By Lissy Maruthanakuzhy

Panaji, July 10, 2020: We are all fascinated by stories as they drive home messages faster and easier. A few days ago, I listened to two stories on different occasions that whispered how each one recognizes God particle in another and what happens after that.

During this disturbing and depressing period, stories may soothe our anxious minds, calm our beings, and more than that they may alert us to rise up to the need of the hour. The needs of different kinds are mounting up at various corners.

I remember a teacher calling me to ask in May last, “My ten-year-old daughter is feeling very low. How can I help her? Is there anyone who can talk to her out of this situation?” The counseling centers set up to aid the people affected by the lockdown due to the pandemic is another example of the realization of the special need that has risen in our present society.

Our inability to discover and reach out to those in difficult moments brings us untoward incidents. I am referring to the two priests who took away their life a few days ago, overcome by loneliness as the reports said. In different and varying degrees –children, youth, men and women, priests and religious — all are victims of depression, a by-product of Covid-19, that has not yet concluded its visit to the planet earth.

We observe social distance to fight the recent guest; we forget that even remaining at a distance we can reach out to those in need—needs invisible to the eye, the crying hearts behind closed doors.

It was very encouraging to hear a priest saying when he was speaking of his own transfer and a new priest taking his place in the Church, “I am going to tell him to stay in his house to remain healthy. He could visit the church on weekends to offer Masses and meet the people. Unless one has hobbies like reading it is difficult survive in Covid time in new places. I engage my time in reading and writing.”

Creativity is an answer to the loneliness and depression we face this time. Many have entered some kind of activity to keep them busy and at the same time productive.

As Jug Suariya, a journalist, wrote, “Even as the viral pandemic has dealt a knockout punch to the global economy it has created its own parallel economy of various devices like “oximeter,” and “sanitation box’ designed to keep the killer disease at bay. The alternative business that has bloomed includes hand sanitizers, face-masks, face shields, goggles, full-length protective suits, and the like.”

“Our hard times arise from our mind. Mental hard time is mostly a wounded ego. In such times, all we need is a shift in our thinking, the way we see and interpret life,” observes, Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai the founder of Shrimad Rajchandra Mission, Dharampur (is an enlightened master, a spiritual visionary, a modern-day mystic)

“Instead of feeling bad, weak, blank, or confused, let us think how we can utilize hard times to become braver, stronger, more creative and loving,” exhorts Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai. According to him, “We will discover within us, a surge of energy that will open up more avenues for handling the same situation efficiently and we will become braver and stronger, if we think differently and if we try another way when one we tried does not yield results.”

He suggests to appreciate the good and the bad seasons we face in life. Always we will not have sunshine. When we learn to enjoy all seasons in life, we will also become a bright and warm presence for those who need to rise above their clouds.

An example to this is the Roshens blog (a YouTube in Malayalam) that is attracting thousands of viewers for his daily posts. Prior to the lockdown he used to organize trips, and did travel blogs. As the lockdown began, creatively using his time, he began posting videos made in his home atmosphere with his two siblings. His themes include challenge, pranks, games, cookery and the like. One day due to rain he could not shoot a video he invited his subscribers for a live chat. And subscribers responded as one family. Amazing creativity. He, in fact, completed 6 million on June 24.

Sometimes difficult times enlighten us and challenge us to become more mature to endure and handle life passing through the fire of hard times. Generally, we are prone to dwell on our losses. Could we begin to thank God for the blessings? Counting our blessings one by one may wake up to the reality that after all blessings outnumber our bad days. God is constantly pouring on us blessings galore.

In his book The Psychology of Pandemics: Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease (2019) Steven Taylor says, “Remarkably little attention has been devoted to the psychological factors that influence the spread of pandemic infection and the associated emotional distress and social disruption. Psychological factors are important for many reasons.

They play a role in non-adherence to vaccination and hygiene programs, and play an important role in how people cope with the threat of infection and associated losses.”

“The Plague by Albert Camus, published in 1947, is about an outbreak of bubonic plague in a small town in French Algeria. But the story is also read as an allegory of Nazi Germany’s occupation of France during the second World War, and the Vichy regime’s collaboration with it.

“Reading it today is like driving down both sides of a two-way street at once. The allegory has to be read literally for the amazing exactness with which it describes the world at this time, though the coronavirus is far less deadly than the plague, while the underlying story about human conduct in war-time France holds up to us a mirror about the moral diseases of our own times — the relentless “othering”, the search for someone to blame, for enemies within and outside, communal distancing, false equivalences, and the abysmal shortage of a human quality called empathy, wrote Nirupama Subramaniam.

We do realize while the entire world is fighting the battle against the new virus, the skirmishes against various social evils, and the negative emotional continue to take away precious lives in our society.

Returning to the stories I mentioned, one in fact brings out how one meets God in the ordinary circumstances, in ordinary people in trying moments.

A poor man used to go to a house every morning for breakfast. One day the breakfast was not sufficient for everyone due to some reason. As usual, the man arrived at the stipulated time and rang the doorbell. A teenager opened the door. He himself was upset about the insufficient share of breakfast he got. So he told the guest rather brusquely, “Sorry, today we have nothing to offer you.” The man went away quietly.

The grandfather of the house was returning and met the man, who was walking with a disappointed look, on the way. Reaching home, he enquired for the reason. He gently told the teenager, “We could have offered him something at least.” Soon he was out of the house and brought back the poor man to offer him something.

The poor man did not expect a kingly breakfast rather something to satisfy his hunger. The grandfather realized and met the need. He had met a particle of God in the poor man.

In the second story, three priests had landed up in an African country to begin a new foundation. They were on their way to the location when their vehicle broke down. They found mechanic from nearby village who worked for two days to make the vehicle good to move ahead. Meanwhile, the three priests were discussing the wage the mechanic would ask from them. “He looks poor and he may ask a good sum. Maybe we could hide some of our cash and tell him we have only so much,” they shared among themselves.

The work was over and when asked about his fees the poor mechanic said, “You are God’s people. Please pray for me.”

He was poor but he found blessings richer than money.

Reading and listening to stories may help us ease our burdened minds during this period of Coronavirus.