Live

News, social media, and personal experiences give witness to our collective anxiety.

And as collective external experiences become individually internalized, they trigger sorrow in our hearts. Each experience dis-integrates us, so how do we integrate within ourselves the heightened collective experience of disruption?

Even when we do everything right- washing our hands, social distancing, and caring for one another- we cannot predict the next moment. When the first positive COVID-19 case in Harrisonburg was identified 9 days ago, I felt the world in me shift. You know that feeling? When inside your chest and your stomach, a slow but undeniable movement happens, and from one breath to another, your eyes see a new world, your body lives in a new space. Everything has changed.

It was one sentence that changed how I would practice medicine for the coming … who knows how long?

And for each of us now, it’s a few words that crumble the lives that we thought we could control fairly well. For those not on the frontlines – not going in to classes, not going in to work, not going out to socialize. For those on the frontlines- no definitive guidance, no imminent relief, no assurance of protection.

And the few words that change our lives individually are compounded by the multiplicity of words that witness to a collective shift.

How do we take it all in without falling apart?

Now, as a collective, we surrender to uncertainty.

Now, as individuals, we are called to live each moment with full integrity.

We must remember that we were not given a spirit of cowardice (servitude, stupor, self-indulgence).

We each have been given a spirit of power (clarity), and love (creation), and self-control (choice) (2 Tim 1:7).

See with clear eyes what is happening in front of you.Love one another with wild generosity.

Discern with an open heart what is being asked of you.

And in every moment, LIVE.