New from Old

I have had the privilege during the past 4 weeks of being part of a telephone tree organized by my church. My job is to phone several folks from the church to inquire after their health and to see if there is anything they might need. Thus, I have been given the opportunity to get to know people more deeply than I would if I were just greeting them at church on Sundays. One woman,age 89, is living alone, yet she has been very content to accept the situation and she has simply hunkered down and decided to reread as many books as possible in her personal library. She says she is really enjoying it!

Wow! That inspired me to look around my own collection of books. I found four or five non fiction books that I either really enjoyed and would like to read again, or liked at the time, but didn’t study as deeply as I wanted to.

One of these books is Reflections on the Art of Living : A Joseph Campbell Companion. It is a collection of quotations and reflections written by Joseph Campbell and selected and edited by a student of his, Diane K. Osbon. I have begun reading a few pages each morning and this morning, Easter morning, I came across this powerful selection:

“Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called “ the love of your fate.” Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment— not discouragement— you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.
Then when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures, followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.” pg 38-39.

Of course, the first thing that came to mind for me today was that Jesus’ death on the cross appeared to be a huge disaster when it was happening. Yet out of that, came Jesus’ resurrection, and all that means for us today. Likewise, coronavirus seems like a huge disaster for our world, yet, out of it may come something good for each of us individually and for mankind and our world. May it be so! Amen