As we round the corner on pandemic and see a faint light at the end of our long Covid tunnel, I\u2019ve found myself stuck\u2014physically, due to some minor injuries and illnesses; mentally, due to months of near-isolation coupled with the long upstate New York winter; spiritually, due to an inability or unwillingness to simply sit with God or at least go through the motions of prayer and hope something sticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
A recent New York Times story talked about \u201clanguishing\u201d as a new phenomenon in our post-Covid world: \u201cLanguishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you\u2019re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield,\u201d the author wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have to admit, that description struck a chord, or two. As I looked out my family room window on a sunny-but-freezing late April afternoon, my mind\u2019s eye traveled back to 2017, long before I could blame pandemic for my languishing, when a hauntingly similar feeling sent me running to my favorite retreat spot: the Abbey of the Genesee, just south of Rochester. Desperate for someone or something to shake me out of my malaise, I signed up for spiritual direction and confession and was lucky enough to get a monk who was once a novice under Thomas Merton and later served as spiritual director to Henri Nouwen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Father John Eudes Bamberger, O.S.C.O., who died last year, saw through my fa\u00e7ade and was not content to let me off the hook with a simple diagnosis of \u201clanguishing,\u201d or anything else for that matter. He put the ball squarely in my court: look at your choices, look at how you spend your days, and you will discover the \u201crule\u201d you have chosen to live by. Although I wrote about that conversation in this space at the time, his words keep bubbling to the surface years later. I thought maybe we could all benefit from revisiting his sage advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we were to break down our days into hours, our lives into seasons, what would emerge as the things we have chosen to give the most time and, therefore, the most importance in our lives? It\u2019s not a pretty picture when I start to imagine what my \u201crule\u201d would look like. There would be way too much scrolling through social media, way too much coffee, way too much mindless eating and mindless talking, way too much complaining about not having enough time even as I waste hour upon hour doing things that bring no positive benefits and most likely diminish the quality of my life and, by extension, my family\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I went to confession with Father John Eudes, he told me that, for my penance, I was to spend 30 minutes \u201cin the presence of God\u201d every night for six weeks. Why this seemingly harsh assignment? Because the wise old monk recognized that what I needed more than anything else was time away from all the nonsense, time to reflect on my choices, time with the only One who could pull me out of my malaise and set me back on the right course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I recover from an eye infection that has sidelined me for days, I can\u2019t help but think that this brief illness has forced me to do what I was unwilling to do for myself: step away from my work, step away from the screen and simply be for a few precious, albeit somewhat painful, days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although it couldn\u2019t hold a candle to a silent retreat at the abbey, the brief span of quiet at home allowed me to hear the still small voice urging me to get back to the nightly practice in the presence of God and to write a \u201crule\u201d for my life that will nourish my soul rather than siphon off joy, to choose flourishing over languishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n