“This is your captain speaking. We’ve had more contact with air traffic control in New York. All planes are to land at the nearest airport and wait for additional instruction—We’ll be coming down at Indianapolis International Airport in ten minutes.”

It was the morning of 9/11, aboard Southwest Airlines for our flight to Boston and the directed retreat at Gloucester. A story larger than life was beginning to spew like torn film from a projector. From the rental car’s radio, news analysts blurted surreal facts as proportions of the disaster mounted. Stops at gas stations evoked spirited conversations: no one was a stranger. In the lobby of the Best Western at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, television sets plied ghoulish scenes to the ongoing narrative.

The following seven days at the retreat center afforded a safe place to grieve and pray. Evil had burnt the psyche of our nation: it would never be the same. From the heart of that conflagration stories still flow.

And yet another huge story encircles Planet Earth like a knife-sharp, ill-fitting corset, its ties in knots. Again, I’m at a remove from its raw grief. Yet I feel the global spirit, weighted with peril as it seeks to contain the Coronavirus from further infection. As with 9/11 we’re dealing with the specter of death.

Like grains of incense glowing atop coals in a thurifer, such stories continue yielding their fragrance, continue honing the disparate experiences into meaningful wholes, with consequent psychic growth for spirited warriors. The pandemic has yet to be resolved.

The war between Good and Evil continues …