Last month I wrote about how I was feeling down and discouraged, isolated, worried about the pandemic. And now this month things are different, but not better. There’s been violence, protests, more violence. I read the first reading and I feel discouraged, walled in. There is unrest in the city; the people are trapped. They are dying; they are hungry. They are surrounded. And here we are, dealing with the virus, dealing with violence and unrest, feeling trapped.
When I used to sing in a folk band I sang the song, “By the Rivers of Babylon,” and sang “there we sat down, oh yeah we wept, when we remembered Zion.” If I were reading at Mass I might try to sing that as the psalm response. But I can’t read Mass now or sing Mass now because I can’t go to Mass now because I can’t risk exposure. The song is of grief of things lost. There is so much grief now. I grieve lives lost. I grieve what feels missing. I weep when I remember those who are gone and times when life felt safer.
At the end of the first reading, the siege is over and the people have justice. In the Gospel, Jesus heals the leper. I’m praying for healing. I’m praying for justice. And yeah I weep, when I remember Zion.
Tamora Whitney
I teach in the English department. I teach composition and literature and Critical Issues -- a class that has a component on Jesuit values.
I like writing these reflections because it makes me think more deeply about the scripture and think about how to integrate the ideas into my own life and how to share these ideas with others.
