1918

I am not obsessing about COVID-19! Honestly, I really am not. I don't generally panic, and I'm not panicking now. I'm trying to stay alert. To keep awake. To be prepared.

I admit it's sometimes hard to tell the difference and I admit I don't get it exactly right. I think the hardest part for me is to avoid judging others who perceive these things differently from me. They have their own experience and they have to filter this through that experience. This is a kind of trauma we are all living through so we need to be gentle with each other.

For those who speak "Myers Briggs," I'm an ENTJ. Although the "feeling" and "thinking" part of that is pretty close to the middle, I tend to think things through as a way to cope, more than feeling my way through them. Anyway, this may mean nothing to anyone reading this, but again my point is that I know my way is not everyone's way. But as a "thinker" I try to step back and gain some context. And take the long view. What I want to do is reflect theologically on what the Church that seeks to follow the Risen Christ is called to be about in times like these. That's about leaning into preparedness rather than panic. It's about leaning into alertness rather than anxiety.

A random quote from Bishop Susan Goff and Bishop Marianne Budde in The Washington Post noted that churches in their dioceses, including the National Cathedral, are closing "for the first time since 1918." This immediately made me think of my maternal grandmother, who lost family members in the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. That may seem like "ancient history" to some - one hundred and two years ago. But I can still hear my grandmother's voice as she talked about the direct impact it had on her family. According to the CDC, 675,000 people died in the United States and 50 million died worldwide during that pandemic.

Now so far, as I write this post, there have been 41 deaths in the United States and 5088 worldwide from COVID19. So we are still a long way from the 1918 Flu. Most certainly there will be many more deaths from this, but we have no idea whether or not it will end up being like 1918.

I'm an optimist by nature. I am always sure that things won't be as bad as our worst fears. And I want to be clear: my intent is not to catastrophize now. If we trust the scientists and if we wash our hands, it is my prayer and my hope and even my belief that we will not suffer the kind of loss that my grandmother's generation experienced.

Obviously I don't know what my grandmother felt in real time. But what I do know is that 1918 did not undo her. She was one of the most hopeful, gracious, and grateful people I've ever known. She experienced a lot of loss and, as it turned out, 1918 was only the beginning for her. Nevertheless, it did not get the best of her.

It was the same for a saint of the Church in another time and place, in the fourteenth century when the Plague spread along the Silk Road from China to Europe. It is estimated that the world population went from 475 million to about 350 million from the beginning to the end of that century. Now that's a pandemic! Yet when over 25% of the world's population was wiped out, Julian of Norwich still famously pronounced that "all would be well, and all manner of things would be well."

I bring up difficult past events to remind us, or maybe just to remind myself, that vulnerability is a part of the human experience. And it is only the illusion of invincibility that leaves us living in denial. We have been here before, as people of faith; we are NOT in uncharted territory. And we know from science and statistics how to at least slow the spread of THIS disease to be able to save lives.

We are all going to die. The season of Lent began with this reminder. The question is whether or not we choose to live before that day arrives. We are at the front end right now of something and we don't know how this story will end. We don't know if we will be telling stories to our grandchildren about so much loss or if this will be much ado about nothing. I suspect, however, from all I can gather, that it is not much ado about nothing.

So how do people of faith behave in difficult times? They act like my grandmother. They act like Dame Julian. And maybe not at first. Maybe difficult times like this form and shape people after God's own heart, like Peg Miller and like Julian of Norwich.

We put our trust in God. And we wash our hands. We use common sense and we listen to the scientists who know more than most of us know. We refuse to let fear and anxiety rule us, and so we reach out to our neighbor - even when we cannot reach out and touch them. We remember who we are and what we are about.

And so it came to pass, in her thirteenth showing (vision), that Julian received a comforting answer to the question that has long troubled her: why was sin not prevented from the start? Why don't we just live in Eden where all should have been well. Why can't we avoid mourning and sorrow without rhyme or reason? Why do we have plagues and influenza and COVID-19?

But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said, "it was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

When? By next Tuesday? Definitely not. We don't know yet what the next weeks and month and year will bring. Magical thinking, however, is not very helpful. The faith of being able to take the long view, however, and to look to the Maker of the heavens and the earth for help, is good news worth sharing. All shall be well. When? I don't know. But with every fiber of my being, I trust that we'll get there eventually, with God's help.