Today, we are watching the Lord of the Rings or will be. The Hobbit (the first one) came on, and we’re watching and I’m already thinking of starting the true series when it is over. There is enough there to remind me of what we loved, while enough bloat to remind me of why this series (the second trilogy that was the prequel), failed to capture the heart. Not enough of this…
Too much that felt like I was watching a tutorial for a video game…if you want to beat the river, drop the barrels full of dwarves at this point, this point and this point by hitting “Y” and then “X” and “Z” at the same ti me.
Still, it is a good reminder of how much we love a good epic and that we are in one.
The story of Covid, whether one avoided it or not these past almost now two years, is part of an epic tale in which we discover that courage comes from doing what is right when it is unpopular, when it is unwanted, because it makes a difference that cannot be fully appreciated until all of it is over. It is not over. We are all of us, going on an unexpected journey, an adventure whether we’ve left our homes or not, that reveals if we believe that it is through power that evil is conquered, or through friendship.
Today, we eat more of the gracious gift given yesterday, and it is a reminder of the kinder merrier world that favors food and good cheer over horded gold, the world we must work and will to reassert, the world God willed for all of us. The problem with having Covid, is it means I can’t go out my door, so all the good I would do, I must somehow do without leaving. It’s a hard puzzle, because there’s the temptation to stick to that quieter path of the hobbits who also do not get the requirement of life to do more than simply be comfortable when one can only stay home. However being Catholic means somehow doing the more even when one can’t leave…so I’ve put things on my schedule, things to do that must happen, as part of doing the active component of living required in a day. Part of it is watching the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist.
Watching the mass and somehow willing myself to be more fully present since I can’t be in the pews and hoping that while the others watch, they too discover there is more to it than simply where we are and what we are doing. We can get lost in a story or a movie or music or art, but in the Mass, one gets found. The falling into the mass is the stopping of time, is the beginning of entering into the full presence of Heaven. I don’t prefer online mass, but the mass coming to our house makes the waiting through of this time of Covid, better.
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