In my recent blog posts, I briefly shared my insights on the seasons of togetherness and separateness. It's a process, an ongoing journey that I embrace wholeheartedly, as underscored by what's going on in the world now. Every country is on a preventive COVID-19 lockdown. It is important to mention that as I labor and pounce on the keyboard, my husband, my children, and I are in three different geographic locations, namely Moscow, Batangas, and Mindoro. What a way to illustrate "separateness" and "growth" when you are actually living it!
I think that I will never be the same once this pandemic is over. Businesses were closed and millions of jobs were lost. Then, suddenly, we found every student homeschooling and most workers at home — working. Words like "social distancing," "quarantine," "hoarding," "panic buying," "flattening the curve," and "lockdown" have become just a few of the operative words that the media uses to describe the daily news updates. This crisis is unprecedented in history. It has put everything to a halt. All of us are confined to our own homes now, and I'm assuming that most days, people are watching from inside their windows. "When will this all end?"
As I look out my own window, I do miss them. It's been 32 days since the lockdown, but who's counting? I surrender everything to God and trust His ways, for His ways are perfect. He alone knows when we will be together again. And to answer the question of how long this waiting period will last? It's really up to the Sovereign God. Even so, I pray for them and thank the Lord for them, knowing that while being separated, everyone is drawn closer to God like never before. Our eyes are fixed on Jesus, knowing that He is near and will not be separated from us. What a blessing this lockdown has brought about—the blessing of intimacy with God. Isn't that what really matters the most: for each of us to find God while waiting in our separateness, or should I say God is the One who first found us? He is our great reward in waiting!
As for me, I’m taking this lockdown one day at a time. I'll keep moving forward every day as I keep my daily routine. It's time to take a break from planning on a bigger, grander scale, as my family and I were accustomed to doing under normal circumstances. Our normal was that we were never in the same place for a long time. Hence, Manila - Moscow - Batangas - Mindoro - repeat. That's how we rolled as OFWs through the years. The quarterly or yearly planning has always been a big part of our routine, as our schedules are set around my hubby's 28-day work and 28-day rest. Got the picture? But for now, we all get off that winding racetrack and try to make sense of this enforced relaxation. Deep inside, a big part of me rejoiced at the possibility of relearning to stay put, to be in one place for an extended period of time. All the possibilities played in my mind. I can finally declutter our skeletons piling up in the closets and drawers; pull out the weeds growing in the garden, and make an inventory of expired canned goods in the pantry. We are never in one place. This happens! So, I turn to the "now." I am making the most of what I can do today. Not tomorrow, not next week, but today. I have today. I will let tomorrow worry about itself.
In the meantime, while this prevailing crisis changes the way I think, something magnificent is transpiring underneath the dirt. Beneath the baking heat and rains, seeds are breaking and sprouting from the hearts of my children—seeds that are long-lasting and enduring: patience, gratefulness, kindness, hard work, discipline, and independence... Hopefully.
For a start, I will mindfully count my blessings so that I will have plenty of reasons to rejoice—that is the antidote to this crazy pandemic. I look around me; in my kitchen, everything is magnified, everything is significant. Every ingredient—onions, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil, tomatoes, eggplants, each grain of rice, the neighbor’s dog barking in the background, the chicken pecking at my window, and believe me, even the lizards are bowing to God at a certain time of the evening! I count my gifts from the Lord; yes, even for the mundane things, He ought to receive my highest gratitude. There are no big or small gifts from Him; everything is grand when I receive it from a posture of gratitude. And perhaps, along the same line of thought, I'll take a look again at the expired goods in my pantry and reconsider which ones to really throw away. Somebody said that it's like wartime these days. This crisis has turned me into a lot of things.
Here is the poem "And the People Stayed Home" by Kitty O'Meara, which reflects exactly what is going on all over the world. This is a period of stillness and reflection that allows for personal and environmental healing. Have you spotted the similarities? And wouldn't you agree?
And the people stayed home.
And read books, and listened, and rested,
and exercised, and made art, and played games,
and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And listened more deeply.
Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.
Some met their shadows.
And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living
in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways,
the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again,
they grieved their losses, and made new choices,
and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live
and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.
