A Coronavirus Gathering | 4: What Can We Do?

As we lament and hope together in quarantine, how can we, as a Gathering, best serve and encourage each other in this dreadful time?

For most of us, for now, that’s simple — shelter at home. In contrast to some in the religious community, we can encourage one another, for the love of Jesus and neighbor, to stay the hell home. For as long as we can, we should exercise patience to collect more facts about this mysterious disease so we don’t put others needlessly in danger. As citizens, liberty merges freedom with responsibility.

A neurotic introvert, I need to confess upfront a certain fondness for quarantine. I get to binge books, television and movies, hang with Melanie, my wife and best friend, and float in the pool soaking up good reads and Vitamin D. And the government pays me to do so. What’s not to love?

Quarantine also allows me the joy of unleashing, without shame, my Smörgåsbord of mental illness.

OCD has become my constant friend. Against an invisible enemy, disinfectant in one hand and scrub brush in the other, I relish endless goose-stepping missions of purging, cleaning and ordering.

Here, for example, are before-and-after photos of my first battle in the time of Coronavirus, the Kitchen War.

During a pandemic, no thing really sparks joy in me, especially compared to the ecstasy I feel when throwing away a stained 1981 calendar towel, trashing 50 or so tiny yellow rusty corncob holders, arranging bottled water in perfect symmetry, or disinfecting refrigerator mold with the spray set to AK47.

I remember the exhilaration experienced in proclaiming victory in my Kitchen War. I turned to Melanie and boasted —

Bring on coronavirus; I’ll kick its ass as well.

If I grow weary of OCD, I simply turn on the news and feed my paranoia; it feasts on Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow equally.

If I desire to unleash my anger, I go to Facebook and post —

Just mix it with Kool-Aid and drink it down

in the comments under a news story of our president endorsing Clorox cocktails as a cure for Coronavirus.

If my ego needs reinforcement, I binge the Tiger King to remind myself that there are people way more disturbed than me.

If I fall into depression, I suckle it by reading Love in the Time of Cholera.

Don’t get me started on my addictions.

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop with a friendly tip: Feel free to let out the leash on your dysfunctions. I have learned that, in a time of quarantine, they will serve you well.

Shelter at home; it’s not such a stretch.

For some of us, though, this time is no joke. Those on the frontlines, like Amanda Pace and David Crist, face a terrifying new reality. Let us pray consistently for those who, out of an oath to care, do not have the luxury to shelter at home. Send a text or make a call to say thanks. Give a generous tip for a teenager bagging your groceries or the one who delivers your pizza.

We can also encourage each other in small numbers. Melanie and I have started to take communion together with Dick and Saundra Cuyler, socially distanced on their back porch. It’s been a blessing in so many ways and not just because it provides me still another excuse to drink wine.

We also have the opportunity, in this time of shaking, to share the shell-shock of suffering. This clip from The March of the Penguins strikes me as a powerful illustration of distributing the burden.

We also need to speak hope to one another at the same time we grieve our terrible losses.

Pick up the phone and call a friend, laugh and cry together, and pray for best-case scenarios.

Just before the animals crowd around the living room window for a glimpse of a Homo Sapien, pray that we emerge, blinking against the bright light, ready to start life anew with greater empathy, care for our planet, dependence on God, and a deep hunger for life in the Kingdom.

Dee Gillespie posted on the Gathering’s Facebook page a link to a wonderful blog by Katherine and Jay Wolf. They write about the process of moving from lament to hope.

When we cried out to God, He answered. He gave us Himself by giving us other people. When our lives fracture, God is making space for His people to fill in the gaps. Suffering — on an individual level and at a global scale — unveils a profound opportunity for us, the Church, to make the invisible God visible to one another. When we choose to reframe suffering as a universalizing means of connection rather than a point of isolation, everything changes. 

The individual no longer bears the burden of mustering up hope for herself because we get to tell each other, ‘We’ll hope for you until you can hope for yourself again.’

We can also gather together virtually. In early May, many of us Zoomed a time together to pray, share stories, and encourage one another. We hope to meet periodically in small groups, sitting socially-distanced in the sun. Let us know if you would like to be a part of one of those gatherings.

I believe the best way to offer encouragement, virtually or face-to-face, is to remind each other of our true identity. I love this clip from the King’s Speech.

If evolution alone is true, we must reverently observe this time as a purge — a blind life force leading us toward an uncertain destination, the strong naturally selected to eat the weak in a grim march of the survival of the fittest. As believers, we know that’s not the full story.

In the fog of Coronavirus, we need to see more clearly who we are — children of the King in his loving service. As we encourage each other to live out our true identity, personally and collectively, redemption takes root and new possibilities bloom, nourished by the rising of a subterranean river.