It’s the temptation of clergy and first responders and therapists and teachers and social workers and helpers everywhere: we absorb the grief of the people we serve. The closer we are to the vagaries of human life, the more grief we witness. And many of us feel it. We absorb it.
COVID has been an inconvenience, a bad news story, and a global usurper of normal life. And if we didn’t notice it before, we surely notice now: it is also a grief generator. The layers of grief that COVID has created are countless. Even the extreme weather has contributed to that feeling of being overwhelmed.
Few of us can let this deep grief just fall off our shoulders. We need to take gentle care of ourselves. That is my prayer for you and for me today.
God is with us whether we believe that or not. I hope this soothes you as much as it soothes me.
