Skip to main content

Lord Byron and the End of the Pandemic


As humans, we have evolved to be wary of change. In a church, you see this all the time. I like to jokingly remind our leaders that if we change brands of toilet paper, someone is liable to leave the church over it. 

Welp, this year our theme could be the line from one of our hymns: Don't be afraid of some change. Because whether you were afraid or not, change was here. Time to learn Zoom. And Youtube Premiere. And in non-church life, curbside pickup for everything from dinner to craft supplies. 

We changed. We didn't have a choice in the matter. Trust me, if we'd had an actual choice, if the alternative was not literally potential death, we would have held lots of committee meetings, weighed the pros and cons, and decided nope, we were not going to change. 

But we did. And now, slowly I hope, because it's the right and healthy and covenantal thing to do ... we will change again. We'll come back to church. Go back to eating dinner inside a restaurant where people put hot plates in front of us and then whisk them away when they're empty. Realize we're out of that one ingredient and run up to the grocery store to grab it. 

In some ways, we'll go back to what used to be, but in so many other ways, we can't really go back, and shouldn't. We have learned things. We won't just do things because we've always done them that way, whether it's Thanksgiving at Grandmas, or shaking hands with everyone we meet. 

So, again, we are facing change, and doesn't it seem like it's going to take a lot of energy? We may not particularly like our routine now, but after a year, we've gotten it down. It's familiar. And boy, we like familiar. To change now means going back to uncertainty - how will things be different, how will they be the same? We will have to make decisions, choices, again. 

In 1816, Lord George Gordon Byron wrote his poem, "Prisoner of Chillon," telling the real-life story of François Bonivard who was imprisoned in the Castle of Chillon for his political activism. Byron imagined himself as Bonivard, telling the tale of despair, and wrote of when men came to set him free: "And thus when they appear'd at last, And all my bonds aside were cast, These heavy walls to me had grown A hermitage—and all my own!"

We have repurposed our homes, making them into offices, daycares, and entertainment venues. We've lived multiple days, never leaving. And we have been shaped by this time. Our relationships have taken on new dimensions through this. In the good moments, it has been a new privilege, to spend so much time with loved ones. In difficult moments, we have learned more about ourselves, and what we need to feel centered and mentally healthy. 

Of course, our feelings right now are complicated. 

Lord Byron ends the narrative poem with: 

My very chains and I grew friends, 
So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are:—even I 
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

We have grown friends with aspects of this lockdown. And it has made us what we now are. 

It's okay to sigh. 





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to...

Beloved Community: The Now and Not Yet

Rev. Christine Robinson has a great little post up about the phrase "beloved community" and why it's problematic to use that to describe a church. Like her mom, I can get cranky about the whole thing, but my crankiness lies in the misuse of what is, to me, such a breathtaking and profound concept. Martin Luther King, Jr., someone whose words I study in great detail, is the one we often think of as originating the term, but he learned about it through the writings of Josiah Royce. Josiah Royce (right) with close friend William James.  Royce was a philosopher, studying Kant, Hegel. I imagine he would have enjoyed Koestler's theory of the holon , because he saw humanity as being both individuals and part of a greater "organism" that was community. As King's belief about Beloved Community would be rooted in agape , Royce's philosophy stemmed from what he called loyalty, and by that he meant, "the practically devoted love of an individual f...

To Love the Hell Out of the World

To love the hell out of the world means to love it extravagantly, wastefully, with an overpouring abandon and fervor that sometimes surprises even yourself. That love flows out of you, sometimes slow and steady, sometimes in a torrent, sometimes filled with joy, sometimes with fierceness, or anger, or a heartbreaking pain that makes you say, "No, no, I can't take this anymore. I can't do anymore. It's too much ... too much." But it's too late. You've opened up your own heart, your own mind, body, and strength, and yes, it is too much. But there's also so much love that comes crashing down on you, gifts from the Heavens in the form of the smiles and cares from others, a giggle burbling up from a toddler's fat little belly, the soft, sweet smell of star jasmine catching you unaware, not knowing where it came from ... but it's here. And you're here. And just to live, just to exist, swells your heart with enough gratitude and love that you mu...