All Clear

A million years ago, when I was in preschool, we had a significant tornado outbreak in Little Rock.  They came in waves.  One minute we were in our classroom, and the next we were in the hall. Then after what seemed like forever we were back in our classroom only to go back to the hall again.  In fact, it was the back-and-forth that made the experience so difficult.  They gave us an “all clear” signal, only to call us back into the hall again.  We believed we were safe only to be told we were in danger all over again.  For an impressionable little tyke like me, this meant I questioned my safety from the weather for years after that.  I don’t remember that day, but I do remember an abiding fear of severe weather. Every Wednesday at noon when they would test the sirens I’d freak out, and mom would have to remind me they were just testing. While I still have a healthy respect for severe weather, these days I’m not scared of it.  In fact, in true southerner fashion my impulse is to head outside when the weather gets rough just to see what I can see.

I don't think the hard stuff will be coming for a while...

It seems ages ago now that life stopped in its tracks.  All of a sudden we weren’t doing any of the things we had been doing...and we were doing many things we had never done before!  I remember thinking it would be weeks or maybe months before things were “back to normal.”  I remember wondering when the “all clear” would sound and we would all take our heads out from under our hands and come out of our houses into the light of day to greet our weather-beaten neighbors with a fist bump or a high five.

It didn’t take too long for me to realize that wasn’t going to happen, even if it took me a good while to admit it.  Now a year and a half on, I don’t think there will never be an “all clear” moment.  There is not a second Thanos snap coming where everything we lost will blink back into existence.  We are where we are.  Life is what it is.

This became clear to me about a month ago when I was trying to figure out how to make Chancel Choir retreat happen.  I had found a place where we could stay, but I realized we weren’t going to be able to make meals covid-safe.  So we adjusted course, and I came up with a plan to have our retreat at the church.  I was skeptical that it would measure up, but in the end I was pleasantly surprised at how productive the time was.  I was even more surprised by the ways I discovered our “replacement retreat” actually worked better than my original plan would have, and it may have changed the way I conceive of these events from here on out.

That weekend changed the way I think about ministry in a time of pandemic.

Prior to retreat, I was thinking about what we had done before and how we could duplicate it safely.  This had the effect of making me sad on a routine basis because it forced me to focus on the things we had lost.  But covid isn’t in control, or it shouldn’t be. It’s just a constraint that has to be accounted for.

As I think about it, I realize I’ve always operated within a set of constraints.  We have limited budget, limited time, and limited space.  We have limited personnel resources, and the personnel we do have often have diverse and sometimes opposed views on how and what we can do.  I’ve always asked myself, “What is it I want to accomplish, and given these constraints, what is the best way to accomplish it?”  In planning events, safety has always been a significant consideration.  Now we just have to add covid safety to the list.

Don’t get me wrong.  I miss a lot of things, and I’m looking forward to a time when some of these covid constraints are gone.  It’s just that I am confident we can still create meaningful connection and build durable relationships by making music together if that’s what we want to do. We just have to do it safely is all.

For whatever reason, that has made me feel a lot better about the great unknown ahead of us. Who is coming back? When? What other challenges lie ahead? How can we possibly be Methodists in a time when we can’t eat tuna casserole in the same room?  None of that is clear to me. But have we ever really known any of that? No. This much is all clear to me: whatever exists out there, whatever lies ahead of us, we will face it together.  And that, to me, is what ministry has always been about.

—John