A Beautiful October Day...
It's beautiful today. Far more beautiful than perhaps it ought to be, considering the time of year, and considering all that is happening around us.
The sun is shining, the air is warm, the sky is a bright, crisp blue, and the leaves on the trees are golden, fiery and glowing.
People are wearing t-shirts – tank tops, even. Folks are getting to yardwork leisurely on a weekday afternoon. I plan on sunbathing a bit before too long.
Yet there is a decision underway – a man who is a cop has killed 3 people in the line of duty, in the past 5 years. The decision of whether he should be fired or acquitted will be revealed any minute now. This man, while black, has only killed young men of color. There are outside experts strongly suggesting that he be fired.
Will he, though?
If he is not, then there will most certainly be protests and perhaps even rioting in the streets where this happened. This is another tipping point in this on-going deplorable saga of racism in this country.
So it is a beautiful day. We can be grateful – there are so few of these left. And in a pandemic, especially, we need to take advantage of every opportunity possible to be outside with loved ones, and to enjoy a nice meal or drink with friends.
It is a beautiful day. Yet three sons are dead by the hand of this one man. That one man may be let off the hook. It is a beautiful day, but ugliness still exists like the trash in a park, or the graffiti that stains an historic church. The beautiful people having to hide their faces behind masks. There is beauty, but there is pain and strained souls all around.
I just tried to go to church, but found all the doors were locked. It makes sense, especially given the pandemic, but I had checked the website and it seemed they were still open for Eucharistic Adoration today. They weren't. It felt right, somehow, being able to see and appreciate this gorgeous, imposing house of God from the outside, in this lovely warm afternoon sun; yet still be restricted from entering. It feels like that a lot these days: the things we need the most in life we aren't going to be immediately granted entry to. We're going to have to work harder for them, search deeper, and get more creative. We're going to have to be more determined than we've ever been, just to get by.
I know God hears me anywhere I pray, but I was hoping to experience that unique space where I might feel His presence more tangibly. There will be other opportunities. Perhaps it's not meant to be easy. I am still grateful just to be able visit that gorgeous structure from outside, and to remember all the beautiful memories of walking inside before: for Sunday Mass, for Chirstmas, for Easter. With my beloved husband. I remember how strangely warm and beautiful it was last Christmas – almost like today – and how bone-chillingly cold and windy it was one Easter (it felt more like January). Yet I always remember it being sunny, no matter how warm or cold it was.
The sun shining on this beautiful house of God. That is the kind of simple thing I can be extremely grateful for on a day like this, in times like these, and with so many suffering so greatly. I am grateful for the sun on the dome of the Basilica.
Now I just pray that just is done for those who most deserve it. May they feel the light of God as warmly as I feel the sun on my face today.
Lord, it is a beautiful day. Let it continue to be so.