Saying the Rosary helps
It sounds rather pious perhaps, but saying the Rosary does help. Right now life seems rather fraught, even in the remote fastness of head office, when most of the “action” is taking place in the earthquake recovery zone. Responding to a disaster on this scale is a real challenge for our fledging NGO. On the surface, the prayerful routines with which a group of priests begin the day go on as usual, but, in me at least, it has been overtaken by a kind of claustrophobia that makes sitting before the Body of Christ somewhat difficult. Instead I start my day with a walk in the seminary grounds, the wooden beads of my rosary playing though my fingers. This seems to set me up better for the day at a time when I find it ever harder to keep focused.
I never used to bother with the Rosary trimmings, but these days, beginning with the Creed keeps me grounded on what is of ultimate importance. The challenge that we face as an organization is to channel the generosity of volunteers and donors in an orderly fashion while standing in the midst of thinly disguised chaos. At HQ, our job has been to continue, on reduced staff, to deliver the usual service and be a support to our field team. In a culture where top down management has been the norm, to watch staff discover their own voices has been a real joy. Perhaps because we are far from the real pain of this tragedy, and also because my area of expertise is organizational management, it is easy to get lost in the small success involved. The Creed reminds me of an ultimate goal, not intermediate ones.
The decades of the Rosary fly by, stolen by intrusive “to-do” lists, and it is the only at the end do I really concentrate again on the themes of the concluding prayers. The “valley of tears” is easy to relate to right now, reinforced by the images emailed to us from Sichuan. Ultimately, though, it is the Mother of Mercy who gives consolation. The island of order that we have created is at the service of a situation that is still chaotic, nearly three weeks after the initial disaster. Engaging with that chaos, without drowning in it in it or expecting it to behave as does our bubble of relative order, is surprisingly draining. One expected that one would be the model of sweetness and light under pressure, but to my unpleasant surprise I am not. I depend on the mercy of my colleagues, and thankfully they seem to forgive my displays of temperament. They must also be saying their rosaries!
In these days, telling my beads in the still of the morning holds out a challenge and a promise. Amid the jumble of too many things that need doing, the beads whisper that the King who died for us and the Queen who loves us both remain constant in a shaken world. When one is focusing on sorrows, the beads insist that theses woes are nothing compared to the joys to come. When there is too much talk of dying, the beads sing of Resurrection, and confirming Assumption. Buoyed up by this daily message of the beads one feels it is possible, by His Grace, to imitate what the Mysteries contain, and even, again by His Grace to obtain what they promise. These are complex days for a small NGO responding to a big disaster, but as I said, even if it does sound pious, saying the Rosary does actually help.