Coronavirus Musings

photo by Crow / flikr

 I haven’t written in weeks. I just did not know what to say about this terrible epidemic that has affected us all. I have found it hard to concentrate even in newspapers as well as books. I have thought a lot about all the faces of all the friends along the way. I have thought about my twisting circuitous journey until today—wondering where it all went, too fast—too, too fast— and how I have become 84 years old. (Not young.) And I do not want to consider the alternative. 

But as I sit here I am surrounded by pictures and memories. Llfe for better or worse has been good indeed. I look up and there is a wonderful profile picture of Gayle (my wife) drinking coffee in a restaurant in Scotland. There is dear Nancy Prichard—one of my favorites who took me in not only in home but also her heart. There’s Don reading USA Today…long dead—much too soon—he and his wife, Ann joined us for a wonderful week in Paris and many more fun times. There’s a picture of Battle Road in Princeton where Randy and I jogged year after summer year. One of my favorite places. And speaking of Princeton my screen saver has a fine picture of Jesus carrying the cross and inviting all of us to follow. I discovered it once behind the Episcopal Church in Princeton. There is a moving picture of my brother who died just last May. He stands at the beach—which he loved—just looking out. There is a tiny drawing Bonnie Veals did for  our church building project in Birmingham. It reads: Faith under construction. And it truly was—we had so little money but somehow faith really did prevail over the impossibilities we faced in building—and some other hurdles too.

I see an old yellowing picture of my father and Mother young and hopeful in the early years of their marriage. There is another picture of my Daddy holding tight to his two first grandchildren. There is a carving which I think came from Greece. It shows Jesus with one hand showing his scars and in the other a cup. Edward, dear Edward brought it back from one this trips—before he as murdered in our home town. There is a picture I took of a Gerber daisy—a gift from my mother still blooming after she was dead. 

There is a picture of the punting boats in Oxford where we spent two glorious Octobers. In another bookcase there is a picture of Matthew and Mark in their early days. And there is shot of our daughter, Leslie and our beautiful granddaughters—Natalie and Libby. And one of my all-time favorites is our eighteen year old red-headed daughter wearing a green rain coat in Bath. There is a picture of a Gayle and I and Randy and Diana and Rosie and Bob. There is a photograph of my Mother in her finery and my son in his tux on the day of our daughter’s wedding. And there is a photo of Gayle and her twin sister at a lake in South Carolina. A tiny picture of Randy and Bob—young and full of mischievous.There is a fine print of St.Thomas Church in Charleston. It’s raining and the choir, with umbrellas are getting ready to go in to worship. I love it because it says to me that church is the place where you come in during a storm. There and so many other friends and places that have left their mark on my heart. People who helped me--many not even knowing it—come out of the storm.

Frederick Buechner one of my favorite writers—who wrote about looking through his photograph albums and told us about all those whose names and faces have been a benediction to him. He says: “…Once I have put away my album for good, you may in the privacy of the heart take out the album of your own life and search for the people and places you have loved and learned from yourself, and for those moments in the past —many of them half forgotten—through which you glimpsed, however dimly and fleetingly. the sacredness of your own journey.”  

These are some of my musings as this virus rages on.  

photo by Ard Hesselink / flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com