrum.  Spring arrives, slowly, but surely.  New growth appears.  The buds on trees burst into leaves, bedecking the branches in a myriad colours of green.  Shoots emerge through bare ground, unfurling into innumerable variety of plants and blossoming into countless varieties of flowers.  Shrubs and flowering trees in succession explode into beauteous array and rapturous aroma. Our hope and belief in a living God are renewed.  

We begin to take note of other hopeful things happening around us: new babies arrive with the smell of heaven and the aura of innocence; men and women finding each other and happily wed themselves to each other with the promise adventure and growth of love and fulfillment; people giving of themselves to help someone in need; those who didn’t think of their own safety, but raced to help those hurt in the bombings; people helping for days, to dig through the rubble to find those still living, the public honouring the need of privacy for the women who had been held in captivity; virtual strangers organizing a ride to raise funds for the grieving Bosma family; a young child writing a book to raise funds for a friend with a life-threatening disease and far exceeding his expectations and those of his parents; a politician going above and beyond the call of duty; a teacher applauding a child who has made great strides in his school year.

New babies arrive with the smell of heaven and the aura of innocence.  Men and women find each other and happily wed with the promise of adventure and growth of love and fulfillment. 

Yes, life presents both good and bad. We can become bogged down if we concentrate on the bad, if we only bemoan the chaos and sin in our world.  But if we look, we can find ways to turn those very things into opportunities for growth, for compassion, for ingenuous ways of showing ours and God’s love and care.  Yes, there will be scars left from many of those tragedies, there will be chasms of emptiness that seem too big to ever be filled, but one step, one act of kindness, one touch of understanding at a time and something new can rise from calamity.  It’s up to you and to me.