I am sitting in front of my laptop doing a refresher course with the VCC on Psychological First Aid and Emotional Spiritual Care so that I can be deployed as an Emergency Chaplain.
I am hearing stories of disasters and fires and floods.
I am reflecting on what it is to live, as we all do, in this time where we seem, as a world, to be reeling from disaster to disaster.
I look out the window at the warm blue sky and the wisteria turning from deep green to gold and I remember this poem by Derek Mahon:
Everything is Going to be All Right
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that. The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
And, for just a moment,
I allow myself to rest in these words, and for just a moment, and I am free. (Maybe you can try it too?)
All blessings,
Alex
