“As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.” And some translations go like this…
As water reflects the face,so others reflect your heart back to you.”
– Proverbs 27:19
I’m writing this post on December 26th… remembered as the Feast of St. Stephen Day from the old song… “Good King Wenceslas” and also the second day of Christmas… one of those twelve days which help us recover from what has become a hectic and tiring time but also offering some energy to guide us into a new year. 2023 is coming but before I dive all in… I’m wanting to take some time to look back at 2022 and if I may go back even a bit farther to Spring of 2020… for a special kind of perspective… when the world was asked to embrace an acceptable “lock down” to flatten the curve and put a quick end to what we now know as a pandemic that lasted over two years but has yet to fully disappear. Looking back always helps my going forward and without pointing out guilt or shame or victory and an accolade or two I hope this kind of review is good for you, too!
Can we say life is different than what life was like in Christmas 2019? Of course, we’ve all been impacted by the circumstances, behaviors and responses to the Covid crisis. But think… 20 years from now there will be an entire generation around the globe who will have no view of this moment save the words they read in history books and from the tales we tell them about all that went down… Faith matters and look… the world is still spinning and there is life to get on with…
So, let me take a moment… in no uncertain order or preference to jot down some thoughts about what I think happened…
Kudos to the ones who took this moment seriously… you know the ones who washed their hands over and over and wore masks all the while praying … “I hope this kind of thing won’t ever happen again…” and how that made so many people dig deeper in their own hearts to be kinder and more gracious to friends and strangers… there were no cars and rear-view mirrors in the days of King Solomon… but the idea of looking back and taking note obviously is not a new one!
And there’s more… the schools were impacted… people were sent home to work remotely and often had to fight over the one computer in the house for mom and dad and their children… Teachers and administrators got a crash course in social media and on-line education. School bus drivers lost income. Custodial staff worked overtime sanitizing facilities. Many spouses were happy to find different ways to spend time with each other as the NFL, NBA and MLB came to a screeching halt. And…
We all watched the news more intently hoping the media and broadcasters would offer us some words that we could understand and employ in our own lives. And employers? They learned something new… people could work from home remotely and still be as productive as they were in the office. Now office building space is at a premium with the downsizing of business space requirements. That’s good for some and not for others. And of course, let me not neglect to mention the medical teams… they tried earnestly to retain their own proven health in order to assist those whose lives became at risk… and for awhile we didn’t know anyone who contracted Covid… and now we all know someone who did and someone who died because of it… and there were garbage collectors who picked up our rising trash piles and publics works staff who kept the grids going… And… indeed the churches kept their emails and phone contacts intact offering ‘good news’ for the long-haul… so… I think you get my point… let’s get on with 2023… for the world’s sake… taking what we know now with us…
