Frodo Fights the Coronavirus

The first week of the lockdown was all a bit of an adventure. There was the scramble to figure out how to do life online. Schools moved into the 21st century, staggering and tripping perhaps, but they moved. Churches found new and creative ways to stay connected. Everyone discovered Zoom and Skype and Microsoft Teams, and then discovered (or not) the mute buttons on those apps. Memes flourished. Cute videos streamed out of creative minds and onto the internet. There was a sense of resolve. Never mind flattening the curve, we were going to plank that sucker. I was running on a high. Problem-solving mode was in high gear. Look at us doing school online! Look at us doing church online! Look at us ordering groceries online and having them delivered! Look at us discovering how to do all the things online! The gates of hell will not prevail! I felt like Gandalf standing in the Mines of Moria saying to the coronavirus, "You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you. go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass (p. 331). It was a scary week, but I felt heroic, and I was game to fight.

The second week, it was all a bit more routine. I had developed a schedule. I was recording lectures and posting discussions and ordering groceries online. Two weeks, they had said. I knew it was going to be more than two weeks, but this was ok. Sort of. I could do this. Sort of. The steely resolve was still there, but the high was drifting away. Yup. School online. We can do it. It's ok. Uh-huh, church online. It'll do. For now. Don't love it, but it's ok. For the sake of the curve. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door" (p. 74).  It was feeling heavier, and I was content enough to stay home.

Around that time, I -- we all -- began to see who really mattered to the running of the world. The university students who delivered my groceries were heroes. Weren't we just seeing who the real heroes were? Not the actors and the sports stars who sat in their mansions with their pools and golf courses and whinged about confinement, but the ordinary people behind plexiglass at the grocery stores, the Instacart shoppers, the farmers, the truck drivers, the people working in hospitals, fire departments, police departments, and ambulances.  "Such is oft the course of the deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands move them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere" (p. 269).

By the third week, it became drudgery. Frankly, I'm sick of my computer. I'm sick of Zoom and Team. I'm sick of communicating via email and text and screens. I'm sick of having my work life and my home life bleed together into a messy puddle. I'm sick of the fact that working and talking to my mom and buying groceries and relaxing in front of the TV and going to church all feel like exactly the same thing. It's all a screen. I'm fed up with life mediated by screens. But ok. I'm complaining just like the movie actors. One foot in front of the other, figuratively speaking, of course, because there's really nowhere to go. "'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us'" (p. 51). It was drudgery, but I committed to asking God to redeem the time I have been given and I carried on.

I have continued to pray thus. But now we're into week six. I'm well past the high, well past the resolve, well past the drudgery. It's beginning to feel like it's never going to end. "'You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: "Shut the book now, dad, we don't want to read anymore"'" (p. 713). I'm ready to shut the book. I'm ready to stop reading. I am so tired of all of this. I just want it to be done. I am weary of feeling like a pariah. I am weary of feeling suspicious about every person around me and having them feel suspicious of me. We are all walking around like lepers, crying, "Unclean! Unclean!" Like lepers, we are isolated, alone, untouchable. And oh, I am longing for it to be done.

I understand the necessity. I get the dangers of ending this isolation too quickly. I'm not oblivious to the risks. I'm not about to start protesting, to start questioning if maybe this is all a grand conspiracy designed to turn the world into a totalitarian regime under the rule of the WHO. I don't believe that. I've seen the stories of how this virus is raging through nursing homes. I've read the stories of those who have had to stand outside hospitals whilst loved ones die alone inside them. I believe the danger is real, and I can show grace for a government that is trying, just as I am, to fathom the unfathomable and find a path through the uncharted. My cry is a cry of the heart, not a cry of the intellect. The two are different. "It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognise necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope" (p. 269). I'm not imagining that the virus is not that bad, or that we have this thing beat, or that we can simply fling open the gates to "normal" life and things can just go back to the way they were before. They may never go back to the way they were before. Maybe they ought not to. But oh, the cry of my heart is to hug and be hugged. No wonder the lepers were so astonished when Jesus broke protocol and touched them. I am beginning to understand the depth of their loneliness.

And the reality is, I have it good. I have a home. I have a backyard (never looking better). I have a job with a paycheque. I have the technology to live live mediated by a screen. I have a dog and a housemate."There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach" (p. 922). There is still good and godly and light in this dark world. The shadow will pass.

