Fruits of the Spirit

I was reminded today of the fruits of the Spirit, found in Paul's letter to the Galations (5:22-23 & 25): ...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. ... If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. (NRSV)

Aren't these just the qualities we need to survive this pandemic? While we can turn on the TV or news feed and see people flaunting rules and hoarding supplies, we have also seen remarkable acts of selflessness and care for one another.  I hope so very fervently that we can maintain this caring attitude once we are cleared by the experts to resume 'normal' life. And we may need to be especially tolerant of each other when we find out what life looks like beyond our quarantine.

My husband and I, in the way long-married couples do, have shortened the list above into a cliche that governs our common life: "Cut the people you love some slack!" We are entering our fourth week of isolation together, and we're enjoying each other's company and going about these weird days very peaceably. We can each claim a decent supply of spiritual fruits.

I have depended greatly on patience and self-control today. We set out to hook up a new DVR after breakfast.  It seemed easy enough. Everything went swimmingly until I turned on the machine and got the message "wrong region".  What?!?  I've learned a lot about this.  A DVD and its player must be synced to the same region.  It's a technical protocol to help reduce pirating of copyrighted material.  Who knew? The fixes we could find involved entering a numerical code in the machine to override the whole region thing, only.....our remote had no numerical pad. 💥 I visited the Sandoo website, read technical blog posts, yada, yada.  It finally occurred to me to look at the comments on Amazon, where we ordered the player.  Right there in the top line was the 3-step fix for my problem.  Sometimes patience is rewarded with a heart-felt "I DID it!!", even if it came in the late afternoon.

Stay tuned. My new laptop is supposed to be delivered Wednesday!

Lord Jesus, fill us with Spiritual resources as we're put to the test by the corona virus.  Let those who are worried, stressed, tired, sick and at risk find your Word to be a source of comfort and peace.  Amen.

Who would you like to lift into God's life-giving light as you pray today?