Re-Remembering the Day the World Shifted

This morning the New York Times published a short piece with people’s reflections on March 13th, 2020, the day that COVID was declared a national emergency. By the time I was through reading it, my eyes were wet. Do you remember what you were doing that day when we became aware that there was no way around what we were facing with this unknown disease - that we had to go through it?

I was supposed to have been teaching in person that day (I think on Aristotle), but my university had no safe water because some disease had been found in the local water system (ecoli? Salmonella?). With no way to wash my hands and no masks (remember when we thought we just had to wash our hands to prevent COVID spread?), I moved my classes online that day. I knew full well that I would probably not be back in person with my students again that semester. Indeed, the university decided the following day to shut down the campus and go entirely online. We thought it would be for two weeks.

Within just a few days, the world became almost unrecognizable as we lost our daily structures: worship services, classes, restaurants, family visits, etc.

In the last four years we have all learned many new skills that have enabled us to connect virtually to other folx, but we also carry a load of grief over the losses brought by the pandemic and the losses the pandemic kept us from grieving with our communities.

As you remember this week four years ago and all that has come since, also remember that God walked beside us through all the loss and uncertainty. God also grieved as people turned against one another, as bodies shut down, as children regressed in learning, and rejoiced as people rallied to make it through together. As we remember four years ago, if you haven’t already done so, it might help to shift your memory view enough that you also can see that God was there on March 13th, 2020. God was at every hospital bed, in every home where people hunkered down in fear, everywhere. God walked through that time as well - don’t forget this! I have found it helpful when remembering painful things to pray the simple line, “God, you were there as well.”

In Psalm 42 the Psalmist reflects on their own past grief and their questions of where God was when their world turned from good to bad. Then they took hold of the hope that although they were living in anguish now, they would not always be living in anguish:

“‘Why so dispirited?’ I ask myself.

‘Why so churned up inside? Hope in God!’

I know I’ll praise God once again,

For you are my Deliverance;

You are my God.”^[1]

As we re-remember the start of the pandemic, let us re-remember God’s presence with us during that time and let it give us assurance that God is always with us, even when the world turns upside down.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

A Blessing for Collective Grief

This world.

Impossible.

Unthinkable.

We are brought to our knees.

God, today, there is no true north.

And when I last checked,

the sun did not rise at all.

Today, the innocent still suffer,

buildings still fall,

families still grieve.

A world has ended without

any reasonable fanfare.

 

This is the way of tragedy,

how it breaks in and robs us while we sleep.

 

Help us to know what to feel,

what to do,

how to grieve–together.

Blessed are we

who try to see things clearly,

though the truth of it all feels

unimaginable.

Blessed are we who ask and wait, and ask again,

for answers that may not come,

for hope that seems hard to find,

for comfort that is not easily offered.

 

Along the way

show us how to live

when we’ve lost the things

we cannot get back.

 

Remind us that you, Oh God,

are our home and our refuge.

When life’s unthinkable fragility

Is too difficult to hold,

take my hands.^[2]