Most importantly, I have Jesus. Having Jesus does not make the longings less real. I still want this to be done. I want to see a person face-to-face and not have to stay six feet away. I want a hug. I want to visit my mom. I'd love to sit down over sushi. I'd like to do my own grocery shopping. I'd like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my brothers and sisters in Christ and sing together and hear the sound of our voices lifting the roof together (because won't we!) But knowing Jesus, filling my mind with his Word, does bring fresh resolve. I can hold on. I can do this for him. "[The Elven bread] did not satisfy desire, and at times, Sam's mind was filled with the memories of food, and the longing for simple bread and meats. And yet this waybread of the Elves had a potency that increased as travellers relied on it alone and did not mingle it with other foods. It fed the will, and it gave strength to endure, and to master sinew and limb beyond the measure of mortal kind" (p. 936). His Word is my Elven bread and it gives the strength to endure.

I will come through this. We all will. Like Frodo, we may come through it a little mangled. We will carry the scars. They will be the testimony that we endured. We survived the Pandemic of 2020. And "in all that ruin of the world for the moment, [we will] feel only joy, great joy."

The burden [will be] gone.... The Quest [will be] achieved, and all will be over (p. 947).

I'm looking forward to the end of the story.

******

All quotes are taken from Tolkein, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. London: HarperCollins Publishers. 2005. Kindle.

The Silence of Saturday

It's Friday, but Sunday is a-comin'.

We hear that a lot on Good Friday, don't we?

We take time to contemplate the staggering cost of our sin as Jesus suffers and hangs on the cross. We shudder as the darkness rolls in and the earth heaves and the lone voice pierces the darkness, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" We stand aghast as our Saviour cries out, "It is finished!" and breathes his last breath. Head falls. Jaw slacks. Muscles sag. Flesh tears as the full weight of his body pulls on the nails. And ... silence. No more struggle. No last, heaving, ragged breath. Nothing. It is finished. His body is taken down and hastily wrapped and put in a borrowed tomb. There is a finality about the thud of the stone as it drops into place across the entrance of the grave.

But we, who know the end of the story, are not willing to linger there.

It's Friday, but Sunday is a-comin'! We tut the disciples for their lack of faith. "Jesus told them he'd rise again. They should have known!" So they, who had just watched their loved one be betrayed by a friend, tried, tortured, and killed, should have looked at each other and high-fived (in an appropriately-socially distanced manner) and said, "It's Friday, but Sunday is a-comin'"? Really?

It's Saturday, and Jesus is dead. His body is undergoing the indignity that happens to every body upon death. His body cools. His skin pales. His muscles stiffen. His cells begin to break down. But we don't want to linger there. Some of us are flinching from those words, emotionally recoiling at the thought of our Saviour's body decomposing. We're already planning Easter dinner. We dismiss the disciples' pain with our schoolmarm scolding. We cannot sit in the pain.

And yet, here we are. It's Saturday. And the whole world is sitting in pain.

There will be no Easter dinners this year. No joyous church services, where we cry out to each other, "He is risen! He is risen indeed!" No hugs. No family gatherings. Oh, we'll celebrate. After all, he is still risen. But our celebrations are muffled. They are, at best, bittersweet. A pall hangs over our world, and we are in pain.

Someone ought to tell us to smarten up. Snap out of it. Get over it. After all, we know the end of the story. Tut-tut! And some people are trying to do just that. Positive thinking, faith in God, trust in science and all of that. Let's name it and proclaim it and declare this disease done! Bright hope for tomorrow! Ignore the experts! Chin up! Keep calm and carry on! We cannot tolerate sitting in the pain. We cannot bear to linger in the loss.

And it's true -- we do have faith in God. We do have bright hope for tomorrow. We know that God is on the throne. Someday this will all be over. It will be something we look back on, not something we are living through.Tomorrow will come, it is true. This season will pass, it is true.

But today is not that day. Today, the loss continues.Today, it is Saturday.

It is a day to sit in the pain. It is a day to acknowledge the loss.

It is a day to grieve.

