TheGreatPause has offered people of African descent, as well as all people of the United States and the world, some remarkable opportunities to reflect on our history, our relationships, our dependency on one another, shared pain, shared joys, shared contradictions, and most of all what we look like when we see ourselves reflected in the mirror of truth.

 

It began in a remarkable way.  We were forced into isolation.  As a result, families saw one other for the first time.  People who lived alone felt themselves more alone.  People who had no home of their own and lived in some cases with only three feet of space between them and another person found themselves on the street for many hours a day mingling with others who were afraid of each other.  Those who lived at government expense, because of the law, were trapped.

 

The reality of aloneness took on new meaning.  The question of defining being alone and loneliness sort of blended into one experience.  No matter the circumstance TheGreatPause found you in or left you in, you were experiencing the isolation of being left with your own thoughts.

 

When a person is left with only their own thought, it can become a way to create, perhaps for the first time, a relationship with self.  A few things can happen.  One can be self-indulgence in the form of food and drink.  Another can be drugs and alcohol. And yet another can be an introduction to a self they have never met.

 

This self can be called the inner man.  The inner man has always been there, just ignored.  Isolation then becomes a revealing friend.  Depending on how long the person is willing to “wait upon” the inner man to reveal its true nature, the person can build a relationship with self that can banish the isolation. 

 

 

Blessings.

 

Rev. Carol

 

 

This GOSPELGRAM is brought to you from Unity In Harlem and will appear twice-a-month for the immediate future.  You are invited to respond to these thoughts by emailing carolhunt@unityinharlem