Lockdown 5, morphing almost seamlessly into lockdown 6, has discombobulated me more than all the previous ones put together. I know I’m not alone in this. During the first lockdown or two, prolonged as they were, we were on fire with beating this damn thing; all in this together, not yet wearied of the effort. Our hopes of getting our lives back before too long were high.
Now we are all exhausted, and grieving for things we may never recover – big meals around the table, family gatherings, holding our grand-children, travel. Couples get a trial run at retirement – together all day long, not much news to share at the end of each working day.
As with other challenging times in life, I wonder what I can learn here, how I can use it to grow spiritually. And the thing with lockdown is, it pares our existence down to the essentials.
I don’t wish to overstate this. I am not in Haiti, I am not in Kabul, my life remains comfortable; there is always food in the pantry, I have a job, a home and a partner I enjoy immensely. But the usual life distractions have all but disappeared. We can’t go to movies, galleries or museums. We can’t go anywhere on holiday. We can’t go out for a meal or a drink, or even a coffee. Most frustrating of all for our household, we can’t have people around to dinner. As a result, we are thrown back on our own resources in a way that is rare in the affluent world.
We can no longer do those activities – church and community commitments – that make us feel we are leading meaningful lives, that we are worthwhile people. We are thrown back upon grace – the assurance that God’s love is not dependent on what we do.
And there is so much extra time – no daily commute, no socialising, no travel. So, could I use this time as a kind of retreat? Could I simply sit and see what is revealed, if I ask the Creator God, God of imagination and beauty and new life, to help me to focus on what really matters? Could I set aside more daily time for prayer and meditation? In a time when getting about and helping isn’t an option, could I hold others in my prayers more intentionally? Could I simply sit more often, taking in the changing light in the sky from my apartment balcony? Could I dwell on the extravagant beauty of spring, even in my inner suburb, to take time to really behold the wattle, smell the jasmine, touch the tiny, pale green leaves budding?
It’s hard to escape the all-pervasive gloom and ennui of this time. I long to trust that in this hard time, as in all times, God can use the situation we are in to draw us closer to Godself, to fill us with God’s boundless resources of love.
This was published in the October edition of The Melbourne Anglican