There is much to grieve. We grieve the loss of community -- Zoom meetings and FaceTime and Skype may be better than nothing, but they are a poor substitute for a warm hug, for a cuddle with grandkids or nieces and nephews. We grieve the loss of our sense of safety -- the world feels a far more frightening place now, and we feel so dreadfully alone. We grieve the loss of routines -- getting up, getting dressed, going to work, whatever the routine was, it has inevitably been changed. We grieve the loss of freedom -- remember the days when we could pop by the grocery store to pick up a bag of milk, and it wasn't, quite literally, a federal production? We grieve the loss of seeing faces, seeing smiles -- masks, while preventing us from "speaking moistly", make us strangers to each other. We grieve the loss of health, the days when a cough was just a cough. We grieve the loss of life, and when life is lost, we grieve the ability to grieve, together. Everything has become complicated. Everything has become difficult. Dreams have died. Weddings and funerals and milestone moments have been postponed. Loved ones are separated. Husbands and wives and children are living apart from each other in the same home because one of them is an essential worker. We grieve the loss of jobs and financial security and a sense that we knew what tomorrow would bring. We have much to grieve and we are a people in pain.

And today is a day to stop fighting , to sit there, to feel the pain, to grieve the losses, to cry out to our Abba that we are hurting and we are sad and we don't understand. No petitions for it to all be over quickly, no declarations of triumph, no rushing past the moment or trying to escape it in Netflix or food or silly memes or conspiracy theories or whatever other escapist behaviours we engage in because we cannot stand to feel the pain. None of that. We feel the pain. We bear the pain. Not because we don't believe that God is on the throne, but precisely because we know he is. We do not fear the pain because we know it will not lead to despair. We are able to grieve on Saturday because we know that Sunday is coming, but Sunday's coming must not short-circuit Saturday's grief.

So today, in the silence of Saturday, I am sitting still. It was Saturday, and Jesus was in the grave. Today is Saturday, and my life as I knew it is in the grave.

Today, in the silence of Saturday, I am sad.

Asking Why With Job In a Pandemic

When I was a kid growing up, my family had the habit of reading one chapter of the Bible every night after we had eaten dinner. My mom would mark the date in the front cover of my parents’ wedding Bible and we would start in Genesis and read all the way through Creation, Abraham, the plagues of Egypt, the weird mould laws, names, names, names, all the way through Revelation and the triumphal return of the King. One chapter a night. It took about three years. By the time I had left home, I had read through the entire Bible about seven times.

It is a habit that I continue to this day, though I no longer write the dates down in the front of the Bible, and I usually read more than a chapter a day. But I start at the beginning and read through to the end and then go back to the beginning and do it again. And right about when the pandemic started, I began the book of Job.

Pretty depressing stuff to read in the middle of a pandemic. It’s like reading the news reports. Wave after wave after wave of bad news. Unrelenting waves of accusations. Unwavering protestations of innocence. And through it all, no matter what, Job’s desperate clinging to God. It’s where so many of us find ourselves right now.

But I think what has struck me the most about Job is that the whole book is a quest to find one answer: why is this happening?

And don’t we want to know that, too? Why is this happening?

Job’s friends were pretty sure they knew why it was happening. Clearly, Job had sinned. Clearly, his downfall was God’s judgement for some secret or not-so-secret sin. They begged him repeatedly to repent. Just admit what you did, Job, and this will all be over!

But Job called them cold comforters. He refused to accept that he had done wrong, and that his suffering was divine judgement. He challenged God to face him in court, fully convinced he would be justified. He pleaded with God to exonerate him.

We want to know why, don’t we? If we only knew why this was happening, it would seem less out of control. If I know that A causes B, and I don’t like B, all I have to do is avoid A. I can control the outcomes if I know the causes. We want to lay blame and sort out causes because then we could fix this. The sick helplessness is a horrible feeling. If we could only explain it, we could solve it. There must be something we can do if we only knew why this had happened. Or, if we only knew the plan, we could judge it worthy. It would be easier to endure this if we could see some great and glorious outcome. After all, we often willingly go through difficulties in order to attain some higher goal. If we knew the higher goal, the pain of today would feel less onerous. It might even feel heroic if we knew we were bearing up under hope for a bright new tomorrow.

But here’s the thing about Job and his friends — they never learned why. We know why, as readers of the divine narrative, but they did not. When God showed up at the end, he did not come with explanations about why. But here’s what he did tell them.

First, he told them that he is sovereign. He is in control. He owes no one an explanation. He does what is right and good, whether we like it or not, and all that he does is righteous and good. He does not defend himself. He simply shows up in all his glory and might and Job puts his hand over his mouth and stops talking. Because in the midst of the greatest sorrow, God is in control, and God is enough.

