Be Still

Noted English writer, Virginia Woolf, suggests that inactivity can have healing benefits.

She said that it is exactly when we have an “abundance of stillness” that we are “able to resume our fullest possession of both the present and ourselves.”

Beginning this day, the whole Metro Manila is under 30-day emergency “community quarantine” or lockdown.

It’s enforced by the military and police to control the spread of the Covid-19 in the entire metropolis and the rest of the country.

Quarantine means you “stay home.” Be still. Inactive. To temporarily avoid or lessen going out and socialize. Just be by your self.

No matter how hard this is, this quarantine period gives us the time and the impulsion to face our selves.

After learning she had stage 4 cancer, an OFW mother in her 40s finally allowed herself to come home and be self-quarantined and treated.

All her busy working years in Dubai, she never had time to stop and look at herself. She raced about earning money without giving a thought about the life she’s living.

At her deathbed in her home province, she asked her eldest daughter, “Please tell your Dad that I’m sorry about everything when I die.” And intermittently, she’d sing “Amazing Grace.”

It was during this still moment that she felt her soul opening and strengthening ... she saw the healing goodness of stillness, inactivity, no outside interruptions.

Too many of us wait too long for an illness. Too many of us wait too long to save our marriages or families from breaking down. Too many of us wait too long to heal our depressions and addictions.

Too many of us wait too long ... to entertain moments of solitude and reflection that is essential for health, healing, and wholeness.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)