COVID-19

A Pivot in Priorities

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Each morning I read a section of St. Benedict of Nursia’s Rule he established for his monastic community 1,500 years ago. I follow his writing with commentary by Joan Chittister, O.S.B. (A link to her book can be found here). In this morning’s selection, Chittister says,

The spiritual life is not a set of exercises appended to our ordinary routine. It is a complete reordering of our values and our priorities and our lives.

Her phrase “complete reordering” struck me in the context of COVID-19. With this pandemic, the world will undoubtedly go through a complete reordering – spiritual and otherwise: Valleys are being raised, and mountains made low (Isa. 40:4). At the same time, wheat is being torn away from the chaff (Matt. 3:12).

Pre-COVID, my wife and I were doing what many people our age do: working hard in our jobs and raising children. She’s one of two pharmacists whose specialty pharmacy serves those diagnosed with HIV-AIDS. Her clinic also provides preventative care for those most vulnerable to this virus. After a long day of work, she’s usually greeted by our 9-year-old and 18-month-old clinging to her side until bedtime. Dinner’s prepared, books read, then lights out.

My job as a minister had me working conventional and unconventional hours each week as I made myself available to the people I serve more on their time than my own. When I arrived home after a long day, I would see my kids for a few hours before bedtime. If I had a meeting at night, it was up to my wife to put the kids to bed.

All this busyness changed with the pandemic. Suddenly pharmacy schedules were staggered (5 days in the pharmacy/5 days working from home). Church services, as well as meetings, were all moved online. No separation from children as school became virtual, and preschools closed—a work/life balance – nonexistent.

However, what did exist amid all this bustling chaos was my ability to listen. Thinking about Chittister above, I suddenly began to question what I valued, where my priorities lay, and how I spent my time. Put differently, I was invited into a reordering of my life.

St. Benedict’s Rule is grounded on three principles: prayer, work, and study. Suddenly, I was praying more and invited the parish I serve to do the same, not-to-mention, my own family. I started to view work as an ongoing extension of prayer. If I’m stuck in the house, I would say, perhaps housework and the raising of my boys could be a more intentional way of living and praying. As far as studying went, I picked up those books I had meant to read, and I read them. As a family, we went on more walks together. Some days we sat at the kitchen table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was a new rhythm, and I was starting to like it.

Out of this new song, my wife and I started to talk about school. Our 9-year-old was clear that he did not like virtual learning and wasn’t getting anything out of it. I tended to agree as I watched him struggle in those first few months of the pandemic. As a family, we finally discerned that we would be homeschooling him this year. Within Georgia, the pandemic is not under control, but we decided that we could control what was under our roof as a family. We could honor and live into the truth that spiritual life is not a set of exercises appended to our ordinary routine. It is a complete reordering of our values and our priorities and our lives.

In a family meeting, we began our own intentional Rule centered around the Benedictine principals of prayer, work, and study. We did a “mind mapping” exercise together, categorizing what each of these realities looked like within our context. Then we began.

Through this blog, I hope to record some of my thoughts, experiences, givings, and misgivings about the homeschooling experience. I’m excited about living in this new adventure as I genuinely believe it to be a reordering of vision, values, and priorities for my family and me.
Please pray for us, our community, state, and nation as old things pass away while all things are becoming new (2 Cor. 5:17).

To read the mind mapping blog click here.
To read about the experience of deschooling click here.

The Church as Ark

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Matthew 14:22-33

Since the pandemic began I have found comfort in the image of St. Peter keeping his eye on Jesus, for in doing so he’s able to walk out and greet Our Lord. When Peter allowed his focus to shift to the winds of anxiety and waves of despair he began to sink. I also find comfort in his frailty for there have been many times when my own misery desired tempestuous company. Throughout these many months I’ve also been humbled by my own limitations, and have dug deep within my soul to give mercy to others who may not be able to acknowledge their own.   

