I sit in my wing-back chair, the Jerusalem Bible upon my lap. It is morning, another day of global infection: Its potential for calamity looms, its tentacles of poison sicken, its withering of lung cells horrify and shorten lives—the numbers mount. Smidgens of fear brush my mortality, already primed by my terminal disease.

Still, I am prone to the sludge of sloth, to distractions of the latest reports that roil my depths. If unaddressed, only panic ensues, and I choose not to go there.

Instead, I enter within the psalmist’s imperative, Seek his face—a redirection toward Spirit where, alone, wiggle-room-faith unwinds and stretches tall.

Like gardeners harvesting seeds of spent flowers in bags, I collect my scattered energies and focus upon the present moment in which grace abounds. No longer do my self-imposed limits stifle my breathing. Today, I pray to be teachable, to live with the unfamiliar and the unpredictable as they unfold.

There’s always more to learn. Why am I surprised?