Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

I have had more and more conversations with folks lately who have just been feeling kind of in a fog. You might call it spacy or zoned out - but just not feeling altogether with it.

I have felt it too - we all have.

Here's a truth we should all remember - it is not a sign of emotional or spiritual health to adapt to an unhealthy culture or environment. Sure, there are evolutionary changes that make creatures, over many generations, adapt to environmental change and stress. We might, over time, come to some place of acceptance over a diagnosis or a loss.

But it is not normal for us to expect our stress responses to turn off during stressful times. That would defeat the purpose of having stress responses! We all have some flight or fight responses to stress - those are simply encoded into being creaturely.

So is it any shock that, in a circumstance where we can't flee, and in a time when all it seems like anyone wants to do is fight, our instincts are just kind of freezing our brains a little bit? There was that period just at the beginning of Covid when folks were baking bread, or doing some more exercising, or letter writing. People seemed to be holding up pretty well.

It's dragged on though, hasn't it? The pounds I lost early on have crept back on! We're all, I think, feeling that frog boiling in a pot sensation - like the heat is being turned up and people are getting hot.

I will say this - do not feel bad or like a failure or like something is wrong if you are feeling down or out of it. Do not be surprised if you find yourself grieving at times and not sure why at all. It's natural.

Something I think about a lot is the disciples, just after the crucifixion. There they are, all that they had hoped for and all they had put their trust in, had just been lifted up before them in shame - broken on the cross. So they mourn, and feel deep shame for having abandoned him, and perhaps start to blame one another. They are doubting and hurting - and probably a little foggy-brained too.

Then they get the news - hope comes. As the psalm says, "joy cometh in the morning." Before they can get lost or broken by the sense of loss and disconnection from God and one another, Christ comes back among them.

They are transformed as a people marked, formed, and shaped not by mourning - but forged and formed by love and joy. We are that people. We know that we may get lost a bit, stumble, and grow weary. But joy cometh in the morning.

You may not feel it now - that's just fine - but let's not lose our hope that we will feel it soon.

Yours in Christ,

Fr Robert