{"id":1366,"date":"2020-08-27T15:01:21","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T19:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redchairblogs.wpengine.com\/holymoly\/?p=1366"},"modified":"2020-08-27T15:01:21","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T19:01:21","slug":"reflection-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/2020\/08\/27\/reflection-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflection"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Covid-19 is not a blessing,” writes Professor C. Kavin Rowe in The Wall Street Journal. “It is one more obvious, terrible instance of a broken world. But amid all the reasonable concern, we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of the deeper cause of our anxiety\u2014our mortal fear\u2014and the unprecedented chance within this life to become fuller, richer and more joyful human beings.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Recently I find my days split between trying to deal with all of life\u2019s anxieties, curve balls, and uncharted territory and trying to be thankful and hopeful. I am lucky in that my family has not been touched by COVID, but so many in our community have lost parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and friends. It\u2019s hard. There are more deaths during this time, and yet we can\u2019t even hold the comforting rituals– funerals, going home services, wakes– to ease the grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a lot to grieve. I miss the differentiation of my professional and home life. I miss casual conversations as we walk across the Dell. I miss seeing people and knowing what is going on with the others in our community. I feel so limited. I feel isolated even in the midst of children at my side and video chatting everyday. When I do run into people on campus, the fear kicks in of breaking the rules and risking exposure and spread.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So how do we get from here to \u201cfuller, richer and more joyful human beings\u201d?<\/span><\/p>\n

I have learned new things about my children as I have spent more time with them than ever before. I have learned new things about colleagues as I have seen them in their homes. The Drs. Potter collect rabbits, just like my mom, and my family has been blessed with a few of their beloved bunnies for our collection. I have networked with colleagues across the countries as we strive to provide pastoral care in new ways. I take great joy in my new friend, Chaplain Denkins, at Jarvis College. I have learned some great new turns of the phrase. And I have hope because of what I see in our community. Davion Washington\u2019s words about social responsibility and selfishness vs. selflessness are inspiring. We have solid leadership on this campus; we have our flaws, but our community here is strong. We have had 8000+ masks mailed in from around the US and abroad in support of keeping this special place safe.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are struggling with the chaotic bouncing from struggle to joy and in need of hope, I invite you to the prayer service <\/span>next Thursday, September 3rd.<\/b> We will gather to remember friends and family lost to COVID, pray for our community, acknowledge our fear and anxiety, and look for hope and joy that we might continue.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have a specific prayer request or would like to remember a specific person, please email <\/span>spirituallife@lynchburg.edu<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Look for the YouTube link and streaming information next week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Please take care of yourself and give yourself grace to get through.\u00a0 Have hope for yourself and for your neighbor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Blessings, Stephanie<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Covid-19 is not a blessing,” writes Professor C. Kavin Rowe in The Wall Street Journal. “It is one more obvious, terrible instance of a broken world. But amid all the reasonable concern, we shouldn\u2019t lose sight of the deeper cause …<\/p>\n

Reflection<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stephanie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1QIf6-m2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}