Second, he told them that Job’s friends were wrong. “You did not speak rightly about me as my servant Job has.” Job’s suffering was no judgement, no punishment of secret sin. In fact, in their saying so, they had sinned, and Job had to intercede in prayer on their behalf.

Third, Job met God in the whirlwind before the bright new tomorrow. The bright new tomorrow is almost anticlimactic. Job had already come to a place of silent awe. He had already submitted, not because the bright new tomorrow was worth it, but because God was worth it.

And that’s it.

So, why? Why is the world being swept by a pandemic that is sickening and killing so many? Why is the world teetering on the brink of financial collapse? Why are nursing homes being blighted by a bug no one can see? Why are so many suffering and why is this world groaning in travail? Why is this happening?

I don’t know.

What I do know is this: God is sovereign. He owes us no explanation. He does not need to defend himself to us nor does he need me to defend him. He has promised us that nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. He is sovereign. And in the midst of this greatest sorrow, he is enough.

Nor will I misspeak by declaring that this pandemic is divine judgement. We simply do not know that. If Job tells us anything, it is that Job’s friends were flat out wrong. The world is not that simple. Just repent and it will all be over sounds so comforting. It puts us in control of the outcome. But we don’t get to escape the uncertainty that easily. What we do get to do is to place our trust in our sovereign and gracious God in the midst of the uncertainty.

Finally, I ask my whys. It is a legitimate question; it is the cry of lament. Jesus himself asked it as he hung on the cross on that Dark Friday, that Friday of goodness and wonder and grace. I ask my whys precisely because he is sovereign and because I, too, know that my Redeemer lives. God, this hurts. I don’t like it. I’m sitting in the ashes of my ruined life in our ruined world and it hurts. Why does it hurt so? When will it be over? We ask why because asking why is the honest cry of God’s broken and hurting people and he is our gracious Abba. We cry the tears. We sit in the grief. We ask the questions.

We ask the question, but we do not attempt to answer it. We ask the question and we leave it with God. We come to a place of silent awe and we submit to him.

Because he is worthy.

When There Are No Palm Branches

It is Palm Sunday.

It was a day of celebration. It was a day of crowds. Oh, the crowds! They thronged around Jesus. They lined the streets. They lined the streets and jostled and pushed and reached hands out to touch Jesus. Not a speck of social distancing in sight, they lined the streets shoulder to shoulder, waving their arms, shouting, waving their palm branches, lining Jesus' path with leaves and coats. The wounded, the healed, the children, the hopeful, the sceptical, the downright cynical all gathered together, hailing Jesus as the coming triumphant king.

It was a noisy, crowded, jubilant affair.

It was everything today is not.

It is Palm Sunday, and we are scattered, sitting alone in our various homes. Our streets are strangely subdued. There are no crowds, and we cast suspicious eyes on any group of people that is not at least six feet apart. People hurry by each other, often with eyes downcast. We hold our breath as we pass others, afraid of the very air we breathe in and out. The whole world is on breathless pause. "Oh, Lord, save! Hosanna!" is not a jubilant cry of expectation today, but a wordless groan of collective grief.

It is Palm Sunday, and today is nothing of that first Palm Sunday, and I am sitting in my living room, alone, missing my church family keenly. It is a Sunday of grief rather than a Sunday of celebration.

And yet.

Those first crowds misunderstood. They proclaimed Jesus King of the Jews. They identified him as Messiah. He was all those things. But they assumed he was marching in as a military leader. They believed he was gathering an army to fight the Romans. They were looking for an earthly king, an earthly messiah, one who would rescue them from their earthly troubles. And when, in one week's time, Jesus was arrested and tried, that same crowd gathered outside the courts and called for his crucifixion. He had failed to meet their expectations and so they rejected him. Their eyes were stuck on the earthly, and when their expectations were not met, they turned from celebration to cynicism.

I think I am not that different. My eyes are also stuck on the earthly.

