Diary of a Pandemic: day 5# - framing and reframing

Many of us may be struggling to adjust to the 'stay-home' orders,  introduced as a measure to restrict the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Apart from the super-elderly who have lived through war-time deprivation, it's the first time we've experienced anything remotely like this  - and naturally there are different responses and different ways of naming what's going on by those in authority who are asking their people to co-operate in a desperate effort to slow down or even stop the disease's shadow covering the earth.

What do we make of the terms being used in media and common conversation [held at a safe distance or over the phone/device of course]; terms like being in 'lockdown', 'quarantine','confinement'?

I don't know about you but initially the terms all raised my anxiety as I went to my unfortunately common default setting of imagining  'worse case scenarios' and thought of non-compliance being met with  potential violence, large-scale sequestering of the sick , and solitary confinement being used as a punishment!

But, in Psalm 73 - today's Psalm - we see how easy it is to be overwhelmed if we let ourselves think only of the negative connotations - even if evolutionary biologists might say we're hard-wired to react and respond to risk to enable the species to survive. It's only when the psalmist 'goes into the sanctuary' of his well-established relationship with a faithful God, that he gleans some perspective and can begin to see that there is another way of framing things that can be life-giving.

Another way of framing things.

Lock-down - words like security, safety, and focus come to mind; a time when it's possible to draw aside from the 'madding crowd' for a season, to 'pull up the drawbridge'  and reconnect with ourselves, with others [on the internet or with physical distancing], with creation and with our God.
Welsh poet William.H.Davies wrote these lines to open his poem Leisure [1911]:
               What is this world if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?'
Well, now we have the time to stand and contemplate what is around us and what is within us.

Quarantine can speak to us of protecting ourselves not just from a nasty virus, but from anything that can undermine or even poison our well-being.
Do we really want to binge on box-sets of violent TV dramas until this situation eases?
Does watching non-stop updates about the spread of Covid-19 soothe our soul or deepen our anxiety even further?

Confinement in common current usage is associated with limiting freedom in some way. But in many cultures it used to refer to the period [sometimes up to 30 or 40 days] during which a woman and her baby recovered from child-birth, established feeding and were cared for by those closest to her. How many of us are secretly breathing a sigh of relief that we can legitimately step back from the hectic pace of modern life, take better care of ourselves, and deepen our relationship with those with whom we share this extraordinary time.

Even though it's thrown us all, maybe  there's an invitation to us to see this unexpected and unprecedented event in our personal and global history  as a period of gestation with huge potential to give birth to what has been growing within us for a long time - a reclaiming of who we really are, what and whom we really love, and a re-examination of who we think God is.s

Then, when we emerge we will bring with us a different way of seeing, a  readiness to continue to spend quality time with God 'in the sanctuary'of our hearts, and good news for all of creation.

Diary of a pandemic - day 2# NZ lockdown

I have nothing profound to say.

There are countless others with words that seem wise, but my mind needs to empty a little bit, stem the onslaught of statistics and stories and dis-ease modelling and 'what if's' and create some space for stillness. 

I am sitting upstairs in my writing spot with a tall kauri tree outside my window, watching it wave in the breeze. It is older than I am, a home to trilling tui, fantails, clumsy kereru, the occasional tiny grey warbler and sparrows. We will become better acquainted in the weeks ahead as I listen to them sing, and see them sit safely on the branches outside, a world away. 

Like it or not, I'm one of the 'vulnerable' - in my early 70's - it's a stark reality for many of us who don't consider ourselves 'old' that we're among those who may be most affected by the invisible menace which has already irrevocably changed so many lives around the globe. 

But it's time to pull my mind back from the thought of so much suffering and focus on the moment for that is all I have, all any of us has, this precious moment in which we live and breathe.

I look outside: the pavements are empty - no children from the local childcare centre walk in wobbly pairs down the road, high-viz vests barely containing their energy; no people hurry between businesses or doctors' rooms and pharmacy. Far fewer cars and only the occasional truck goes past - somehow they seem quieter, slower than usual.

There are moments of absolute silence, so unusual for a city street.
Within the space of that silence my mind moves to the words of 14th century anchorite and mystic, Julian of Norwich:
        All shall be well, and all shall be well and 
        all manner of thing shall be well.

Julian could only say this in the midst of hard times because she knew God's presence and love, and trusted that we are all held by a love that will not let us go.

May I hold onto this when I feel overwhelmed or anxious.
May we all come to that place of deep confidence and improbable peace no matter what lies ahead.