As we approach the height of summer, many of us, at least in normal times, would be off on some kind of adventure. In the past, for those of us privileged to do so, that would be taking long-planned trips to all kinds of places.
This year is a little different—something we still seem to be saying a lot these days. Most of the travel I’ve been hearing about has been what might be called catch up trips—travel to see loved ones we haven’t seen in this COVID era. Trips to see parents and children and grandchildren. Trips to long delayed memorials or weddings. In-person trips that after staying in touch remotely for so long feel so important.
Some of you who I’ve talked to are chomping at the proverbial bit to get back into travel and perhaps more broadly back into the life that was before this time. There’s a restlessness to get away and perhaps also to do something that signifies that yes, things are getting back to normal—whatever that means right now.
For myself I’ve noted some hesitation when it comes to getting on an airplane or going too far from home. Some of that is about safety but mostly it is about hesitancy to jump back into old patterns too quickly. I haven’t traveled much at all in these COVID times and I’ve discovered that perhaps I’m even more of a home body than I thought I was. I’ve actually discovered that the hassles of travel are real and maybe I don’t need as much of that in my life.
This COVID time has been a time of disruption in so many ways. It has been a time of loss for so many. It has been a time to realize just how privileged some of us are. I’ve had to note how few COVID deaths—or even COVID cases—have come to those close to my life. That has been important to acknowledge, how this pandemic has so disproportionately impacted many of the communities that were already struggling going into all this.
And looking over these many months there have been gifts too in slowing down and having patterns disrupted. Of maybe having a chance to stop and ask just what is important? Just what is it we want and need after all?
Journey is our spiritual theme this month. Feels appropriate for summertime. Journey, of course, isn’t just about travel. It is a metaphor for life itself, the part we find ourselves on, where it is we are going, were it is life seems to be taking us. For all of its disruptions and losses this COVID time has been a gift in that it has called for a kind of universal pause, a kind of shared interruption, maybe even disruption. It has offered a chance to stop and ponder just where we are and where it is we are going.
This week an important mentor in my life died. His name was Ron Cook and he was a seminary professor of mine. He preached the sermon at my ordination service. Ron was a thoughtful and reflective person, a man of few words. He was someone who taught me the importance of silence, particularly in the role of pastor. And maybe what I admired most about him was his ability to ask the right question in the right moment. Questions like so just what is it that you want? Just what is it that is important for you? He would ask the question and then give space for the answer. No rush. Now those are always good questions to be asking at any time but maybe especially in this kind of in-between time as we figure out just what some new normal looks like.
It is easy I think, at least in our pre COVID world, for us to be going at such a pace as to not really allow enough time. There are lots of ways to be distracted in our lives—too many. And I should note that many of those distractions are still very much present for us to take advantage of now. Question is do we see them differently than we may have seen them some number of months ago? What, if anything has changed for us? What, if anything, do we want to do differently going forward?
I think—and I hope—that this time has also been one to notice ways that maybe we were spending time wasn’t all that nurturing or helpful. That maybe we were allowed to not pay attention to some of the things we needed to be paying attention to. And for those of us who are privileged in any number of ways, to notice ways that that privilege allowed us to not pay attention to the costs of that privilege on others.
Maybe this COVID time has allowed for a kind of reset.
This week one of the emails that came through my inbox talked about a something called the “doorway effect.” It explores that phenomenon of going from one room to another and finding yourself in that new room and asking… now why was it that I came here? This has maybe happened to you. It happens to me a lot. You set off on a task and a moment later you are in a room and you have no earthly idea what that task was. Well researchers did some study of this and it turns out that we lose information such as this more frequently when we cross over a threshold—or go from one room to another—than when we travel the same distance but don’t leave the room.
Why is that you ask? Well I should first of all note that age doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with it. Seems to happen pretty consistently no matter how old we are. Scientists theorize that our brains do a kind of reset when we cross a threshold, when we go from one space to another. We carry a lot of info in our brains and there’s a limit as to just how much information we can carry. There’s a kind of information reset when we make transitions, even simple ones like going from room to room. Crossing that threshold says to us, on some level, OK that is done. Check. Time to reset for the next thing. But in the process that very thing we are making the trip to do can get lost. Makes sense when you think about it. And when we don’t leave the room our brains somehow aren’t reset in the same way. When we don’t leave the room the reason for the trip more easily stays in our mind. [1]
And I wonder if there are parallels that we might see in this COVID and this post COVID time. I wonder of passing through a kind of doorway has happened in these last many months and maybe we too are experiencing a kind of reset. I wonder if we may be asking ourselves “Where am I?” “What am I doing here?” What the important information I need to carry forward with me? And what don’t I need to bring forward? And to what extent can we find ourselves, still, feeling a little disoriented.
