Finding Peace in a Time of Pandemic

[Republished on the landmark of one million U.S. lives lost to the pandemic (15 million globally) with no clear end in sight.]

by Sue Stratton

Sometime in late 2019, the first victim of COVID19 exhaled, releasing the lethal virus upon the earth. Since then, you and I and all of our neighbors have been holding our collective breath. As of yet, there has been no exhaling. Humanity waits perfectly paused to see what this startling new reality will bring.

It’s as though the great God of the Universe breathed “selah” upon the earth. Selah is a Hebraic musical term that signals accentuation, pause, or disruption. It often represents a pause in thought or a musical piece. Could the whole earth be caught in a holy global pause?

Although I in no way believe our heavenly Father sent this pestilence, I do think God will indeed use this cataclysmic event to wake us up and cause us to sift more meaningfully through the falling sands of our hourglass. Excessive time always has the potential to draw our attention to our inner selves and then hopefully beyond ourselves. As life forces us to slow down, and we let our eyes adjust to this new reality, we may be ready to see the Trinity’s divine dream for the earth in fresh new ways.[1]

Waking Up to Beauty

Joseph Addison, the British poet, said, “There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty….”[2] As we navigate this crisis, one of the most important practices we can adopt is waking up to the sacred in each moment and finding the beauty held within.

For me, spring in East Tennessee overflows with such holy moments as I watch the trees bloom pink, purple, and ivory in my front yard. In this pause, I am taking the time to see them. Randy Woodley, the author of Shalom and the Community of Creation, compares the concept of Shalom with the Native American idea of The Harmony Way and believes that “The Creator is calling us back to experience God’s love and care in the created world around us.”[3]

According to Woodley, Americans need to let go of our entrenched views of control, power, knowledge, consumerism, and individualism to begin to think differently. He goes on to say, “I would stress that in some real ways the west has traded its humanity for power.”[4] Can we use this global pause to awaken our true humanity and move toward the community of shalom?

Even if you’re trapped indoors, the internet provides wonderful opportunities to move beyond mere entertainment and distraction into beauty. For instance, the Rotterdam Philharmonic orchestra filled their individual quarantines with a beautiful joint expression of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

Awakening to Connection

This universal pause is also allowing families and friends to reconnect over social media and online platforms. Our extended family, who we haven’t seen in years, is having a weekly virtual “Happy Hour” every Friday evening at 6. Some of those relationships evidenced the strain of time and distance in our pre-coronavirus reality, but now there is restoration and shalom in the air.

“Only by practicing Shalom can humanity restore the Creator’s intentions for this fragmented world,” Woodley reminds us. “Wherever relationships are fragmented, it is by living out shalom that they can be made whole.”[5]

This goes for connecting to nature as well. With the absence of humans, seismic activity calms across the globe, Great Orme Kashmiri goats romp through the town of Llandudno, Wales, coyotes are enjoying the streets of San Francisco[1] and for the first time in 125 years on Johnson’s campus in East Tennessee, an industrious beaver is building a dam behind Richardson Hall.

Woodley asserts, “Greed and injustice marginalize and destroy people and the earth, but shalom restores dignity to everyone and everything”, even the Coyotes, goats and beavers! As humanity steps back, the rest of creation surges forward enjoying shalom during this ‘Great Selah’.

Awakening to Trust

As humanity holds its collective breath, one thing is sure- we are all in this together. From the Great Orme Kashmiri goats – to the beaver next door – to my neighbor and yours, we all have the opportunity to reevaluate how we then shall live. We need to trust that God knows precisely how this pandemic fits into the divine plan. During this time of uncertainty, we must try to hold the global trauma in one hand as we hold the dream of shalom firmly in the other. We need to live in this tension while we lament and while we love. As Brueggemann reminds us, shalom “comes only through the costly way of caring.”[8]

So, as spring blooms around us and we slow down to meet the demands of the hour, it would be good to remember that shalom was God’s plan from the very beginning, and this pandemic will not thwart God’s divine dream. The challenge before us is this – how do we remain faithful to God’s glorious dream in the midst of the current world crisis? How do we continue to be Shalom-Makers?

Woodley encourages us to be active in the world, influencing society toward the vision of the Trinitarian community on earth, reflecting God’s desire for everyone to dwell in shalom.”[9] And as John Wesley reminds us, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

And be sure to smell the flowers –while practicing social distancing, of course!