A Year of Covid-19

A year. A full, empty, weird, hard year. Today has been one year since the first post I wrote about Covid-19 and what it was doing to our lives, a year since it all became real and I began processing it. (I’m still processing it, and I imagine we all will be until a good long time after it’s over.)

Of course, we’re not done with it yet. Thankfully, we’ve got enough toilet paper and bread and flour and hand sanitizer now (so glad that part didn’t last a whole year!), and there is good hope that a few months’ time will bring us back together, in person, perhaps even able to see each other’s whole faces, perhaps even able to freely hug and hold one another. A beautiful thought! But right now, we’re still waiting for something closer to normal. In the meantime, we continue to exercise caution in order to protect our more vulnerable neighbors and loved ones…and we continue to process.

As I look back on this strange year, I know that my experience has not been the same as anyone else’s — no one’s experience of this year has been exactly like anyone else’s, even if they lived in the same home, were part of the same family, worked (or lost) the same jobs. We each had to approach and deal with this year from our own individual circumstances and perspectives. 

It reminds me of seeds planted — underground, separate, waiting for the time we can emerge from the darkness and spread our leaves in the sunshine, with others, seeing and being seen. And then I think: what if we could eventually become like those communities of trees that are connected underground, like those Aspen trees in Utah? Or like those trees that reach across space to intertwine their branches and leaves? Or like a symbiotic garden, where each plant has a different purpose, but they all work together toward all kinds of beauty? 

Maybe we will learn, through this long, difficult, dark, dis-connected situation, to finally grow into true community. Maybe we will remember the loneliness we’ve felt, and reach out to each other in new and sincere ways. Maybe we will build relationships instead of friend lists, pursue connection instead of more followers, open up to each other instead of filtering our true identities and struggles and joys. Maybe we will strive to understand each other rather than simply give our own opinions. Maybe we will begin to truly love.

We don’t have to wait for life to get ‘back to normal’ to begin this. It’s not limited to distances of less than 6 feet; it doesn’t even have to happen in person. I know some who are already living this well, and some of us are beginning to learn it — beginning to sprout, to grow, to stretch, to reach out. I hope we all will, eventually. We are made for community. We are created to function together. Those of us who are Christ-followers are each a small but integral part of the body of Christ, meant to be working together to help each other, and to help others come to know Him. When we are disconnected, everyone suffers — the whole body, and those who are searching. (1 Corinthians 12:12-26)

There is, of course, so much more to what we’ve all gone through this past year, what we will continue to deal with, and hopefully what we will continue to learn…but if we can truly connect, if we can truly support each other, if we can begin to live in true community, we will have a much stronger base for all the processing and dealing and learning — and I expect we’ll experience more growth and love than we’ve ever seen before.

“Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”
(Ephesians 4:15-16)