A poetic reflection on Mark 2:13-22
When I finished the Camino last June,
I was probably in the best physical shape
I have been in a decade.
Thirty-five days on the road
and months preparing
had melted a lot of fat
and put a lot of muscle on my 62 year old body.
Yet by the time I returned home
COVID had stricken me down.
My brain was full of new wine–
New ideas, new ways of seeing the world,
new things to ponder.
And there I was
in a suddenly-much-more-fragile-wineskin
and no place to store what could be awesome wine.
Now before anyone feels too sorry for me,
as COVID cases go,
it was a relatively mild one,
but my medical chart still says,
“Post-COVID Syndrome,” seven months later
because my wineskin
is still pretty darn fatigued,
and I now struggle with
Vitamin D Deficiency.
Yet I can feel the bubbles
from the new wine bubbling inside of me,
and although I think my wineskin
is in a little better shape
than it was seven months ago
I have to ask…
“Was it meant to go in this aging wineskin?
Or was it meant to put in a newer skin?”
And yeah…
deep inside of me
I know the correct answer,
and I ponder the best way
to give it away.
Maria Evans splits her week between being a pathologist and laboratory director in Kirksville, Mo., and gratefully serving in the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri , as Interim Priest at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hannibal, Mo.
