I am finding my own relationship with Covid shifting. Perhaps you are, too.
The first year or so felt like a time to hunker down and wait for Covid to pass. Fear was what I felt most…and a kind of suspension of time.
Then as vaccines became available, my routine and my feelings changed. Checking vaccine status became standard operating procedure. Mask wearing in public spaces the norm. It seemed like we were moving toward the end of the pandemic. We were weary…but relief was what I felt.
Plans were in place to re-open the Sanctuary. Then Delta arrived.
We finally opened the sanctuary as the Delta surge passed its peak. Relief doesn’t adequately capture the experience of preaching to some of you in person, though the number who decided to come was small.
We were just beginning to get the hang of in-person worship again when Omicron began to spread. Infection rates soared and hospitals are overtaxed again. But schools are in-person, as are many cultural and sporting events. It has felt like living in two worlds at once. Church went virtual once again. Frustration was my most common feeling. When will this be over?
Now the scientific community tells us to expect Covid to stay with us. Vaccinated people by the droves are contracting Covid, mild cases most. We’ve added the term “long Covid” to describe lasting results of infection. And a new variant is now spreading. What I feel now is not defeated but resigned.
Fear, relief, exhaustion, frustration, resignation. This has been quite a ride.
Covid is expected to cease being a pandemic and become endemic. California’s Gov. Newsom predicts one month from now. I put little faith in predictions, so many have been wrong about this virus. But still…
Endemic means natural or native to a place or people.
The question for us will no longer be: When will Covid end?
The question will be: How will we live with Covid as a regular part of life?
I am finding myself ready to engage with that endemic question. Very ready.
But here is the spiritual challenge. Every Sunday, we end worship by saying “This is the day we have been given. Let us rejoice in it and be glad.”
Rejoicing was not on my list of Covid emotions.
I am not asking anyone to give thanks for Covid. But gratitude can still be real. No one in my immediate family has gotten ill. Nor have I. I’m grateful for that.
Being spared infection has a lot to do with my privilege. I’m not grateful for that privilege, because it comes with the lack of privilege of so many, but I am certainly mindful of it.
Most, I find myself ready to be present to whatever an endemic Covid world may require. The real shift is that I am no longer waiting, I am striving to be present to a world that includes Covid but also “catch your breath” beauty; a world where racism persists but also communities committed to its ending; a world where hummingbirds still visit the feeder outside my kitchen window on bright sunny mornings like today. The whole messy world.
Present to my life and the world of endemic Covid in which I will live it.
Both the words pandemic and endemic include the root word “demos,” the people. The same root from which we get the word “democratic.”
It is time for us, the people, to get on with living and loving and building Beloved Community.
These words of Maima Penniman (of Climbing PoeTree) spoke to me this morning:
We are in the wake
Of a great shifting
Awaken
…right now we need
Day dreamers
Gate keepers
Truth speakers
Light bearers
Bridge builders
Web weavers
Food growers
Wound healers
Trail blazers
Cage breakers
Life lovers
Peace makers
Give what you most
Deeply desire
To give
Every moment
You are choosing to live
Or you are waiting
Why would a flower
Hesitate to open?
Now is the only moment
Rain drop
Let go
Become the ocean
Possibility is
As wide as
The space
We create
To hold it.
Blessings,
I look forward to seeing many of you in church…before too long.
Bill