The challenge of writing a column during Coronatide is that one
is never quite sure what life will look like two weeks hence. Will we still be
“quarantined”? At this writing, we have been safe at home for 50 days. That
means that technically we are 10 days past a quarantine. I’m quite certain no
one was counting on using the strict definition of the word. What I do know as
I write this morning is, no matter what, we will not have returned to “normal”
when this column is published.
There is no going back. Instead, today, we are in the in-between,
caught after a life we once knew, when the word “viral” meant a lot of people
clicked on a meme, and before a life we will one day live where the world is
populated by people who have taken the time to imagine.
In March 2020, the normal and ordinary abruptly screeched to a
halt. We withdrew to our homes. For some of us, the experience was noisier and
more crowded and busier than ever. For some of us, it was day after day of
uncomfortable, endless solitude and silence. We all lost the places where we
escape, the noises of commerce that soothe our stress, the public havens of
anonymous retreat. A microscopic virus had the power to call our way of life to
an abrupt end in a matter of days. And “end” it did. Even as we inch our way
toward the thresholds of our homes, looking out on a bright, nearly summer day,
we know that “normal” will be entirely new. It has to be.
Pragmatically, we will have to grapple with how to stay safe and
healthy as we open schools and places of business. The patterns of our daily
rounds will most certainly be altered. But there is something else.
We are different people for having been at home. While we might
long for the peace and quiet and the relative autonomy an office once afforded
us, we don’t relish the idea of once again losing all those valuable hours to a
commute. We have seen what life looks like when we spend more time face to face
with our families. We have noticed all the things we were missing when we were
away from one another.
And in the big world? We have a better understanding of the
valuable role “essential workers” play, and we know that heroes aren’t only
doctors and nurses — they are every person who walks in to work through the
automatic doors of a hospital these days. They are the UPS driver, the
restaurateur struggling to stay open, the grocery clerk whose eyes tear up
above her mask as she tries to strike up the same regular banter you’ve had
with her for nearly a decade. We step into the new normal with a brighter sense
of appreciation for one another and for the ways our lives are connected.
The world stopped spinning. It paused. In the pause, we
considered our mortality. We saw the numbers climb and we wondered, “what
if?” As we wondered, we took in our
surroundings, near and familiar, and we looked to the people who have always
been closest, but never been so clearly in focus. Many of us, deprived of the
physical presence of Our Lord, struck up or deepened a relationship with him in
the Word. We learned that we could drink deep from the chalice of his words of
consolation and that upon every opening of our Bibles, he had new nourishment
to offer. We longed for in-person community while rejoicing in the richness of
a long, focused phone call with a kindred spirit.
And now, we imagine. We imagine emerging from this cocoon into
the reality of a life forever changed. We have to get this right. We cannot
afford to squander this opportunity in our rush to get back to making and
spending money.
The air out there is crisper and cleaner and more sparkling than
it’s been in a long, long while. Inhale deeply and imagine how to gather up the
good of the last few weeks and bring it with you into the slow unfolding of
tomorrow. Take the good of the last few weeks — the exquisite tutorial afforded
you during the pause — and imagine who you want to be and how you want your
world to look when this is all over.
Foss, whose website is takeupandread.org, writes
from Northern Virginia.