I am praying, "Oh, Lord, save!" I want God to do the miraculous. I want COVID-19 to disappear off the face of the earth overnight. I want to wake up tomorrow morning to discover that every person who is on a ventilator can miraculously breathe on his or her own. I want to wake up tomorrow morning to discover that people everywhere are healed, that doctors are looking around for a virus that simply no longer exists, that the world collectively is left shaking its head in bewilderment at what happened. I want my friends and family who are frontline workers -- paramedics, respiratory therapists, nurses, police officers, grocery store clerks -- I want them to be able to do their jobs without putting their and their families' health and lives at risk. I want to be able to stop having to wash my hands every five minutes, to grocery shop and linger and read labels, to go buy a Big Mac if I want (I don't, because even in a pandemic I have no interest in eating a Big Mac, but if I did). Goodness, I want to be able to scratch my nose without fearing I have introduced a contagion into my system. I want to be able to visit my mom and my brothers and sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews and give them all hugs. I want to be able to go to church. I long for my safe places to feel safe again. I want things to go back to normal. I am waiting, waiting, waiting for the king to ride into Jerusalem triumphant, to defeat the invisible soldiers of death that stalk our streets. I want to be able to wave my palm branches and gather in crowds (I who have never wanted to gather in crowds in my life) and cry, "Oh, Lord, save!"

But what if I, like those crowds in Jerusalem, am misunderstanding? What if the King has no intention of killing COVID-19, just as he had no intention of killing the Roman soldiers? I don't want to think that. I don't want to live like this, under the oppression of this virus. But I can't help wondering, What if I'm all wrong about this? What if killing COVID-19 isn't the apex of his reign after all? What if his goals are much higher than that? What if his goals are to lead me to suffering, through suffering, and into greater righteousness? What if his goal is this, in the words of Peter: "You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith -- more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire -- may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1:6-7)? What if I am to "count it all joy ... when [I] meet trials of various kinds, for [I] know that the testing of [my] faith produces steadfastness." And maybe I need to "let steadfastness have its full effect, that [I] may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing" (Jam. 1:2-4)? What if the King riding in on the donkey wants to do something much bigger in my heart, but I am far too busy expecting him to kill the enemy virus to recognise what he is doing?

This Palm Sunday is nothing like that first Palm Sunday. No jubilation. No noise. No crowds. No palm branches waving. Just a hushed, sad, lonely stillness. A sigh of sorrow instead of a cry of excitement.

But maybe this Palm Sunday is not so different. There was then, and there is today, in all of us, a great wordless longing for deliverance. There is in all of us a profound ache for freedom: for them, freedom from the Roman oppressors; for us, freedom from the walls of our homes, freedom from the fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty, the loneliness, the financial devastation. We weep, "Oh Lord, save! Oh, Lord, save!" And, perhaps there is in all of us, as there was in that first triumphal procession, an expectation that deliverance will look thus and so. Those early crowds in Jerusalem were filled with expectations, and when Jesus failed to meet their expectations, they bayed for his blood just one week later. I wonder, if I am not careful, could I do the same? Could I, angry because my expectations for deliverance are not being met, turn away?

Next weekend is Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I pray it will find me at the foot of the cross, not in derision because he didn't do as I expected, but standing in wonder because he is far more than I ever dreamed. Truly this man is the Son of God. I pray it will find me rejoicing at the empty tomb -- for the empty tomb loses none of its wonder if I stand there alone. After all, Jesus met Mary Magdalene there, as she stood weeping alone. And I pray that I will wait for deliverance, not with expectations, but with expectancy. I do not know what salvation will look like -- if it will be rescue from the pandemic or redemption through it -- but what I do know is this: I long for my faith to be genuine. So, this Palm Sunday, when there are no palm branches to wave, I pray.

Hosanna. Oh, Lord, save.

Mini-Eggs in the Midst of COVID-19

Yesterday, I was miserable. I was tired of staying home. I was resentful that I had to. I was angry that an invisible pathogen had disrupted my comfortable existence, and I wanted it to quit, right now. It's been two and a half weeks, and people are still getting sick and people are still dying, and the curve's not flattened yet and it's certainly not going down, and how long is it going to be, anyway? Weeks more? Months? Am I going to have to spend the whole beautiful summer stuck at home? It all just sucks.

Yes, I was miserable. I was grumpy and ungrateful and fed up.

The problem is, that I'm stuck at home. I can't get away when I'm feeling rumpled in my spirit. I can't distract me. And my poor housemate is locked up with me for who knows how much longer, and none of this is her fault, and if I don't deal with my stinky attitude, I make her lock-down more miserable, too. So I need to deal with my attitude.

I should pray. Problem is, I didn't feel like praying. What difference does it make, anyway? I've been praying and praying and praying, what feels like an endless wordless groan -- name after name after name of people I care about, and what difference is it making? This plague is going to last as long as it's going to last. The people who are going to get sick and die are going to get sick and die. I can beg and plead and look to the sky, but what difference does it make? God is going to do what God is going to do whether I pray or not.

