Today, I had the experience of watching some house flies attempt to escape a building by flying into a pane of glass. The bugs would aim at the outside world, charge full speed ahead, but only to get knocked back by the window that separated them from the outside world. Confused, the flies would crawl up the glass, trying to make sense of this odd material separating them from the outside world they longed to experience. Thinking some exit must be close, they searched up and down the window, never quite finding an exit. The process was at first comical, but soon turned contemplative.
The events of the past week, which have called to light a persistent problem in our world, the daze of the ongoing pandemic, and a few tragedies that have surrounded my life has me feeling weary. Weary is not quite the adjective one hopes to express in the week following Pentecost, the great jubilee and birth of the Church, but life finds me tired. The otherside of these tragedies are visible in some sense. I can imagine a world free of prejudice. Lands expelled of disease. Hearts comforted. Heartbreak undone.
Yet it seems to me that my vision, and my path to that vision, may be just as superfluous as the flies’ attempts at escaping through a pane of glass. What at first glance presents itself as the easy solution may indeed not be so.
The fourth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel famously describes Christ’s encounter with the “Woman at the Well.” The woman arrives at the place to draw life-sustaining water out from the well. Her path towards satisfaction was quite obvious: approach the well, draw some water, and be on her way. It is here, however, that Jesus intersects the woman’s story. He offers something and a path – far different from what the woman had been expecting.
In responding to the woman’s inquiries about Christ’s “life-giving water,” he hits her with a difficult truth: her sin. Jesus doesn’t simply stop there however. He offers the following prophecy: “the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23-24).
When I reflect on this event in the wake of the events of the past week, I can only stop, breathe, and reflect on how I have mirrored the image of the woman. I have longed – for respite, comfort, and peace – from the tumult of the coronavirus pandemic, and in my search encountered so much more. The tragic death of George Floyd in the midst of all this charges me to examine my own life and how I have failed to stand in solidarity with my Sisters and Brothers in Christ. Truth is a cardinal indicator of the goodness of God, and the truths rendered by this past week are indeed revealing a path of sorts for Christians to journey upon.
If only the flies knew that the door was only a five-seconds flight away from the window, they would have escaped to the otherworld they desired. Sure, they had to fly backwards and thus to move away from their vision of the future, but that was the only path to what they desired. If my desire in this moment is for peace, then I ought to expand what it means to experience interior peace. Peace goes beyond being able to venture outside with fearing for illness; it means being able to attain true social justice, to stand in solidarity with others, to experience discomfort for some future comfort. All it takes to achieve this peace is to trust in Another’s plan.
Catholicism Rekindled 