A lifetime ago, in February, many of us entered Lent prepared to give up something, like chocolate, or to take on something, perhaps a prayer practice, out of desire to grow closer to God. And then March happened, COVID-19 happened. I can’t even remember what my Lenten discipline was anymore, let alone whether I stuck with it until Easter. But what about today’s discipline?
Every week, I share my deepest desires for you, including that you will “Find God in everyone and in every thing.” What would it mean for us to find God even in COVID-19? Including the people who are frustrating us by wearing or not wearing a mask. Including the disruptions and disappointments? More than weeks of Lent, can we live these months as a spiritual discipline?
I only recently came to this place of understanding, and I admit, I’m only beginning to grasp the potential. But whether I recognized it or not, coronavirus has changed my relationship with God. It has helped me in some ways to draw closer to God, even as it has revealed places where I need and want further growth.
For example, I’ve had a spiritual practice for nearly thirty years that I’ve learned to ̶ had to ̶ change. Since 1993 it has been: Monday ̶ read the next Sunday’s scripture lessons. Thursday ̶ first sermon draft. Sunday ̶ preach. Rinse and repeat, for nearly half of my life. Until March.
It isn’t simply that I’ve learned to re-adjust my calendar to make sure recordings and bulletins are available on time. It means I’ve had to let go of the comfort of that routine. To rely on God to have a sermon ready by Wednesday. To trust God that I’ll know that sermon enough after a few hours and not a few days. To surrender that it is not my well-formed words but God’s Holy Spirit who will share God’s truth. As some people can tell you, I didn’t come to these realizations easily or willingly.
A big part of it is that I have no choice. Five weeks into Lent, I can get chocolate if I want or put a devotional away. But COVID-19 is the spiritual cauldron that we can’t escape even if we want to.
On one hand that is oppressive. Believe me, I understand. On the other hand, however, that I can’t escape when I want means I have to sit with this. I have to. I have no choice.
Moment by moment we are changed, like water dripping on hard stone and over millennium shaping rock. But like it or not, coronavirus is an unrelenting wave, pounding that same hard rock into sand. We may not like ocean waves or their powers of erosion. They may scare us. But we can’t stop them.
Such is the spiritual discipline set before us. We can resist. We can protest. But we will still be changed. Can we find God in all things? Even this thing? May it be so.
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