Viral Living

Major Coronavirus shifts and alterations to our routine are continuing to unfold. County after county in North Carolina are shutting down, including our own, Mecklenburg. We are working at home, shopping from home, and learning to live all together. We will be seeing the toll the virus is taking on our world, nation, and community. We will have witnessed some really poor responses, but we also will have witnessed so many people rising to the occasion, kindling hope in the capacity of the human heart to care.

We will begin to learn new ways to entertain ourselves—

online game night

watching first run movies on our tv in the living room instead of in a theater

remembering the great sports battles of the past—

great chance to relive NCSU’s unlikely basketball title in 1983!

maybe you’d like to discover the wonder of the Magic-Bird battles of the 1980s in

the NBA

watch the Cubs win their first World Series in over a 100 years

watch any UCONN women’s basketball game for pure wizardry

watch the US Women’s national team win the World Cup

We will learn we are actually pretty good cooks, especially as we have to plow through the tons of beans and tuna we bought. We discover our inner Julia Child as we try to keep meals interesting. Or maybe we learn the existential joy of a peanut butter sandwich. Then there is carry-out and delivery. Maybe it is a tiny miracle of God to have a pizza arrive at your doorstep.

We will have the best hygiene in a generation. Our great grandchildren will remark on what clean hands we have. There will be no flat surface left un-Cloroxed! We will have learned all manner of ways to greet one another without actually touching. We will have a deep and lasting understanding of “personal space.”

At church, we will have entered the 21st Century fully and completely. We will all be masters of digital worship, e-stewardship, video conferencing, and online learning. There are so many ways that a computer can become an implement of God. There are so many new ways of being devout, spiritual, and faithful with apps, social media, and websites.

In this season of resurrection, remember all these new ways of being—perhaps experiences of the new creation unfolding before our eyes.

And, yes, the church will rise again into a new dawn when the virus ebbs.

There is no substitute for the joy, wonder, and promise of actually being together. That day is coming, as well. A pastor remarked a few days ago—

It does not matter what Sunday we get back to church, THAT WILL BE EASTER!

Yes, it will. Go with God. God is here, God is now, and God is love. Take time in this slow season to relearn all of that truth.

In the meantime, pray for one another, check on one another, help one another.

That is the way of God through any crisis moment.