HOLY PAUSE

       

This forced quiet, this compulsory isolation

Is it not an opportunity?

This gift of seclusion, is it not from God?

Is something so huge touching the entire globe 
not a roaring call to the global church to pray and to BE CHURCH?

Oh! For such a time as this!

  

Although sin has left this earth full of sickness and disease,

He chooses to work with it, under it, over it, in spite of it.

Whatever your theology on this pandemic is,

I think we can all agree that wherever it is darkest,

there will be close behind the brightest light of Glory

you could ever have imagined!

Most of us remember the moment when we finally “got it.”

We finally saw that, in the end, little was being exaggerated.

And we realized that people had died, were dying, were going to die.

And we began to question and wonder and wrestle

with something so colossal none of us could wrap our mind around it.

It´s absolutely global…and yet so neighborly…and so invasively personal all at the same time.

It sucked up all our freedom and independence.

And thrust us into a frenzy of change in order to be able to continue working, studying, 
caring for others, caring for our bodies. Or not.

We feel & see every array of emotion,

We feel things we don´t understand, say things we don´t mean, pray desperate prayers.

We are captives in this life-halting, things-will-never-be-the-same-again pandemic.

And it´s ok.

We have been extended an unplanned self-retreat, 

an unexpected time of self-reflection.

I realize this looks differently to everyone.

Some are still working fairly normally.
Those in health care are living true nightmares.
Some of us have switched to working from home,
While others cannot work at all.
Some have suddenly had to shift to full-time child care,  
While others live alone & are facing a sort of solitary confinement.

Yet for everyone, everything changed.

There is a quiet to everything outside, to all our activities.

In this stillness, in the hushed, reserved tones of quarantine,

things begin to stir...in us, in those around us...

and we are all confronted with a mirror.

                                                                                                     

Yet as we begin to walk out days at home,
He is moving, inviting, correcting, enveloping

He confronts us in all we claim to be -

We realize how inept we are at so much togetherness

and loneliness at the same time!
And there is no escape.

We are being graced with

An alluring chance to grow into one another,

Not just “do our own thing.”
Will we take it?
Will we grow in family, in community, in church?
Or will we become stuck in time, ignoring this chance to peel back unhealthy patterns?

We cannot deny this chance to listen, to discern,

to experience compassion, to experience grief.

To laugh, to play, to create

And we may find ourselves in unusual roles, exercising significant patience,

experiencing jealousy, uncomfortableness, anger, sadness…

Extroverts and introverts trying to find a routine that works.

Spouses are trying to meet needs & get needs met.

Kids are going crazy and the educational systems are stretched raw 
adjusting to education on line in this unexpected time.

No one can negate the rising fear, anxiety, confusion, distrust & even outright bewilderment
in our communities and around the world today.
Yet there are God stories multiplying in forsaken places,
Love stories among the vulnerable,
Jesus is coming alive in us
and we must pray that He will be seen.

There is uncertainty,

Yet we know one who is Certain.

There is fear,

Yet the “waves & wind still know his name.”*

There is breath held over the incredible economic impact.

Yet he can blow His breath across this globe in restoration.

There is loss & sadness & anger against how poorly prepared we were.

And we learn.

What were first numbers now have names, and soon, you know some of those names,

And there is grief.

And He sits with you.

He is in every individual sacred moment of yours.

And He is strategically working a billion things we cannot see

For the establishment of His kingdom.

It is a sober thing to be “making” history.

Yet Jesus has the script. (He writes it.)

Even in this, especially in this, he is turning, healing,

redeeming, calling forth heaven even in this, and it will be for His kingdom´s glory.

This is not the “glory” we expected in 2020!

But Jesus isn´t much into doing what we expect.

This extraordinary time calls for extraordinary attention.

Attention to the One writing out history.

Attention to the One who is redeeming in the midst of wars, chronic illness, vulnerability, natural disasters, human trafficking, crime, poverty….

Attention to the One who can redeem this virus, too.

Attention to our own hearts & His activity there.

Can we release our plans, our freedom, our right to choose?

Can we hold both hands open to our compassionate God,

One filled with grief and the other with trust?

For these two are companions; we experience both.

One does not cancel out the other;

we have to find a way to live with both, to hold both.

Like a lot of things Jesus does,

He accomplishes through paradoxes.

He is Love, Compassion, Power, Comfort, Mercy, so many things…

But he is also Mystery.

We cannot have it all figured out,

But we do know he is speaking.

So, this forced quiet, this compulsory isolation

Is it not an opportunity?

This gift of seclusion, is it not from God?

*from the song by Bethel Music & Kristene DiMarco

Photo by: iezalel williams

This B&W photo is of a passion flower. For us in Spain, our quarantine (cuarentena) has lined up with Lent (cuaresma) and Easter. I doubt that is a coincidence. This year Passion Week will be full of a different kind of opportunity, a different kind of community, a different memory for years to come. May your home be full of love & grace.