From the Zebra Bag   Musings from a follower of Jesus, husband , father and pastor

I have written often in the past weeks about the impact COVID 19 is making on the epidemic of busyness and hurry that has been infecting our culture increasingly in recent years. In many ways this epidemic far more subtle and dangerous than the current pandemic and threatens to last long after our current hardships are a thing of the past. Unless of course we decide together to take steps to make sure it does not!

It would seem the strategies that must be adopted to conquer this sickness are far more difficult to articulate. There are no vaccines or antibodies, there are just choices and decisions. These choices however may be strange and difficult for those around us to understand. If we find it difficult to wear a mask for the safety of others how easy will it be to resist the temptation to over schedule and allow the joy of family time to be squeezed out once again?

This short passage from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin explains the challenges of setting and implementing effective strategies to slow down and trust God and His word.  

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability— and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually— let them grow, let them shape  themselves without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you. And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete                                            Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The time to begin thinking and planning patterns for the future is now so we are as ready as we can be as we move forward. Have you any ideas you can share with us?