Easter Reflection
Around 5 pm, it stopped raining for the first time all day. I cannot remember such dreary weather on any of the 51 Easters of my life, but that is small news compared to the ongoing COVID-19 virus situation that has required us all to “shelter in place.” It doesn’t feel like Easter at all, but I am grateful for the clearing sky, and I decide to take my dog on a long walk. As we go through the park behind the elementary school, I notice the yellow police tape around the playground equipment. I feel like I am watching the opening scene of a dystopian movie, and I am incredulous that I am actually living this. I encounter other walkers, a few runners, and a few bikers along my circuit of roughly three miles. Some are alone and some are in family groups. Most of us wave to each other or give knowing glances conveying our essential thoughts: This is so weird, but at least we can go outside as long as we don’t get too close to each other. Now it feels less dystopian and more like a big social experiment for which none of us volunteered.
Near the beginning of his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes a place where it is perpetually twilight, but night never falls. The people there cannot get along, so they keep spreading out from the center of this “grey town” until some of them are actually millions of miles from anyone else. In short order, it is revealed that the place is Hell, but most of the residents are so self-absorbed that they are oblivious to their condition. Our current “shelter in place” situation seems the opposite of the grey town. We want to be close to each other but have to remain distant in order to keep each other safe and reduce our own risk of being infected. We are using technology as a virtual bridge across the physical gap we must maintain. Most of us are looking forward to the day we can resume our lives as normal. We want to be in the same room with our friends and family members. We want to be able to shake hands with the new people we meet. We want to gather in our houses of worship. We want to laugh together, and many of us will need to do some grieving together. When we are finally able to do be physically present and connected with each other, it will feel like a ray of light bursting into a dark room. It will be a taste of Heaven. Astronomer Hugh Ross has written that one of the supreme joys of the Christian’s final destination is that there will be unlimited time to get to know everyone intimately, to establish levels of connection with each other that are presently inconceivable. In his first letter to the church in Corinth, St. Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
I have seen many posts and comments indicating thankfulness for the slow-down, the halt of cultural busy-ness. Some have referred to this as the Great Reset. My cynical nature tells me this is more of a Great Pause, but I hope it really is a reset. Prior to our current predicament, both our busy-ness and our technology were keeping us from each other. We have been living in a grey town within our own homes. Even when we are “doing something together”, such as watching a movie, some of us are on our own personal screens while we are ostensibly watching the big screen together. There is a scheduled activity almost every night of the week. We are together physically but miles apart mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Can we change it? Will we?
- Matt Smith