Author: Charles LaFond

“I am soon to be on my annual week of retreat which totally sucks.  Being on retreat from social media, technology and work is a part of my Rule of Life; and I usually hate it.  I quite like the anesthesia I have collected over the years – tools I have and use to “not feel pain.” And a retreat is an un-anesthetized week of silent reflection. It will follow a week of vacation this year, so not only will I be bored, I’ll be rested and bored. Ugh.”

“Cloistered as we are within homes and small circles of family or COVID-approved-house-guests, we are spending much of our time with people who know us very well.  And people who know us well are armed with knowing our soft-spots; where to place the verbal blade for maximum pain and maximum bleed.  Not always, but sometimes.  That is why betrayal by a close friend or loved-one is exponentially more painful than a wound inflicted by a stranger.”

“Perhaps we do not need more things or more power. Perhaps we need more rest. Perhaps we work hard because it anesthetizes our pain. Perhaps there are better ways to deal with our pain.” 

“I want that kind, humble black or perhaps brown man.  Where has He been these 2,000 years? If I wipe off the plaster and paint of our statues will he be there underneath?”

“Dominating regimes will fall.  They fall not because people are good.  They fall because the planet was created VERY good. It seems to be a living organism. Something is connecting the good of the planet between people and between all living things.”

“We create our ecstasy and we create our peace. And when we choose anesthetizing addictions we dull the light as well as the darkness.”

“So now I bake bread at home. I have time to mix and wait and kneed and wait and kneed and wait and bake. And I eat the hot bread with wine at night but in the morning – especially Sunday mornings, I eat the hot bread with salted butter made by Irish people and cows with raspberry jam which reminds me more of blood than the wine ever did. Or my sins.”

“These days in which we all live, right now, are like that kiln. A crucible of sorts. The pressure is on. The invisible stress-cracks inside each one of us are – because of the intense heat of life’s insecurities – becoming wider, more visible cracks after the firings.”

“This shelter-in-place time has been just such a disruption, but on a planetary scale.  It has stopped our normal routines.  It has startled a planet of humans and caused us to sit up and look around us. It has pushed us out of our complacency and our busy accumulation into a season of taking-stock.”