Synchronicity fascinates me. Recently, one of my friends was gripped by a sense of malaise. I am sure you agree with me that this is something many of us experience off and on in varying degrees during these protracted weeks and months of the pandemic. While my friend and I were chatting about the overall impact the pandemic has on our psyche and spirits, she chuckled and said, “All sorts feel out of sorts.” Well, and then she suggested I’d write a reflection about all sorts being out of sorts, a delightful play on the licorice brand name Allsorts. I laughed and suggested she write about being out of sorts since she had just had a taste of it. Herein lies the synchronicity, shortly after our conversation I had my own taste of feeling out of sorts.
Probably none of us needs to turn to a dictionary to learn what it means to be out of sorts, still, I did. According to the Collins Dictionary when you are in that state, “you feel slightly unwell, upset, or annoyed.” It has been my experience that it is all these feelings mixed together. Feeling out of sorts is all sorts of feelings layered on top of each other just like some of those Allsorts liquorice pieces.
In his book, Molloy, Samuel Beckett has his protagonist express feeling out of sorts like this, “I was out of sorts. They are deep, my sorts, a deep ditch, and I am not often out of them.” Phrasing the state of being out of sorts like that sounds like the crème de la crème expression about what many of us experience these days. During these dark days, an unsettling mood can easily invade us. It is not unusual that we can find ourselves in a depressed mood during this pandemic without knowing exactly where it comes from and the degree of such moods can vary from person to person, from situation to situation. How deep are the ditches of some of your pandemic induced ‘sorts’?
““I am offering you life or death . . . Choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19)”
When we have the courage, the gumption, one step at a time, to extricate ourselves from those dark moods, we choose to live instead of remaining in the dark ditch. The longer we remain in the ditch, the harder it tends to be to get out of it. No, it is not easy. No, it is not instant. By relying on our life experience, on support from those we trust, and the grace of God we can learn bit by bit how to extricate ourselves ever more easily from our ‘deep sorts [that] deep ditch.’ Over the years, I have often held onto these words of Scripture, “I am offering you life or death . . . Choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19). Perhaps you also have a Scripture quote or a mantra that helps you, offering you a lifeline when you are out of sorts, in one of those dark moods.
Henri Nouwen, a man who had his struggles with being out of sorts, believed, “One aspect of choosing life is choosing joy. Joy is life-giving but sadness brings death. A sad heart is a heart in which something is dying. A joyful heart is a heart in which something new is being born.” (You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living)
During this pandemic, when so many people are experiencing such terrible, devastating suffering you can be forgiven for thinking it is absurd for me to try to suggest we find joy while we are out of sorts, in a dark mood. True enough. Yet, we always do have a choice. Leaning on each other, I find so often is the only way forward. Supporting one another, encouraging one other, finding strength in each other, holding each other in prayer are some of the best ways forward during this pandemic. Pope Francis expresses this stance, such solidarity in these words, “The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed that all of us, fragile and disoriented, are in the same boat. All of us are called to row together [since] no one reaches salvation by themselves.” (Vatican News: World Day of Peace Message, Oct. 20, 2020)
To strengthen us, especially during our darkest days, God promised to, “give us a new heart and put a new spirit in us.” (Ezekiel 36:26) Even when we are out of sorts during this pandemic, may we trust, with the grace of perseverance, to live in the hope of better days to come. We do have a choice. We can choose life and joy rather than feel like victims of being out of sorts.
-Sister Magdalena Vogt, cps