One thing you need to know about me is that I’m a planner. I make lists for chores, for groceries, for activities to do in a day. The packing lists I make when our family of five travels are insane. We fill out weekly schedules of weekday breakfasts and school lunches. We live off our color-coded, meticulously updated Google calendar. Below is a screenshot of our calendar from February.



I like having things in order; I take comfort in knowing what’s going to happen – and when, where, and with whom,

Coronavirus ruined all of my plans.

In a 24-hour period, my kids’ school went to e-Learning for the foreseeable future. All our color-coded activities were cancelled; all our normal recreational spots closed for business indefinitely. Our upcoming spring break trip to California – cancelled. Our long-awaited summer vacation to the Caribbean – as of this writing, up in the air. Birthday parties, an upcoming wedding, dance recitals, karate tournaments, even our newborn’s baptism, all the events long planned-on and thrown on the calendar, were one by one all cancelled or postponed, all replaced by “shelter in place.”

Social distancing and self-isolation are breeding grounds for desolation because, by design, they cut you off from community and turn you in on yourself; your focus shifts away from God and towards yourself, your worries, your existential dread. [1] How can we find our way back to consolation when the path toward desolation is simultaneously the only path to stopping a pandemic?

As Catholic Christians, we are conditioned always to think about the future – or rather, the Future in the eternal sense. The problem is when we become preoccupied with the physical future of the here and now. Yet, doesn’t the Bible advise, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:32)?

I, like so many people and particularly parents of school-age children, quickly became extremely desolate two weeks into this lockdown at the prospect of having to survive these conditions for an unknown period of time. I began to return to a place of consolation when I realized I don’t have to figure out – in fact, I cannot figure out – how to survive this forever. We all just have to survive one day at a time. I still find myself occasionally getting overwhelmed by the emptiness of our calendar and the anxiety not being able to plan anything brings, but I claim victories in a sunny day, in teaching my son how to bake muffins, and in our third bike ride around the block in a day.

In closing, I’d like to share the Serenity Prayer. Everyone knows the first three lines, but the lesser-known remainder of it is particularly apt. I hope it brings you some comfort for the days of isolation ahead.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.

Amen.