The Long View: Spring 2021
Dear Friends
It is amazing how much happens in a year, and that despite the ongoing challenges of our times, we manage to remain resilient and find ways to be creative. A year ago I was feeling like I was running up an escalator the wrong way, and at best marking time as the world sped past me in the opposite direction. The last eighteen months have marked a huge shift in the way we live, and increasingly we are recognising that this is the ‘new normal’. In a sermon last Autumn I encouraged us to use Winter as a time to slow down, even hibernate, to take time to reflect and allow ourselves to catch up with the changes to our lives that the Covid-19 pandemic has demanded of us, changes we had hoped to be temporary but which remain ongoing. I have tried to follow my own advice, and time away in the Eastern Cape in June and a few days away earlier this month in the Wolseley area have helped, and Dawn and I have appreciated the gift of renewal these times have been for us.
If you are like me, you have been praying that the Covid-19 virus will magically go away, and that we can step back from the hyper-vigilance the pandemic has forced on us, not to mention the added challenges that lockdowns and various Alert Levels that have constricted our lives and relationships so substantially since March 2020. I came across an article in The Atlantic that made me sit up rather straight with its unequivocal headline: The Coronavirus Is Here Forever. This Is How We Live With It.* It was something of a shock to see something I suspected and was avoiding acknowledging printed in such solid black lettering. It is not often words leap off the screen at me, but these ones did. Once I got past the headline, the article itself proved helpful, and I was particularly struck by the closing paragraph:
With the flu, we as a society generally agree on the risk we were willing to tolerate. With COVID-19, we do not yet agree. Realistically, the risk will be much smaller than it is right now amid a Delta wave, but it will never be gone. “We need to prepare people that it’s not going to come down to zero. It’s going to come down to some level we find acceptable,” [Julie] Downs [a psychologist who studies health decisions at Carnegie Mellon University] says. Better vaccines and better treatments might reduce the risk of COVID-19 even further. The experience may also prompt people to take all respiratory viruses more seriously, leading to lasting changes in mask wearing and ventilation. Endemic COVID-19 means finding a new, tolerable way to live with this virus. It will feel strange for a while and then it will not. It will be normal.
What we are seeing around the world as different countries take differing stances to the manner in which attempts have been made to contain the virus is the lack of a global social compact around how we deal with it, and I am comforted that in time this will happen. Vaccination is key to giving us some form of control over the virus – which will undoubtedly make living with the virus easier – but the amount of scaremongering and misinformation that social media in particular thrusts into our awareness makes this something of a pipe dream. Dawn and I are both fully vaccinated, but this scaremongering has its impact, and so I was deeply comforted by a recent blog post by Mags Blackie (Scientist and Spiritual Director; herself vaccinated) entitled Owning relative uncertainty, ** where she helpfully says that while – as with all medication – we cannot claim it is safe, with all the data we have available to us at the moment the vaccine is unequivocally the better choice. For myself, knowing that with my vaccination the chances of being severely or even fatally infected with Covid-19 are slim, is a great source of consolation. While I continue to trust God for health and salvation, I am also hugely thankful to God for the gift of medical science!
In a snap survey of Parish Council and our Layminister group, where all but one person have responded, there is a 100% vaccination rate. Hopefully, when our planning survey goes out to you all in early October, a similarly high level of compliance with vaccination protocols will be evident. As we come out of our Winter hibernation and begin to plan for 2022 and a fuller return to in-person Worship and other levels of interaction, we are hopefully able to embrace the virus with less fear and engage more confidently with life.
I remain thankful for the gift of Scripture in these challenging times, and again commend Philippians 4:4-8 (NRSV) to you:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
If you haven’t yet done so, I do encourage you to come and join us at 08:00 on a Sunday for our in-person service where we continue to follow Covid-19 sanitising and physical distancing protocols. It does feel different to our pre-Covid gatherings, but there is something very comforting and special about being physically present and participating in-person with others in a time of gathering and worship!
* https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-live-coronavirus-forever/619783/
** http://www.magsblackie.com/2021/09/15/owning-relative-uncertainty/
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