Perseverance on the Chesapeake

 This summer in the Chesapeake area of Maryland has been one for the books: classically hot, humid and with a touch of COVID to boot. We have all been dutifully wearing our facemasks, social distancing and washing our hands. However, nature has no idea. While our spirits might been floating up and down like the tide of the bay, nature has been constant in persevering at what it does best with this season.

Tea for Two

A little guy crab fishing on a pier

 

I was going for my morning prayer walk the other day and it was raining pretty steadily. I was thinking about the virtue of perseverance from a faith perspective and thinking of all the things that hinder perseverance: inner and outer discouragement, unhealed wounds, unaddressed pain, lack of self-discipline,  pride in not praying for perseverance and trying to keep going without divine help and general laziness. The reasons to quit from persevering can be many. As I was pondering perseverance and walking uphill I found a beautiful fat, heavy turtle crossing the street going slowly uphill.

Clare, the turtle

 He was persevering. How amazing, I thought and stopped to watch him. The rain poured and he moved slowly, two reasons to quit. Nevertheless: he moved, he persevered. There he went, up the hill and found a barrier he couldn't climb over, so after trying and falling, he walked around the barrier and kept seeking higher ground in the middle of the storm. 

The little guy the half the size of my foot. 

I watched my dear little turtle friend and asked myself if I keep going in the middle of a storm, when I feel slow and weighed down. What are the things that are my storms? What are the things that weigh me down? Do I keep looking for ways to seek higher ground amidst blockades that come even when I am persevering? This turtle didn't know the lessons he was teaching me: persevere. 

Other than the turtle, I had a beautiful encounter of perseverance with a priest. I read about Father Shaun Foggo walking 54 miles in prayer for his parish and to end the Coronavirus here. With the money raised from him walking with other priests, he built a food pantry.  Father Shaun saw the need of his people who lost jobs and were in a storm feeling heavy like the turtle. He didn't throw in the towel when things got scary and hard or use "Precaution" to stop him from safely and creatively  "Persevering".

Persevering: praying and walking uphill in the rain to feed their spiritual kids food, faith, hope and love.

Father Foggo reading the prayers for his people outloud

He knew that as a father and spiritual doctor he needed to tend to their growing wounds: physical hunger, spiritual hunger, challenged faith in God's providence. So he acted: Father Shaun walked. He walked in the rain and prayed for over 1,000 prayer requests. With the funds he raised, Father Foggo built a pantry to feed the poor and hungry of his children. He set up a tent outside to celebrate mass for those who didn't feel safe coming in, like a loving Father would. And he prayed outdoors with the Blessed Body of Christ day and night with his children and for his children. When I rolled up to give a few bags of beans and rice to help them stalk their pantry for their blessed opening, tomorrow, I saw something wonderful.

I saw perseverance at work. Father Shaun was a little disheveled from working on his pantry, he was sweaty, and he hand is hands outstreatched blessing the hands of an artist who was to paint a mural on his pantry.

Mother Mary Lange, pray for us.

 In that moment, Father Shaun was living what we are called to do in holiness. As I approached him with my grocery bags I expected his expression to be tired from the hardwork. Exhaustion is the last thing I saw on his face. He radiated joy in his sacrifice to work hard. His work was a prayer. I saw  how he forgot himself completely to serve the children entrusted to his care and show them how in a storm you move forward. When you are faced with a block in the road, like loosing a job in the midst of a pandemic,  you walk for your people and trust in God's providence then build them a pantry with your own hands. Prayer. Faith. Food. Boom. Boom. Boom.

In conclusion, this was a week so beautifully paved with examples of perseverance through storms. I took an afternoon to birdwatch and spend time on the water to contemplate the beauty of perseverance through nature and through us being called to keep going with creativity and joy.

I got covered in ticks here. 

It gave me a new perspective: keep going and keep looking for the good and to be good.