There’s not a lot of peace to be found these days… despite the broad swaths of separation. Part of that is on us. Who is truly comfortable with this artificial isolation and the suspension of “normal” activity?
Ironically, public polls and private conversation reveal that a good many of us feel busier than ever. And not necessarily in a fulfilling way. We’re just frazzled by all that we cannot do and working diligently to be productive in spite of that.
And then there are our teachers, our care-givers, our emergency response providers and the plethora of other essential staff. You are “on” – despite the concerns; in the midst of the complexity and without regard to all the other roles you are asked to take on: technology worker, unintentional home school teacher, remote support provider, emotional anchor and general problem solver.
As one who has dappled in some of those roles, myself, I confess there are some forms of encouragement that I have come to find less than helpful. For example, I am very tired of the word “unprecedented.” Yes, it is true, we have never done all this suddenly new stuff before. And, yes, it is not part of our communal experience. And yet, for all that it is unfamiliar, we are not historically unique even if this particular set of circumstances are not shared with those who came before us.
For proof, I commend to you our Bible – from the series of crises in Genesis, through the prophets, the Psalms, Lamentations, apocalyptic and other wisdom writings, including the Book of Job. Scary stuff, messy stuff, horrible, dangerous, life-changing stuff has hit humanity before.
And yet, despite these scary, messy circumstances not being unprecedented, they ARE new to us. And scary. And messy. And hard to navigate because we are out of our element. What constitutes “safe enough?” What measures are prudent and where is the line that keeps us just shy of paranoid?
For me, those questions are best asked and answered in community with those with the insight to help us know: health professionals, town officials, state leadership, accredited experts… and our own circle of trusted thought-partners. You EACH have a role in that conversation as the ones best equipped to understand your own circumstances.
Your job in these moments is to use your good sense to assess what you’re hearing, what you’re feeling and what you need for yourselves, your family and those affected by the choices you make. Then skew toward the wisdom of the well-informed. As trite as it sounds, this is a marathon, not a sprint. The virus that is running amuck among us is invisible. It rears its ugly head in spite of our precautions and the full extent of its damage is hard to anticipate… Not unlike another virus that is rampant in our midst.
Do any in this country believe that the violent horrors we’ve seen on the news, the emotional spectrum of community response, or the impulse to “take sides” are new? Are the dangers that ensue when authority loosens its ties to responsibility, accountability and scrutiny novel to now? Is the inclination to perceive “different” as dangerous a product of our times? Are the tacit assumptions, that can make everyday decisions about exercise, shopping, driving, walking or standing up for oneself less safe if one’s skin is dark, no more than a defensive response to the current state of our union?
The anger and the outrage, the grief, the loss and the pain of lives lost, justice ignored and rights discounted did not invade like a foreign army intent on taking us down. No, this enemy is home-grown; nurtured by centuries of separate and not-equal policies and practices that make racial disparity a defining characteristic of American culture. This virus did not just appear. It has been incubated and adapted through every era, hiding in plain sight and binding – often seamlessly – to the other side of progress… the side that we choose not to see.
And now it’s loose. It’s in the streets. It’s finding voice where before its sounds were silenced… because, before…
Because, before… what? Because before it was only the black and brown people making all the noise – calling “foul,” saying “stop,” demanding justice, seeking peace? That is both untrue and certainly too simplistic a way to explain what we’re now hearing. So why we are now hearing the pain, the anger, the grief so much more loudly?
Perhaps George Floyd’s death was really just the final straw. Perhaps the punch of a deadly pandemic, toxic politics and irrefutable injustice finally hit us so hard that we instinctively gasped… horrified to find that under the weight of all that pressure, none of us could breath. No, these are not unprecedented times. But they could be. If, this time, we change.
“Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Amos 5:24, quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. in “Letter from the Birmingham Jail”