Chill it out, take it slow

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

THE expressions are part of the lyrics of a pop rock song entitled, Best of both worlds, as performed by Miley Cyrus. It talks of a small town girl who enjoys privacy and the status of an ordinary girl in her school but is a big-time phenom when performing on stage because of her extraordinary talent. She’s just cool about that condition.

The expressions can also be applied to what our attitude should be in these times of uncertainty and suspense due to this Covid19 pandemic. We are quite aware that we are thrown into an ocean of mysteries and unknowns, and we are trying our best just to coast along if only to survive with a certain level of ease and comfort. As long as we continue to pray and be vigilant, I believe such attitude is the right thing to have.

Let’s be careful when we get carried away by our emotions, usually of fear and anxiety that often are manifestations of our over-reaction to what we have now. Let’s just take it easy, and as the song puts it, let’s just “chill it out, take it slow.” Otherwise, things would just be worse for us.

Thus, let’s not be rash in our thoughts, words and deeds in reacting to what we are having now. Let’s restrain ourselves from giving in to ideas and pieces of information that are thrown to us in abundance, thanks but no thanks to our modern communication technologies.

By now we should already be quite familiar with what are known as fake news. We should be properly guarded against them. They can come from different sources.

We know that there are people out there who, wittingly or unwittingly, are too focused on pushing their own agenda without due regard to other views. This usually happens with those with a political agenda. And there are people who simply come out with wild, completely baseless assertions, relying more on their biases and prejudices—yes, even religious biases.

But before all that, we cannot deny that there are things that still are up in the air as to their veracity. Like whether the virus is man-made or is something natural, whether it came from China or wherever, whether lockdown, ecq, gcq are the right thing to do, whether we have a real pandemic or a ‘plandemic,’ etc.

Of course, we should follow the exchanges of views, but let’s not be rash in making judgments. What we should not forget is that God is always in control of everything, and that while we have to do our part, we neither should worry too much nor over-react to the developments of this crisis.

Whether we end up right or wrong in our views or positions about these issues is not as important as whether we are with God or not in living out these trying times. Yes, we should try our best to get to the bottom of these issues, but we should never leave God behind. He is in the middle of all this, and the way we react to it would show how we are relating ourselves with God.

So, more than anything else, what is always needed are prayers, sacrifices, works of mercy and all the other spiritual and supernatural means that are still made available to us.

We should try our best to live and act in solidarity with others, which does not mean that we all have a uniform way of doing things. Solidarity involves the variety of the subsidiary ways to serve the common good. Let’s do what we can to help, and let’s do it in coordination with everyone else.

So, let’s just chill it out, take it slow. No need to be tense. We have to learn to smile and ride out this storm. This one will also pass, just like the previous one, though we are still held in suspense at the moment.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com