Praying through Pandemic

I am working on an article about praying through pandemic. See below something that came into my inbox via the Busch School of Business: a prayer written by Katy Hamilton, a grad student in the business school. I am sharing because I love the concept of writing one’s own prayers. There is power and beauty in what one could term the “classics” - the rosary, the Our Father - but there is a special beauty in God’s people using their own creativity to co-create and commune with our Maker in one’s own voice.

I like knowing that these are the saints someone else picked and trusts. I learn something, and I feel a part of something bigger than myself.

Well, life goes on in quarantine. I have walked many miles, I have picked daffodils by the side of the empty highway, I have made banana bread, I have taken out the recycling, I have sat in different chairs to do work and learned that different ones are good for different moods. I have felt like my soul now resides in Zoom, I have a new contender for favorite quarantine meme. Thanks be to God I am healthy and employed. And of course, praying.

I have also noticed how pandemic makes me nostalgic. At first I thought, “I want my old life back,” and I meant the life of a couple weeks ago. Increasingly, though, I am remembering other snatches of life, like a car ride with my best friend around my hometown in 2010. My mind keeps on reeling back to old experiences I have not considered for a long time. Is that happening to you? It must be because my brain has categorized those memories as “simpler times” and is just trying to help me out.

For some reason I have noticed that this all makes me want to watch old movies, probably because it’s an escape. So I started a list and will get to it, eventually (this is also remarkable because I am not much of a movie person): Austin Powers, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Wayne’s World, Saturday Night Fever.

I dare you to listen to the theme from Austin Powers, by the way, and not be immediately cheered. It’s an actual song called Soul Bossa Nova. Go on. Listen. Groovy, baby!