A Day of Strangeness and Hope

I've made almost 55 laps around the sun, but in all of those trips there have been very few days as strange as yesterday. The next nearest in overall weirdness was September 11th, 2001. I kept watching the world change yesterday as it seemed everything familiar was somehow being suspended. The NCAA tournament gone. Major League Baseball spring training and Opening Day cancelled. The college baseball season gone. Disneyland closed. The conference I'm attending sent a message yesterday that they were ending a day early. Then the strangest part of all - a message from our Bishop that United Methodist churches in Holston Conference would not be meeting in live worship for at least two weeks. I had to compose an email to the choirs that our schedule was now completely up in the air. This Sunday and the next I will be at home for a reason other than vacation or personal sickness for the first time in almost 30 years. I remember that after 9/11 people ran TO churches. This time we're running away from them.

I admit that the day was depressing. I can't say that I'm afraid that this is the Black Death or Spanish Flu, although I certainly don't take coronavirus lightly. I was more concerned that this feels like a historic societal change that none of us asked for or saw coming. One doctor on television stated that coronavirus was now probably endemic to the human species. We'll be dealing with it from now on. Every winter now we will change the way we interact with each other. Shaking hands will be discouraged. We'll be concerned when the person next to us coughs.

But there is more to the story. Last night I attended a concert of a mass children's choir followed by a presentation of Brahms' Requiem by a mass concert choir and the Mobile Symphony Orchestra. The joy on the kids' faces was delightful as they sang about hope and the power of music. As I listened to Brahm's Requiem, it occurred to me that we are truly a magnificent species of life. We have the ability to create incredible music, beautiful things, and we do so out of an instinct to create art. I looked at a stage filled with deeply talented musicians playing instruments that had been crafted by other talented people. Everyone on stage was playing and singing notes that had been conceived in a genius brain over a century ago. And all of this art, this beauty, has as its sole purpose the enriching of life itself. We don't need music and art to physically survive; we do it to make survival and existence wonderfully special.

I was reminded of the Psalmist's realization that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Yes, we may be in the midst of change such as we've never experienced, but we are also smart and resourceful. If we have the power to collectively make art, we certainly have the ability to collectively defeat the power of a virus. We will adapt, find a way to make life beautiful, and will emerge from whatever happens with this virus even smarter and better. We carry within us the spark of the Divine, and despite some missteps along the way, we do a pretty good job of making life better.

I will miss sports this spring. I will begrudgingly stay away from corporate worship, and will begrudgingly agree that it is wise to take the seemingly extreme measures that we are urged to take. But I will do so with the hope and faith that this is a small amount of discomfort that will pass soon enough. And on those days when the weirdness gets a little heavy, I'll remember that we carry that spark of the Divine that will figure all of this out. And while we're figuring it out, we will make some beautiful art and music. Because that's what we do.