It's been nearly four months since we've been quarantined, and it hasn't really been as good as I figured this time to be. I started off great, having tons to do, a lot of energy and just a little bit of a creators block, but as the days went by, and I kept losing and losing things I had hope would happen in the future, well we could say the blues started hitting, or as a good friend of mine recently pointed out, I started living in survivor mode, with tons of stress, anxiety, and a huge creative's block that took about two weeks after finals to start dissipating.
Among this cloudy mess of blueness I felt lonely, as I believe most of you have been feeling lately, but I realized, as I scrolled my hours away on Instagram, as I also believe most of you have been doing lately, that I miss someone in particular and that someone is Jesus. I normally have a church meeting every Wednesday, and I slowly started stopping attending the zooms since I needed to catch up on homework, stopped going to Mass and streaming it online, and praying as often as I should, and this without me being really conscious about what was happening, made my days slower and harder. But as He always does, He reached out on the most natural way and made sure I noticed, and since there is nothing much to do this days, He used social media, and I came across a very nice post with a very nice reflection that made me realize just how close we really were, and I just needed that little push.
So as I must, I'll share with you this nice post I found and how it really touched me, hoping that it might help you, in case you need it, too.
"When, in 1512, Michelangelo finally concluded the fresco of the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, , the cardinals responsible for curating the works stayed for hours looking and admiring the magnificent fresco. After analysis, they met with the master of the arts, Michelangelo and, asked him to redo it.
The discontent, obviously, was not with the whole work, but with a detail, seemingly unimportant. Michelangelo had conceived the panel of man's creation with the fingers of God and Adam, touching. The trustees demanded that there should be no touch, but that the fingers of both should be distant and more: that God's finger was always stretched to the fullest, but that Adam's finger, had the last phalanges contracted. A simple detail but with a surprising sense: God is there, but the decision to seek him is from man. If he wants to, stretch his finger, he'll touch him, but he doesn't want to, he can spend a lifetime without seeking him. The last phalanx of contracted Adam's finger represents then free will."
Source: Rupnik, Marko Ivan, The Art As Expression of Liturgical Life, Brasilia, CNBB Editions, 2019. p145
Am I suddenly back to a 100% and feel like walking on the clouds after reading this? No, and honestly, I'm so far from it since this times really take a bigger and bigger toll on me day by day ... and I don't seem to know much about gracefully handling so much time of this uncertainty overload. Am I at least a bit released? Yes, of course I am, just remembering that there is someone there for me who is always looking out and making the best plans possible even if I have no way of understanding or accepting them right now, is soothing, and I hope day by day that calmness grows and starts to take over me because boy, do I really need it to. It's a little step towards what I hope, is already the way out of this scary forest we're all lost in right now ...
So I hope you get just as I did, that little push into stretching that little extra that helps you be closer and better, wether you actually do believe in God and my religion, or whatever other religion or belief you may have, or even, that goal you may have in mind and know you're capable of just not quite sure ... after all, what we must remember always is that happiness and steadier lands are just a step away, and no one can make us take that step, towards a greater faith, but ourselves.
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