coronavirus

How’s that for a blog title?

Wow.

My dear friends, this is certainly not how any of us thought 2020 would go. And yet, as James Finney says,

what’s in the way is the way

Here we are, caught up in liminal space together against any of our wills (though, if we’re honest, how often do we willingly enter mystery and in-between anyway). Everything I started Ezer Birth Collective for seems to be live in this time: grappling with what is out of our control, finding that through the despair and anxiety we can sense God’s still small voice, encountering Presence and Power in the process, surrendering to productive pain that leads to new life (social distancing, anyone?).

Life in the age of Coronavirus.

I have had two births on my calendar for March 2020. I made it to the first, in the first week of the uptick of COVID-19 cases in the US. I attended her birth on a Tuesday, and was not allowed to return to her hospital bed by Thursday. Now, I wait by my phone for a beloved friend to call me when she is in labor, and we do not know if a shelter-in-place will further disrupt her plans.

If ever there were a time to engage our Ezer roots, it must be now. Remember, women, that you were not created frail and ruled by fear. You are given God’s own name for God-self, a reminder of how God protected Israel as a warrior in battle, and if you find yourself pregnant, about to birth, or freshly postpartum in this battle against Coronavirus, you can rest assured that God has created you with strength and power to take it to task.

In times of great anxiety and uncertainty, we become aware of what was always true: we desperately need Jesus. We need the indwelling, fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit— not once a week at a church service— daily, hourly, minute-ly.

I have been very overwhelmed by the sudden switch to spending long days at home with my boys. It’s the very ground that Satan used to taunt my postpartum depression and anxiety, and it triggers all of my mental health buttons. I’ve been asking God for a simple image to usher me quickly into God’s abiding presence, and here’s what I saw:

Myself, in the fetal position, snuggled into Mother God’s womb, attached by the eternal umbilical cord to God’s ever present strength, endurance, love and energy.

When I feel the walls caving in around me, I close my eyes and summon that prayer image. It has been so deeply restful and helpful for me in these times.

toxic capitalism

I am a Three on the Enneagram, and I have read that America most readily reflects the unhealthy drives of Threes and Sixes: an addiction to progress, success and achievement walled off by self-preservation and a need for security. If that is true, then this moment we are in is one giant crucible for the personality of our nation. We are conditioned to produce and consume, produce and consume, ever increasing with no respect for our limitations and human capacities, let alone our groaning earth collapsing under the pressure of it all. I’ll call that toxic capitalism. The sudden halt of our surging systems sends us all spiraling.

I know this feeling well, as it’s exactly what my first maternity leave did to me. I have noticed our inability to stop and face our limits, even now. The internet allows us to attempt to march forward, though for most the math isn’t adding up: hourly wage workers cannot pay for their rent, two parent households have lost 40 hours of childcare but are expected to continue their work, perhaps at an even more urgent clip. Single parents are expected to work from home with no childcare whatsoever, small businesses given no options but to try to innovate on the spot to make ends meet. Capitalism in this way is so dehumanizing. It ignores our limits, it ignores God’s command to cease from working and it creates a scarcity mentality that says you are essential, keep grinding.

hope

I want to remind us of the Easter mystery we are racing towards: that death does not have the final word, and that Jesus reminds us in his body that God’s creation is always cycling between birth, death, and resurrection.

I think of our healthcare workers laboring on the frontlines, and I remember Paul’s words,

Death is at work in us so that life is at work in you.

I get that we are living in a weeks-long Saturday, between the stinging bite of Good Friday’s death, and the uncertain hope of Resurrection Sunday.

Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we may feel despair as we reflect on all that has happened, having hoped that things would turn out differently.

As I often must remind my three year old Parker when he impatiently, desperately begs to skip to the end of the movie, or for me to get from the kitchen to his placemat with his snack in less time than is humanly possible,

It is coming, my love. Have patience. You must wait.

When panic overwhelms you, or despair creeps in like morning fog, please stop. Ask God for an image to anchor you. Maybe for you it will also be the womb, floating peacefully in total security, fully known and fully loved, eternally connected to the Source.

May this time remind you that you are not what you do. You are a human being. God is with you. As you wash the dishes for the third time that day and slowly move from room to room around your house, remember that God’s posture in chaos is rest and new life (check out Genesis 1-2 if you’re unconvinced). Jesus is asleep in the boat through the storm.

We must wait.

Psalm 130
A pilgrimage song.
130 I cry out to you from the depths, Lord—
2 my Lord, listen to my voice!
    Let your ears pay close attention to my request for mercy!
3 If you kept track of sins, Lord—
    my Lord, who would stand a chance?
4 But forgiveness is with you—
    that’s why you are honored.
5 I hope, Lord.
My whole being hopes,
    and I wait for God’s promise.
6 My whole being waits for my Lord—
    more than the night watch waits for morning;
    yes, more than the night watch waits for morning!
7 Israel, wait for the Lord!
    Because faithful love is with the Lord;
    because great redemption is with our God!
8 He is the one who will redeem Israel
    from all its sin.

resources

Bonus Podcast Episode from Richard Rohr’s Another Name for Everything:
Finding Peace in the Midst of a Pandemic

Audrey Assad’s cover of The Middle (Jimmy Eat World)