A Bright Sunshiny Day

A singer named Johnny Nash had a huge hit in the early 1970s, “I Can See Clearly Now”, a tune he wrote, influenced heavily by Nash’s work with reggae artist Bob Marley. In the song, Nash describes his sight being cleared, and he could see what was ahead.

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day….

John’s Gospel tells the story of the man born blind, and his encounter with Jesus, a healing that  led the man, someone like one of us, to do as Jesus instructed, and wash the mud from his eyes in the Pool of Siloam.

He could see, and proclaimed the miracle. Of course, he ran into trouble with those in charge, blind themselves. The man was thrown out of the Temple.

When Jesus heard that they had thrown him out,
he found him and said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
He answered and said,
“Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”
Jesus said to him,
“You have seen him, and
the one speaking with you is he.”
He said,
“I do believe, Lord,” and he worshiped him.

The man “saw” the power of God’s love in his son, Jesus Christ. He believed.

Right now, we have to believe in the dangers around us with something we can’t see. The Coronavirus is rendering  us, justifiably, afraid. We can trust that the best minds of science and medicine are searching for answers, and we are being, at the least, inconvenienced.

For those of us in the Benedictine College community, it is not only a time of concern, it is a time of pain. We are not physically with our students. Last week, as I left a campus meeting and headed to my car, I was struck with emptiness and sadness I could not address on my own. My life, my colleagues’ lives, our students’ lives, are in an unknown. We are moving to online learning for, likely, the remainder of Spring 2020. It will be challenging. We cannot see an end. But, we know God is guiding us.

There is, with God’s love and mercy, a bright, sunshiny day sooner than later.