What Am I In Here For?

I find it challenging to write into what’s happening right now. What to say and how to say it. It’s easier to stay at a distance and observe.

Perhaps you are directly impacted by the Coronavirus and are suffering with loss or anxiety as we move into 2021.

My good friend’s in West Middx Hospital with Covid-19. I spoke to him on the phone yesterday. While we’re quite close, I am distant enough not to be in the front line of his contacts. And I know a little what it’s like to be seriously ill: what’s important comes deeply into focus, life gets stripped back, we hand ourselves over to others to care for us, professionals and the care workers, so many of whom have already given their own lives in service.

We chatted on a video call.

While speaking, Scott said something profound that resonated deeply with me.

“You know, what am I in here for?”

This wasn’t a cry of despair or fear. Far from it. It was the voice of someone who has a deeply felt sense that his life is not about him.

Realising that your life is not about you is one of the seismic shifts we might encounter in our lives. Imagine you are a 17th Century peasant scratching around on the estate for a living and gradually, from somewhere, comes new talk. You and your offspring are caught in a tidal wave, a huge shift in consciousness. The long held belief you’ve always had, that the earth is the centre of the Universe and all the stars move around you, just isn’t true.

“A couple of the guys in the ward didn’t make it”

Scott knows there is a deeper purpose to the mystery of life. He’s experienced a shift similar to that felt in Galileo's time. And so he asks this question as a willing participant. That’s all he has to do.

Participate.

What a relief. To have a deeply felt sense of not having to be in control.

He’s smiling at the doctors, making people laugh when he can, offering some counselling to others when he can, trusting that in here, right now, he’s living meaningfully.

Life goes on. With us or without us.

Participate fully. These are all precious moments. We are not in the driving seat, as much as the media moguls of our cultural individualism might tell us that we are. Vaccines are a gift of hope and incredible work, yet are still temporary illusions of the science of control, as we continue to plunder the planet.

How would it be to take some more time to feel into your tiny, tiny yet oh so precious place in the Universe?

What lens are these challenging times holding up for you?