Meditation in a Time of Lockdown
by Stefan Reynolds
A week into lockdown in Croatia and I can’t go home to Ireland, not that I’d want to, my wife is here and the weather in Croatia is pleasant and coronavirus fears have frightened the tourists away. I feel quite at home. But I am quite literally ‘at home’- no going out of the flat. Still, it is big enough for the two of us, and with each other we are not lonely. I feel for those others who are in lockdown with big families in a small space, or alone. Maybe the internet links us; I wonder if everyone has it though… maybe not some of the older, and maybe there is just too much news and it can get one down. Many, with existing health problems, are in real fear of their life; there is a level of fear in anything unexpected and ominous and the reflex of anxiety, as we have seen, is over-shopping. I feel also for those, like my wife, who have to deal with interruptions to their work and the resulting financial worries.
The lack of tourists, for example, is no joy for those who work in tourism. I feel for those who are stranded, as travel ceases to be possible, away from loved ones whom they worry about. Most of all I feel for the health workers who are putting their own health and lives at risk to help those affected. It is a hard time. For many a crisis. There is a Chinese proverb, however, (and good things come also from China) that says, “Every crisis is an opportunity.”
There is a Chinese proverb, however, (and good things come also from China) that says, “Every crisis is an opportunity.”
An opportunity for what? one might say. There is little to be gained in any measurable sense at this time. Maybe sellers of toilet paper are making a profit; for most time is spent managing the losses: loss of education, of social life, of travel, of business. There is for many of us a big reduction in what we can do. Maybe, in that loss of the possibility of busy-ness we can discover is a better quality of being. Maybe it is a time for spending quality time with those with whom we share home. Or, if we are alone, spending time with ourselves. In a lockdown we we have the chance to really get to know where we are in our lives. It can be a ‘watershed moment’ where we let go of ‘things to do’ and come back to strengthening the sometimes neglected centre of our lives. It is an opportunity for a spring clean, of the house – yes… but also of the relationships with those with whom we share home – whether, that is ourselves or others. It is time to freshen up with the home-work, back to the essentials. “Charity begins at home.” For many of us, now, that is where we have the opportunity to practice.
It can also be a time to read. I have been re-reading Thèrese of Lisieux’s autobiography. There is a wonderful section where she speaks of all the things she would like to do for the Church and for others, how she’d like to be a missionary, a priest, a martyr. She feels frustrated with the limitation of her life as an enclosed religious, permanently ‘at home’ with her community of nuns and struggling to live with herself. It all seemed so unheroic, like she wasn’t achieving anything. However, it was then that she realised that her vocation was to do small things with great love, to do the most insignificant things – like the washing up – with an inexplicable devotion. Devotion, for her, was to live out the life that God had given her. Thèrese uses the verb ‘se devouer,’ to devote oneself, but the verb is made up of ‘de vœux’, ‘concerning vows.’ Thèrese discovered that being love involved devoting herself to what she had already committed to. This time of lockdown is an opportunity to be more committed to those whom life, or our own choice, has put together (one thinks again here of the French verb ‘com-mettre’). It is to give quality time to what in the end is most important, the discovery of who we are, in our own company and/or of those with whom we live.
It is to give quality time to what in the end is most important, the discovery of who we are, in our own company and/or of those with whom we live.
We often feel we will find our fulfillment in the outer world and home is a place we come back to for rest and recreation. Yet also, like Thèrese, we can discover that what seems confining is the greatest challenge and the place of the most real flourishing. Even from her enclosure Therèse discovered she could help the world – by devoting all she did and prayed to intercession for those on the front line. For her it was the missionaries and priests, especially those who risked their lives. For us it is the medical workers, service professions, volunteers, elderly and infirm for whom we can show solidarity. If we can volunteer and we are more a help than a hindrance, and we do not put in unnecessary risk those whom we live with, then great. By staying at home we also contribute positively by not adding to their problems.
In taking up practices like meditation we can calm ourselves, in lowering our anxiousness we bring a bit of peace into the world which may steady those who are under pressure. We can discover we are all connected. Whether, in enclosures of one or two we do small things around the house, or whether we care for others on the front line, we do the insignificant or the significant with equal love.
Meditatio, the outreach of WCCM to many professions and fields of life, has a range of resources on Religion and Spirituality
