Thursday, December 24, 2020

Covid Thoughts: A Journey Through Time and Chance to Hope and Meaning

Here I am, God. It is a Sunday afternoon and church is canceled.....again. Not because of rain or cold, but rather new, tighter Covid restrictions. How much we have enjoyed recently being back at St. Matthew’s outdoor services. We have  profited from receiving Christ’s body and blood (in word) and sacrament. The holy blessing of Father Steve’s most comforting and empathetic tone. We are united as a family in our home church – yet another strange and bizarre circuitous blessing  of Covid 19- 2020!!

St. Matthew’s was our first church in Richmond and we spent about 5 years there and both of our boys attended their preschool. Then due to various reasons, I ended up having some nice singing opportunities at a downtown church, and Calvin was asked to accompany for a startup church in a retirement community in Midlothian. We decided at the time that these were important opportunities that we both felt called to try. 

So for the past 6 years Sunday mornings were very hectic. Calvin would get up early and go to his church in Midlothian to accompany the service. I had the luxury of waking up a little later, but the burden of getting two children ready and out of the house to make it in time for choir rehearsal downtown before the service. Calvin would finish his church and rush over to my church so we could take communion together. Then we would gather ourselves in two cars and head home for brunch. 

Then came Covid — no more choir and no more church in Midlothian in the retirement community. Next, through the mother of one of Soren’s preschool friends, I was invited to join St. Matthew’s women’s book club. It was something to look forward to each week. It was also joyful to reconnect with some of my St. Matthew’s friends. We had heard for a while how wonderful the new rector was and were curious to attend one of his sermons. Then it seems as fate would have it, the opportunity to go back to St. Matthew’s became apparent. Calvin admitted he had grown weary of our Sunday morning routine and for a while had wished there were a way we could go to church together again as a family, and so it is that Covid answered that prayer for him.

I have wanted to write for so long, yet it  seems I had a writer’s block of sorts. Practical excuses are easy to come by, but when there is a will, there is a way. Wiser, sadder, humbled, more patient, less stressed? A few of many more descriptives for me personally on my Covid mountain, valley, and forest. A friend once spoke to me about her “journey” and said a phrase that really struck me. “It was as though I had to become and confront my worst self in order to become better than previously”, she said. This thought and understanding really takes on a whole new meaning in Covid. I know I personally felt this at times and I think others too have had this experience. In the beginning a wave of confusion and disbelief, followed by some attempt at normalcy amid the abnormal. The great descent, giving up, becoming our “not-so-great versions of ourselves”, then reorganizing one step at a time.Trying and trying again. 

I don’t exactly know where to start after such a long writing pause, but I suppose the right here, right now is a good place. I have hope with a new politics (hopefully less contentious) and a vaccine, that perhaps things will take shape in a way that in general people may feel a little safer and less threatened.

This AM Calvin and I listened to Tim Keller giving a talk on Hope. We also read Ecclesiastes 9 together. So much to penetrate and think upon. At first reading one might not find this passage particularly uplifting or hopeful. Verse 2 ‘It is the same for all since the same events happen to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.’

One might read and think, why make the effort? But I believe if one digs into this passage there is a freedom to be found. It can be tricky and admittedly takes a little mental massaging to balance the vanity of existence, its passing nature, with a motivation to do and be our best. I know I personally have struggled with this dual nature of existence. My experience is that if one can get past the focus of the long term vanity and ultimate fading of the material, including our own physical bodies, and really rest in a sovereign plan that God has laid forth, then there is indeed something freeing. We can be our best, or our worst self, and still the perfection is among us. Grace is available when we gain the strength to try and try again. We can let go of the burden of controlling the outcome and simply be in the present moment with grace and gratitude.

Verse 7, ‘Go eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.’ Or verse 9, ‘Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.’ It seems the directive is something like, do your best, be your best, but ultimately it matters not, so do so with a light hand. Forgive yourself as he forgives you, nourish and immerse yourself in the moments of joy, but don’t try to hold on, for they will pass. Feel the pain of the failure or the loss, but then let it pass. His plan is laid, and you are being led to be doing and experiencing exactly what you are in each moment, beyond that is not in your hands. It is a little scary and requires some faith and trust, but ultimately there is a hidden gem in the balance of being and doing with a light hand, allowing the past to be the past, the future to be the future and the moment to be supreme. 

The final line of this passage is quite striking. Verse 18, ‘Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.’ I understand this to emphasize the matter of personal responsibility. Maybe it is something like this: it matters — and it matters a lot — but at the same time it matters not in a way that will disturb the “whole”. It is as if the whole is always intact no matter what. There I believe is the Hope.

So life continues. The day to day is filled with blessing and yes hope.

The beauty of His creation here in Richmond has been so uplifting. Sunsets, clouds, fall to winter trees. A brief morning snow dust with cardinals on branches looking like Christmas cards, and today. Today, I write! Today is a strange spring-like day. The birds are extraordinary. A flock of black birds swarmed away together towards the sky. A small brown bird I nicknamed Chubbysits on the deck. Two cardinals drink from our fountain.

We originally planned to kayak today, but instead have been invited to Soren’s Godparents’ home, our good friends, the Witmers. We met them at  St. Matthews and have been friends now in Richmond for over 11 years! Wow, time really does go by quickly and children change so much. I want to remember these little gems of joy amidst the chaos, to fuel the fire of hope with each of these kindling moments. The humor... like Soren singing joyfully at the top of his lungs, his improvisational “I love my penis song”! Only that kid! He was in the bathroom so I let him sing on. What about the moment in church a few weeks back when Soren said of the communion wafer, “this makes your heart heal a little”. Truly wisdom from the mouth of babes.

There is a continued yearning for the community worship outdoors at St. Matthews on Sunday mornings  The need for repentance, being fulfilled, such burdens lifted which felt especially weighty  during this time. What was so powerful about public worship? Was it also a return to some that have been church family for years? Certainly that plays a part, makes things more comfortable, and it is a joy to reconnect to longtime brothers and sisters in Christ. There are news things too, like this connection to Father Steve and appreciation for his preaching and doing book club with his wife Angie. 

One of  Pierson’s most favorite activities right now is youth group with Steve and Angie’s children who are a part, not to mention Julia. Julia met Pierson when he was just a baby and really befriended him. She used to offer to hold him. Even when I went downtown to Grace and Holy Trinity Church to sing, Julia ended up being there too as she was then living on VCU campus. However, with Covid and costs of living she once again lives at home and is back at St Matthews, and now heads up the youth group from which she graduated three or so years ago. She spoke briefly on the first day and shared her fond memories as well as the Christian beliefs and traditions she wants to both share and carry on. So far this year they have made sleeping mats (out of  plastic bags) and toiletry bags for the homeless, collected canned goods, and done leaf raking. On Wednesday evening they do a zoom compline service together. They have fun and fellowship, and they know Christ personally in their hearts. Pierson is one of the younger ones. I believe one aspect he loves is the feeling of independence. He often laments childhood for its lack of independence and emotional freedom of choice. Well... not easy to philosophically explain, but some things, e.g., going to school seven hours a day, is actually not a personal insult and punishment, although it may feel that way, rather what generational wisdom tells us is best.

Maybe that is also what hope is about, trusting in timeless wisdom. Not perhaps knowing in the intellectual mind the exact reasons for why worship in community is so powerful, but realizing without a doubt that it is. We leave with our spirits uplifted and our minds a little lighter than when we arrived. Hope is the wind filling out our sails to onward shores, perhaps unknown, but guided nonetheless.