Actually, it's been one of those weeks so, please, allow me to rant.
I feel tired and worn and sad and gray and blue and blank. My mood is heavy and weighted and wet and stormy.
While talking to my neighbor yesterday, we both decided that, no matter how much we want to think otherwise, we are too affected by the people around us. And we are both pretty hermit-like.
When I first moved into this building, people were quieter, more polite, and stayed to themselves - or within their own little cliques. It was good. You could be social enough to briefly socialize while checking your mail in the lobby or sharing the laundry room or you could enjoy a bubble of solitude while having a coffee or reading the paper in the common room. It was a live-and-let-live kind of place. These days, people are nosier, gossipy-er, more bird-ish, and snoopy.
My neighbor's past couple of weeks has been as bad as mine. While not as hermit-like as I am (she does most of her socializing outside the building), she likes to keep herself to herself as far as what's happening in her life. Apparently, the other day, she got wind of something that had been murmured about her. Something about her thinking she was "queen of the building". (She is the sort of person who tries to be kind and helpful when she can.) She told me how badly stung she felt by this rumor.
I - who am definitely very much the hermit - rarely socialize past the greeting-weather-apology sort of chat. I might on occasion ask someone about whether or not they heard any news about a local happening. I rarely know or care if or what my neighbors might be saying about me. However, the mood here has gotten a bit more high-schoolish. I am have occasionally noticed (or imagined) that someone might have looked at me funny and started or stopped whispering when I came into their view. The funny thing is, I never cared before. Before - maybe before the last eight months or a year or so - people here were, as I said, a bit more polite.
When my neighbor told me about her hurt feelings, I commiserated with her about how much better the atmosphere of the building used to be. And I realized that I might be more affected by the changes than I'd previously thought.
Maybe I am just feeling the effects of the quarantine. Don't get me wrong, like a lot of introverts, I am sort of good at being quarantined.
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| But not good Christianity |
For the most part. The problem is, this lockdown might be the reason for other people behaving less civilly. And that might be causing me problems.
This makes me think of Proverbs 6:16-19 (my emphasis):
There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
I realize that not all of my neighbors are my Christian brethren but you would think that in a crisis, most people would become kinder and more neighborly. Wasn't it a thing once that hardship created friendship? Or am I delusional and having false memories about social history?
Now that I think about it, most of the people I know are starting to show the wear and tear of this global health crisis.
One person I'm really close to recently told me that they actually feel under spiritual attack. They used those words: spiritual attack. And they weren't being dramatic. We prayed together and have promised to remain more prayerful. Like me, they seem to be under a weight of weariness.
If this crisis we are living in and under is going to be around for a while, how are we to adjust to it? We better learn to adjust our moods and atmospheres. At the very least, I better develop some better coping strategies. My emotional health in the past several years has relied on a delicate balance of prayer and medications. Am I going to have to add to that arsenal?
Spiritual attack. That is not an exaggeration. I think the person I mentioned has touched on what might be my problem as well as his. Attack from the Enemy.
So I have turned to Ephesians 6:12 for guidance and I realize that while I had been focusing on the people who I saw as being the problem, I forgot the root of or the power behind the problem:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
More importantly, I have to remember that there is an answer to the problem. Still in Ephesians 6, in verses 13-18 (with my emphasis):
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
So, let all of us Christian siblings pray for each other and be uplifting and encouraging.
My plan now is to start focusing on the power behind the problem because, for the saved and unsaved, that is the real Enemy.
Peace
--Free
