Editor’s note: Columns in the Faith section reflect opinions and perspectives of the writer and are not necessarily those of The Republic.
After days of arduous back and forth, negotiating and switching dates, we finally landed one of the most epic backpacking permits in the Grand Canyon.
As I shared this great news with my wife, she stared at me blankly with no visible emotion.
“You do realize those dates are during Easter, right?” she asked.
Silence.
Life is full of inevitable disruptions and difficulties.
Sometimes they are of our own doing.
Other times, they are out of our control.
Like this season of the pandemic.
While we have made important and necessary sacrifices to protect the most vulnerable among us, there is no question that our isolation has created a sense of disruption, helplessness, and loss.
We have lost embraces to standing 6 feet apart, the subtlety of a smile to face coverings, the ease of conversations to dividers and shields.
We have lost plays and musicals and concerts, sporting events, parades and block parties, community social events, faith gatherings, schools and classmates, work and coworkers, meals with extended families and friends.
We have lost the physical to the virtual, our natural rhythm to an unfamiliar beat.
And to compound our loss and isolation, we are fed nonstop media narratives that continue to polarize us, pit us against one another, and make us feel increasingly anxious and depressed.
As we try to find some semblance of community and connectedness in our isolation, we retreat to social media only to find more anger, division, and hostility, which leaves us even more fragmented and alone.
There is more that we are losing than lives to this virus.
We are losing our humanity.
We are being broken down into isolated and fragmented parts that are increasingly anxious and angry. We are rapidly losing our sense of what it means to be a fully integrated, fully alive human being that works toward healthy relationships and community. And we can either continue down this hateful and antagonistic trajectory, feeding the beast until it consumes our souls and we devolve into utter chaos, or we can draw a line in the sand and resolve to fight for our hearts and take back our humanity, finding a different, more life-giving way forward in the process.
But it has to begin with each one of us.
For there is no remedying the whole until the parts themselves find wholeness.
As a people, we have this mistaken idea that our help and our change can only come from on high… from elected officials, governments, courts, social organizations, political action groups, and so on.
But every wisdom tradition I have ever studied teaches us that our communities only change when we change individually. Our communities only find health when we find health individually. Our communities only become just, merciful, forgiving when we become just, merciful, and forgiving individually. And our communities only become whole and healed when we become whole and healed ourselves.
Jesus said that even a little yeast will permeate the entire batch of dough.
It is always the transformation of the smallest part that leads to the transformation of the whole.
While I grieve for those affected by the virus, I believe this season of loss is giving us an opportunity to look inward and evaluate ourselves.
We have never been more naked and exposed and vulnerable in our lifetime than right now. And we have been given an opportunity to honestly look inward, see ourselves, and rediscover our inherent goodness and our shared humanity, but what are we doing with this time?
On Easter morning of 2014, the guys and I sat in a circle on large rocks next to the Colorado River in the heart of the Grand Canyon and watched the sunrise. I unwrapped the foil that had preserved the homemade honey-molasses communion bread I had baked before the trip. While aching and feeling the loss of not being with my family to celebrate the day, I prayed with my brothers, broke the bread, and savored one of the most life-giving and holy Easter moments I have ever experienced.
Life is difficult and many times feels like profound loss, but we always have the opportunity to embrace the moment and look-inwardly. For it is only in this place where we can recover that which is life-giving and holy.
Brandon Andress of Columbus is a former local church leader, a Christian book author, a current iTunes podcast speaker and a contributor to the online Outside the Walls blog. His latest book is “Beauty in the Wreckage: Finding Peace in the Age of Outrage.” He can be reached at his website, brandonandress.com. All opinions expressed are those of the writer.
