Stay inside.

Not as if you’re trying to hide, but because our pride has been stripped away and we have to stay to slow the tide of disease.

Some of us finding more time to spend on our knees.

Or at least, a freeze from the usual pace of life that stretched us more thin than we’re often willing to admit. It doesn’t matter to whom new checks are sent - because more than we are able, we’ve spent.

It all makes for quite a Lent.

And we present our finest out to battle as we can. As woman and man put their life on the line, trying to find small ways for light to shine through the darkness that seems to grow. And through it all, we know.

We know that it may grow darker before the light returns. That urns might be filled with ashes of love and life that make the night feel like a day never even was. And it’s because this could be on the horizon, we recognize our desperate need.

To be clear, here there is more than one seed. Yes, there are needs growing, but something else is sowing, and it is showing as well. And only time will tell - what we allow to bloom.

For what have we given room?

Do we make space for fear? For anxiety and doubt? Do we cast out reason, committing treason against a community that values what is True? Do we share rumors of darkness, or is it light that we pursue? I’m not asking what you’ve done, I’m asking what you’ll do.

Here’s a clue:

In some ways - this isn’t so new. We’ve been wearing masks way longer than this all began. Keeping our fellow man at arms length, finding strength in our control, letting selfishness take it’s toll on what could be. Community sacrificed on the altar of how we appear, not letting others near for fear they’d discover we’re afraid. Posting our proudest pictures, and throwing a bit of shade.

But in these moments, as we put on masks and gloves, push has come to shove, and the masks are off - revealing we’re all the same. No matter into what name we were born, we’re torn by vulnerability that threatens the stability of our plans. When no one understands exactly how to plan - we all stand in need. The greed of yesterday turns gray and offers very little of what we’d hoped...and we find we’re in good company - at the end of our rope.

But it’s not something washed away by soap.

Nothing can sanitize our condition, and so our mission grows - to be one who sows from the light that glows brightest in the darkest of days. When the vision of the world becomes a haze, our clarity becomes prophetic - the pathetic efforts we made now seen for what they are - far from what is needed. Looking around, we find ourselves seated at a table we could never set ourselves...and so we let ourselves be fed. From trying to lead, to being led. By a Love that for us, bled.

Years from now we’ll be asked how we were able to let such things grow.

And no matter what they mean - we’ll know. So today - what will you sow?