Quiet.
Unsettling.
But it need not be empty.
Like a prayer, this year's Holy Week we can spend in the grace of silence, in all that can be discovered in contemplation, in the cleansing power of meditation.
Forced by circumstances to stay home, to stay still, to stay away from the distraction of Holy Week vacations spent before the pandemic struck, we might as well use the time to ponder much larger issues, such as our life's purpose, the miracles of life and death, and, for the faithful, the meaning of Jesus' sufferings and his subsequent resurrection.
Life is what it is, but every minute of it, the very fact that we are alive at all, is a miracle prevailing over so many possibilities that could have made it improbable, like if the earth were any closer to or farther from the sun, if the gravitational force on earth were any weaker or stronger, if the developmental genes were short or had too much of the information necessary to build proteins -- and bodies -- to pass from one generation to the next.
These are mysteries with which the pandemic, on the positive side, has given us the opportunity to reflect on, especially during Lent, the season of faith, a time of gratitude
Read some of this week's stories in Panorama: