Born to be Free

Six feet apart. No groups of more than ten, for safety's sake. Humankind retreats into the four corners they feel are more a house than a home. We, the beings with souls, are doing everything we can to protect and heal our bodies.....but our hearts? They're broke wide open, bleeding. We'd like to think we're capable of carrying on in a context of isolation, that we are self-dependent, that the world can fall apart around us and we'll be okay. But the lesson we'll be learning, the holy test we've just been handed has been taken from chapters we haven't bothered reading into as a society. Connection, and the great void we call loneliness. This isn't the first time human beings have known so great a separation. Way back in the beginning, we are told in Genesis 3 of how the first human beings were escorted out of the Garden - ushered out of direct contact with the God they had walked with each day. That's when they started to die...

God has a way of repeating some messages.  Maybe it's because we weren't listening the first time, or maybe He's wanting to prove a point. In Genesis 41, we read about Pharaoh's dream of the famine that would soon overtake Egypt.  A reoccurring dream.  "And the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that the thing is fixed by God..." the text says.  Similarly, Jesus repeated lessons to his disciples - and phrases such as "Truly, truly I say to you..." to catch their attention. The other day, someone mentioned to me the importance of recognizing our humanity.  It is far too easy for me (and perhaps I am not the only one who's this way, but maybe I am) to try to shut out my emotions in the face of crisis or difficulty. There are some of us who believe, perhaps unconsciously, that allowing ourselves to be concerned, to mourn, to feel any sadness or uncertainty at all - is a lack of faith.  Something that shouldn't be.  A side effect of the...