A Pastor's View from Quarantine

"Therefore encourage one another with these words." — 1st Thessalonians 4:18
The last few weeks have ushered a new way of life into our midst. Goals and projects that were vague considerations and concerns not yet pressing have come to the fore. Routines and habits have been discarded like dirty napkins. Toilet paper seems to be front and center on everyone’s minds, even while much of the world never adopted our North American use of toilet paper. The internet has taken on a different role in our lives. Online shopping is taking on a deeper role in our society than a month ago.
We brought a couple of young men into our home in the last month. Offering them a place to stay when they had nowhere else to go shifted from one plane to another with the rapidly developing news and presence of Covid19 in the world, in our nation, and in our state. When one of these young men developed all the symptoms of Covid19, I took him to be tested. When he developed respiratory distress the next day, I took him to the Emergency Room.
I have been in emergency rooms plenty of times. I have been there as a father, a pastor, a patient, and a healthcare interpreter. This experience was very different. I did not enter the waiting area beyond a line of tape on the floor. I was thanked for our wearing masks. Then I was asked to wait in the parking lot. No one was allowed to enter with Trevor. One parent alone is allowed to enter with a minor child. Rather than listening to doctors and nurses to play intermediary and interpret medical speak to someone in my care, I was relegated to awaiting updates by text.
The young man was released after some treatment and sent home with medication to help with the bronchitis he had developed. Medical staff assumed that he was positive for Covid19, even as we are still awaiting test results after a week. Normally, nothing of the kind is presumed by medical professionals. In the case of this virus, however, a presumption of infection is the new standard of care for the welfare of both the patient and the larger community.
Masks still on, we returned home in the wee hours of the morning. We were informed we should remain in quarantine for two weeks. That would take us to Holy Saturday. In the meantime, we may get out in the yard. Beyond that, we remain physically isolated to ensure we are not spreading this virus in the larger community.
In the meantime, someone picked up prescriptions for us. Someone brought us groceries. Someone else offered to pick up groceries for us. Someone else brought lunch once, then once again. Someone else delivered food. Others called to check on us. Others checked in with us on social media, text, and email.
I had planned for some time to start recording services at Wingate UMC. The pandemic put a rush on getting that off the ground. After some 40 hours of research, I determined what equipment we needed to get that going. Now after several false starts, we have determined that we need to make recordings and submit them to YouTube and post those to Facebook. We have added a midweek reflection to our Sunday offerings and are seeing positive response to that.
We may be quarantined, but we are fielding more contact from our church family than is normal. We are uncovering new ways to connect and build community, even when we cannot be physically close. We are planning for a new future and a new reality that awaits us down the road.
We will come out of quarantine in a different place. There will be no going back where we were before. There will be no returning to the old ways of doing things. We will simply chart a new course that makes sense of the new realities we face.
When we can gather again in person, we will rejoice in that. We will also continue to adopt these new ways of communicating as integral parts of our toolbox. The ride may still get bumpy. We will still face some ups and downs along the way. The purpose of quarantine, however, is to protect and care for one another. That can only make us a stronger community of faith. It can increase the strength of the bonds that hold us together, if only we let it.


— ©Copyright 2020, Christopher B. Harbin

http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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