Navigating crisis: two blind spots to be aware of:

How deep is your Hope as we navigate this crisis?

by Br Benny Vincent, OFM Cap
​Regional Spiritual Assistant

2. Shallow optimism - Shallow optimism can be a bad idea in a deep crisis. It is even more dangerous than outright pessimism. Let me try to say it differently: Would you feel safe driving above 100 km/hr on a highway in a heavy snowstorm with broken windshield wipers? Granted, there are some people crazy enough to do it. However, most of us will prefer prudence. Shallow optimism is a dangerous motivator. It will motivate us to venture on to that highway of uncertainties, but it will not lead us any further. We will be struck before long! Like any snowstorm, a crisis will certainly limit our visibility. But it will do even more than that. It will break our windshield wipers – our traditional tools of problem-solving. Each crisis has a way of outmoding long-held practises and certitudes. Participating in the Holy Week liturgy exclusively via online streaming was not at all an option to many of us until a few weeks ago. Look where we are now today! It is the only option available to most of us unless you are a priest!  A deep crisis can usher in new standards of social and spiritual practices. Do not be fooled! They are here to stay with full social acceptability. In the church world, online ministries are no longer seen as an add-on luxury of the rich congregations, they are now considered as an integral part of the front door entrance to any active community. It does mean that even those hesitant churches will now start considering adding online ministry services to their roster. But how can we change so fast? Are we flexible enough to accommodate such crazy changes? It seems so!

It is the same with marriages. Some will be shattered and others will just manage to survive. But most of our homes will prevail this crisis courageously and it will make us closer to each other. It is crucial to understand how we see ourselves beyond the crisis. We may not have a detailed plan for it, but it is essential to have a vision about it. It is a bad idea to make long-term plans for life during a crisis and it is much more a worse thing to enter a crisis without a long-term vision about our survival. It is important to see far enough beyond the current crisis. Do we have a faith strong enough to see far enough beyond the crisis?  Let’s be honest! We did see it coming but we never imagined it to be this devastating. Like objects in the mirror, the particulars of this new crisis have become much closer than they appeared a couple of weeks ago. It now overwhelms us to the edge of Not-Knowing-What-to-Expect-Next. The situation is so volatile that we all now must brace ourselves to pivot on a dime. Welcome to the COVID-19 world! As they say, we can never motivate ourselves out of a crisis, what we must do is steer ourselves through it. Consider two blind spots to watch out for on our exodus through this current crisis:

1.  Not seeing far enough beyond the crisis - No storm can last forever! Gradually, we will settle back to the normalcy of our daily lives. There will be a post-crisis era. That new normal is already in the making. Certainly, this crisis is not the end of the world, but the beginning of a new one. We do not yet know the shape of the things to come. Some businesses will be gone, never to return but many others will emerge stronger at the end of this crisis. Think of the video conferencing platform Zoom. They are having the best business moment ever!  

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We cannot trust the momentary adrenaline rush that stems from shallow optimism, but we need the flexibility of hope. The real HOPE! It is a virtue that gives us the courage to prevail anything gracefully. As Christians, we know that we have our eyes fixed on the Resurrected one. His resurrection is the promise of our final triumph. He is our HOPE.