I’ve been mostly working from home these months except coming down here to church on Sundays and a few weeks back, with more of us being vaccinated and in-person meetings starting to take place, well some weeks back I found myself getting ready to go to a meeting at someone’s home. And all of a sudden, I was presented with a bunch of questions that were there that I hadn’t really needed to deal with a whole lot for a long time and that I found kind of stressful. OK so I’m going to a meeting. I’ll be driving there so is the car available? How long will it take to travel there? What do I need to do to get ready that is more than getting ready to be available for a zoom meeting? All of a sudden what used to be a routine thing was stressing me out. All of a sudden I needed to think a bunch of stuff through. All of a sudden I needed to give myself a little time out to get settled.
I did make it to the meeting on time but I think that is the sort of thing that is happening for many of us on any number of levels right now. I think it will take some time to find our way through that. Some of us will be inclined to push our way forward—right straight ahead. And others of us may take a little longer to get back on that path. And of course one of the challenges is that those steps may have their share of detours. We can’t know exactly what the course will look like going forward. Whether that’s about the variants that are increasingly present or changes in our work environment or what things from the past are coming back and which ones are not—all of that is in the mix right now. Getting back to normal is and will continue to be a relative term.
What I wouldn’t want us to miss is that in the midst of change and disruption there is also opportunity. That we take the time we need as we make our way back. That we take time and notice. Take the time and pay attention. I know that I haven’t experienced this kind of reset before in my life time. I have seen it happen on an individual level, when we experience a serious illness or when we lose someone close to us. When a relationship ends or there is some other kind of big loss and we need to stop and to reevaluate… but we are all going through this, at least on some level, together.
It is important to take the time we need.
There is a story about European missionaries serving in Africa a century ago who hired local villagers as porters to help carry supplies between distant stations. The porters went at a slower pace than the missionaries desired, so after the first two days, the missionaries pushed them to go faster. On day three of the trek, the group went twice as far as day two. Around the campfire that evening, the missionaries congratulated themselves for their leadership abilities. But on day four, the workers would not budge. They were not going anywhere.
“What’s wrong?” asked the missionary.
“We cannot go any further today,” replied the villagers’ spokesman.
“Why not? Everyone appears well.”
“Yes,” said the African, “but we went so quickly yesterday that we must wait here for our souls to catch up with us.”[2]
We must wait here for our souls to catch up with us.
And maybe the question for us at this particular turning point might be: Do we need to take the time to let our souls catch up?
As we go through this time of reset, I hope we can see it as a time of opportunity, of possibility. Life, we know, can move pretty fast oftentimes and we don’t get too many opportunities to stop and to ask some of those questions that it is good to stop and to ask now and then. Those are questions that are important at any time. But maybe even more important for us now.
Words again of poet Louise Erdrich:
Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don’t even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don’t sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we’re all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don’t answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in though the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don’t read it, don’t read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.[3]
It would be easy as life gets back to normal or some kind of normal to slip into some of the patterns that perhaps didn’t serve us all that well in the past and perhaps still won’t serve us well in the future. It would be easy to resume things too quickly and to find ourselves in the new room not at all sure why we are there.
In these summer days that lie before us, may we take the time to know what is most necessary in our lives. May we make space to sort through what is important and what is not. May we offer ourselves the opportunity for a reset where it is due. May we find, in the end, a place where our souls are settled, where our souls are at peace, where our souls might even sing. Amen.
Prayer
Spirit of life of and of love. God of many names and of no name, be with us on this journey. Be with us in our sorting, be with us in our learning, be with us amid the losses of these days and amid the opportunities. Remind us to make space. Remind us to ask good questions. Help us to know the things that are the most necessary. Through it all remind us that we are not on this journey alone but with fellow travelers. Help us all, guide us all, hold us all. Amen.
Benediction: May your journey lead you to some unexpected places. And no matter where you find yourself, may you remember to stop along the way to make sure your soul has time to sing.
[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-walking-through-doorway-makes-you-forget/
[2] https://www.paulborthwick.com/take-time-to-let-your-soul-catch-up/
[3] “Advice to Myself” by Louise Erdrich.
Topics: Journey