I’m settling in for the pandemic the way I settle in for winter, knowing that I will be spending a lot of time indoors and unable to engage in activities I enjoy until the season changes. This is not completely negative, since all our life experiences, even the negative and difficult ones, provide us with the opportunity to grow in our union with Christ and in our relationship with others.
This pandemic affords us a waiting time, an Advent, if you will. In Advent we let something grow and come to fruition within us, as Mary spent her pregnancy letting the Word of God grow and come to fruition within her. Advent is a time to move from an active stance to a passive one; from engagement with the world around us to engagement with our inner self; from planting and tending to awaiting the harvest.
As we move through these next months waiting for a return to more normal times, what does the Spirit of God want to grow within us? How are we being called to a more fruitful life? What are we called to reflect upon and be grateful for? How will our life and our outlook on life be changed by our experience of this year?
My photography is in a sort of Advent, staying fairly local, recording scenes that are the ordinary experiences of walking in familiar places, looking for a spark of inspiration, a sense that the divine can break through our ordinariness with a glimpse of the eternal.
“Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
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