A recurring word these days: overwhelmed. Medical workers, first responders, long term care personnel together with residents and their loved ones, parents working at home and home schooling, people with no work, or no home–well, pretty much everyone is overwhelmed.
Along with the expression of being overwhelmed, we sometimes hear, “God won’t give you more than you can bear.”
Sure, you might say.
The saying seems to be a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which actually has to do with not being overcome by temptation. The “way out” referred to has to do with the power of community support.
The connection to our setting may be that the support for the Corinthians rests in a community of believers even across time. So why not also across space? Finding help in this depends on a power to connect beyond what we consider normal.
Whatever, or whoever, you attribute it to, you and others are finding ever new means and resources for being together while physically apart.
I have just used that word: normal. There has been lots of talk about a new normal. We should not sell ourselves short on our capacity to alter our inclinations, in order to find a new normal a positive reality, however natural we would consider our present inclinations. Inside the human skull is a universe of possibility. We just have to tap into it.
Add together (1) a power to connect us–some of us would consider this spirit to be divine in origin, character and being, together with (2) a conscious suspension of clinging to what we consider normal, and we are well on the way not to be overwhelmed. We are, beyond that, setting ourselves up to flourish.
Nothing will replace the warmth of physical nearness for comfort and encouragement. But we have mind and spirit that make possible infinitely more possibilities.