For these past four months, I’ve also watched as institutions and their leaders have given way to a spirit of fear allowing their foundations to fall like houses of cards while truth revealed them for what they really were. I’ve observed power struggles between institutional and ideological tribes that seek validation for their very existence, when all they are really doing is crying out for their dignity to be acknowledged. How tempting it is to be distracted by the unnecessary and seduced by slogans. How tempting it is to ignore the peace that is right in front of us whose very eyes search our own.

Within Biblical imagination, the boat represents the Church. Like Noah’s Ark, it is a place of comfort, safety, and order stowing away the values and necessities of life for a time. Once the time for remembering eternal virtues is formally over, the doors of the ark open, and the gangway is placed allowing for the disembarking to occur. During COVID-19 I’m finding comfort in the Church as ark. There is order and discipline within the Church’s prayers and practices, along with providing safety to others in Her works of mercy. While Her disciples are found around dinner tables instead of altars these days, the Church’s corporal and spiritual works of mercy are being administered (physically) in neighborhoods and (virtually) online.

As we continue to weather the storms in our lives, how do you maintain your gaze upon Jesus? What mountaintops do you climb in order to pray to the true Son of God? How has the Church provided comfort, safety, and order to you and your family? In many respects, COVID-19 has opened our eyes to many things – good and bad. Today’s Gospel compels us to keep a steady eye not on the wind and the waves, but on the one who has true power over them. Come to Him today. Come to Jesus.

Lord, in your mercy; Hear our prayer.  

Steadfast Hope

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Inspired by Psalm 26:1-8

At the date of this writing eleven weeks has passed since I have celebrated Holy Eucharist. Eleven weeks has passed since the congregation I serve have participated in any formal sacrament. Like the lamenting Magdalene who cried out twice, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him” we call out to the authorities of the church as well as to God in our disorientation (Jn 20:2, 13). By now disorientation has slowly turned to disillusionment with the bishops of the church continuing to preach steadfastness while the resurrected Lord remains to reveal the world his wounds. St. Paul promises that our sufferings (disorientation & disillusionment?) grounded in a life of Christ “produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us” (Rom 3b-4). The bishops are right in preaching steadfastness in the faith because it allows us the audacity to hope. But hope for what? Hope to regather and celebrate Communion? Yes. But that’s not all. If indeed, the resurrected Lord continues to reveal his wounds to the world, and our faith calls us to participate in Christ’s sufferings, then the sacramental life (right now) is revealed to us in our own brokenness. Like the Magdalene, we cry out, and God answers us by calling our name (Jn 20:16). Once Mary’s name was heard she “went and announced…“I have seen the Lord”” (Jn 20:18). Once we name our own laments, God calls us each by name to wake us up to the reality of resurrection still found in his wounds intimately joined to our own. This is the Body of Christ broken for you, and at once we are forgiven and free to proclaim hope within the sufferings of the world.

What does steadfastness tangibly look like? For the Psalmist it looked like washing one’s hands (Ps 26:6a). Only when we (as the priesthood of all believers) wash our hands in innocence may we go in procession round the Lord’s altar (Ps 26:6). When we wash our hands we are at once acknowledging our past as well as preparing for the future. We do the hard work of self-examination (confession, forgiveness, discernment) in order to go around the altar of the world in a spirit of hope, praise, mercy, justice, and compassion.

What does a revealing of Christ’s wounds to the world tangibly look like? For the Psalmist it looked like a house built upon a foundation of Love (Ps 26:8). In this house the “wonderful deeds” of God are the topics of conversation (Ps 26:7). We vulnerably admit that our hands have been dirty, and like Christ are invited to show the world their redeemed wounds. At once, the world sees its own past as well as a hopeful future where God, table, and house become the place “where [God’s] glory abides” (Ps 26:8).

Over the past several months, kitchen tables have replaced altars, and houses have become little churches. The sacraments have been administered, only this time in the form of kindness, patience, compassion, justice, and mercy. These are not easy times, but they are hopeful times. Like Mary Magdalene, “I have seen the Lord,” in new and exciting ways. He is [still] Risen. He is Risen, indeed! Come, let us adore Him in our own brokenness alongside a broken and redeemed world.