Catholic – Page 2 – Ellen Kolb

First things first

…many peoples shall come and say:
“Come, let us climb the LORD’s mountain,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may instruct us in his ways,
and we may walk in his paths.”
For from Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and impose terms on many peoples.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
one nation shall not raise the sword against another,
nor shall they train for war again.
Isaiah 2:2-5, NAB

In the Catholic liturgical year, this Advent’s readings began with the book of Isaiah, including a phrase that is among Isaiah’s most evocative: Swords into plowshares.

The first time I heard those words, I was a child in school, and I read them in an account of a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. – a speech now known as “I have a dream.” To me, Dr. King’s call to nonviolence practically set to music the words from the book of Isaiah. The message seemed clear to me: beat our swords into plowshares, and peace will follow.

Still later, reading and hearing the whole of the book of Isaiah, I came to realize that my childhood impression of swords-into-plowshares was upside down. Beating swords into plowshares isn’t a first step. It’s a consequence that can only follow from “[C]limbing the Lord’s mountain…[that] we may walk in his paths.”

Sometimes I think pounding away at the swords would be easier. And just in time, Advent is here to nudge me away from that idea, to turn my impressions upside down, and to point me to that mountain I’m supposed to climb.

A means, not an end

Worth remembering as an election looms and my mailbox overflows and the ads reach saturation points: “policy” is a means, not an end. The former lobbyist in me needs the reminder occasionally.

Journalist Kathryn Jean Lopez always provides edifying reading, and she has often made the point that getting a bill passed is not the same as building a culture of life. She summarized it best in these words: “Our efforts can’t be confined to policy. We have to give our lives to the work of reformation, restoration, reparation, renewal. We need to see human life as the tremendous, incomparable gift that it is, and help other people see that.”

I’ll keep telling people to get to the polls. And still, I can see that our most lasting work will be accomplished during the other 364 days in the year.

Emerging

Above my desk is a shelf full of go-to books, selected from the thousand or so volumes scattered throughout my house. That shelf holds my essentials: prayer books, spiritual commentaries, lives of the saints, and my current favorites among life-issue books (think Gosnell). I can pick up any of them and come across something about challenges and sufferings and how they are part of the Christian pilgrimage on earth.

Academic stuff, that. No emotional impact. I have been blessed with good health all my life. Not having it is something that happens to Other People. Flannery O’Connor’s MS, St. Faustina’s tuberculosis, the lifelong disabilities endured by nearby author Christina Chase: how admirable to put one’s sufferings at the foot of the Cross as they did.

I now feel like a patronizing fool.

Covid hit me a few months ago, as it has hit nearly everyone I know. A few lousy days and it was over, or so I thought. I waited for the fatigue and loss of strength to ease. I waited for my cognitive skills to get back up to speed; for awhile I couldn’t read or write for more than a few minutes at a time. I kept waiting. I kept needing extra help and physical support. After a few weeks it dawned on me: this is what post-Covid syndrome feels like.

Put it at the foot of the Cross? Only if you count my constant prayer to God to take that particular cup from me. After months, the cup is being withdrawn. I have the uneasy feeling that I didn’t handle this well. I know now that health is a gift rather than an entitlement – I’m one illness or injury away from being right back to helplessness – and I ponder how I’ll do next time. Sure, I’ll offer up whatever burdens come my way. But right in there will be a plea that I’ll no longer have burdens to bear.

That’s humbling. Those books on my shelf seem to reproach me silently. I must say that I wish some of the authors would come visit me; I think we could laugh and commiserate and praise God and encourage each other. They’d give me good-natured teasing for thinking that I’m somehow different from the rest of humanity. (After all, I eat my vegetables, usually; I get my checkups; I exercise; surely I shouldn’t get sick.)

My energy and stamina are returning, gradually. I’m re-emerging. Improvement is by fits and starts, but it’s trending in the right direction. I know that many people suffering post-Covid problems aren’t so lucky. I’m being blessed with recovery. If there’s a limit to it, at least I’m functioning. My gratitude knows no bounds.

And at the same time, I have the uneasy feeling – more than that; the certain knowledge – that the time of illness was a kind of blessing as well. A divine invitation, if you will, to explore places known to God that I had never imagined. I didn’t recognize that invitation, I wasn’t ready for it, and I fought it every step of the way.

Gratitude fills my days. So does humility. The divine invitation might be repeated. I truly don’t know how I’ll respond.

A milestone in my emergence from post-Covid problems was a recent walk, a short one, up a mountain not too far away. I’ve seldom rejoiced so much in such a modest hike. I wrote about it at Granite State Walker, with a couple of photos from the summit.