I'm telling you, I was miserable, and grumpy, and fed up.

I'm not even going to get to see my family at Easter. I'm not going to get to go to church on Easter. And all I could think about was that I should have laid in a stock of mini-eggs.

Really, Marianne? Really?

Really?

Are you really going to go there? Fussing and fuming because you don't have mini-eggs when people are dying? I mean, how much shallower can you get?

Sometimes it takes truly outrageous thoughts to enter my head to bring me up short.

And it did bring me up short. Actually, it brings me to my knees. I read an article about how this season of lock-down is happening in the middle of Lent. N. T. Wright is right; fussing over chocolate mini-eggs is downright petty and silly now, when I think about the many things so many of us have had to give up -- jobs, socialising, church services, neat, safe routines, going to the gym, seeing loved ones, hugs from dear friends ... health ... safety ... life.

But it makes me realise how, still, I grasp for control. My world has shrunk considerably since March 12. But, still, I am holding tightly to the world that remains. I have not truly surrendered. I have reluctantly relinquished control of things beyond the border of my property lines, but I am hanging on with white knuckles to the things that lie within. I am trying with everything in me to live my life as much like I did Before. Before coronavirus. Before social distancing. Before everything collapsed and friends lost work and loved ones had to go out there every day and risk their lives because they have to go out there and I don't, before people I know started getting sick and maybe even dying. I fixate on the mini-eggs, not because I really want mini-eggs, but because in the old days, I'd have gone out and gotten mini-eggs if I'd wanted them that badly, but now the mini-eggs aren't worth risking my life for, and Out There -- where I have no control -- intrudes on In Here where I think I do. It's not really mini-eggs I want. It's control. And if not actual control, then at least the illusion of it.

It makes me realise how, even in this season where my world has shrunk to the property line and not having mini-eggs is silly in light of how much we have all had to give up, even in this season of dearth, compared to so many in the world, there is no lack at all.  "Christ, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself." How have I emptied myself? Yes, I have lost convenience and comfort and the freedom to go wherever I want whenever I want to. I have lost the sense of safety I had. I have lost the ability to gather with others. These are not insignificant losses, and I know that a good part of my angst is grief. But still, I have so much. I have a home, a roof over my head. I am able to socially distance because I have a home with walls and a roof and doors that I can close to the outside world. I have food in plenty on the table, even in the middle of a pandemic, and when I can't go out to get groceries, I can place an order for someone to bring them to me. I have clean running water, the ability to wash my hands dozens of times a day, to take hot showers and do laundry, and I even have hand lotion to soothe hands that are dry from being washed dozens of times a day. I can text and call and video chat with loved ones. I have clothes on my back and a car, filled with cheap gas, sitting in the driveway. I have a yard and a garden and I can sit on the back deck in the sunshine and do my grading because I even still have a job. Even in the middle of a pandemic, I am rich beyond most of the world's wildest dreams, and while people are squashed cheek-to-jowl in refugee camps in Syria and Jordan, and in dumps in Mexico and India, and in tiny apartments in all the urban centres around the world, I am complaining because I can't go out and buy mini-eggs, grumbling because my comfortable routine has been rumpled, and because the biggest thing I am grieving is the loss of my illusion of control.

Such a shabby spirituality. I know it won't do.

I'm not in control, not out there, and not in here, either. And it's only a matter of time before the realities of "out there" are felt "in here", in ways that are far more significant than mini-eggs. I don't know how that will happen. I know for many, it is happening already. Jobs lost. Rent due. Loved ones sick. Loved ones dying. Loved ones dead. I'm afraid of it, afraid of the pain that will come. I'm afraid that if I admit I have no control, I will be consumed by fear. But that is a lack of trust in a Sovereign God, a God who I am learning to lean into when I think about "out there" and "tomorrow" but who I am still holding at arms' length when I think about "here" and "today".

So here I am, on my knees, again. Praying. Not so much because praying changes things out there (although I fully believe it does), but because I so much need him to change things in me. I need to shed the shabby spirituality and be clothed in ferocious faith. If I am to be locked up for days, weeks, months, I do not want to emerge from my solitary confinement the same as I went in. I want him to change me. I want him -- frightening thought -- to empty me.

And then to fill me with himself, the one who holds all my yesterdays, every part of my today, and all my tomorrows in his hands, out there, and in here.

Even in the midst of COVID-19.