In these days during the height of the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, many of us may be feeling emotions, sensations, bodily reactions that are unfamiliar to us. We hear the numbers many times throughout the day highlighting the infections and focusing on those who have died from complications due to Coronavirus and these feelings, emotions, sensations and bodily reactions only increase.

We hear the names of famous people who have died from the disease. We hear the names of loved ones of friends who have died from the disease. So many of the numbers have no names to us unless they were our own family members and loved ones. Each proclamation of deaths from COVID-19 brings us deeper feelings, deeper emotions, a heavier heart.

When I was 15 years old, I went to work one day at Food Depot near our house. There had been a family argument before I left. I was upset about the argument. I was holding everything together so as not to break down and cry. I clocked in. Got the sheet I needed to stock the produce and my manager came by and said hi. I said hi and turned back to my work. Mike was his name if I recall. He came back a few minutes later and called me to his office and closed his door and asked me to sit down. He asked again, “Are you ok?” I said I was fine but he could tell I was upset. He then said something to me that “real men” in Oklahoma at the time didn’t say to other men. I say that because 5 years earlier when my Dad died 3 of my uncles told me before Dad’s funeral, “Don’t cry. Don’t let your mother see you cry. Be a big boy and don’t cry.”

Mike and his wife at the time were having issues. The adults there at work may have gossiped about it but none of the teenagers were included in that gossip.
Mike said, “Hey look. Lord knows I’ve been through so much lately I’ve cried. I won’t deny it. If you need to cry, cry. It’s ok to cry.”

With his words all of the emotions burst from me as if they had opened the gates to Keystone Dam during one of the regular May floods.

Mike gave me permission to cry. He gave me permission to be a man and still be honest with all that I was feeling.

We are grieving. We are mourning. It’s ok to grieve. It’s ok to mourn. For those of us like myself who shut out the beginning tugs of the heart that bring tears because crying is something we “do not do”, we need to cry. For those who need permission to cry, it’s ok to cry.

In Ecclesiastes 3 we learn about that there is a time for everything under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:4 says “A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

Ecclesiastes 3:4

Now is that time to weep. Now is that time to mourn.

We are mourning and grieving. We grieve not just the famous lives lost to COVID-19. We grieve not just the lives known by name by us and others. We grieve all of those unknown names and unknown families behind the numbers the news bombards us with.

It’s ok to mourn. It’s ok to grieve. It’s ok to cry.

In the beatitudes, Jesus proclaims, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

We can’t be comforted if we deny and ignore all that we are feeling inside.

Hopefully, when all of this is over, we will awaken with a greater respect for all the “essential” workers we perhaps took for granted before, especially those whose jobs are deemed essential now and yet their pay is far from essential worker pay, their jobs offer no benefits. Those like grocery store cashiers, sackers and stockers. Those like fast food workers. Those like warehouse workers and truck drivers.

Hopefully, when all of this is over, we will have a greater appreciation for doctors, nurses, EMTs, first responders, police officers and fire fighters.

These times are trying, but I have no doubt, humanity is being invited to a greater ascension consciousness that breaks away the barriers we’ve allowed other’s to shape for us that keeps us in a us vs. them mindset. We are being invited to awaken to the collective consciousness mindset which recognizes we all live in a “we” relationship with each other and nature. When one suffers, we all suffer. When one succeeds, we all succeed. When one experiences injustice, we all experience injustice. Damage to one is damage to all.

I don’t know whatever happened to Mike. But I am forever grateful he let down his guard as an adult man back in the 80’s and gave the 15 year old me permission and space to cry. Had he not, who knows the impact all of that pent of emotions may have had if they never had found release?

Thanks Mike. Thanks God for sending him in my path on the journey.

Let’s mourn and be comforted and arise in that hope that this new collective consciousness awareness offers all of us. After all, it was the collective consciousness shared by Adam, Eve, God, the animals and angels and principalities that made Eden paradise. Perhaps through all of this, We are being invited to live one step closer to Eden.