covid 19
reflection
time off
COVID Quarantine — Week 2
March 29th, 2020
A practice that I have kept very inconsistently but doggedly is reading Common Prayer compiled by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro. There’s a beautiful book but also an app and an online version for ease of access. It is simple enough that I don’t give up after missing it for a few days but deep enough that it prompts me to further reflection.
Daily the authors share a quote from a foundational Christian thinker. Today’s is from Pierre Teillhard de Chardin, a “twentieth-century Jesuit philosopher.” He prayed this prayer:
Many of the things in our lives have shifted radically over the past few weeks, but one of them that I never anticipated missing was not gathering in a space of worship. I was there last Sunday to run the soundboard as we recorded the sermon to put online (Creston’s not a very techy community—haven’t quite figured out the live stream). As Linnea got up to preach, I got a little choked up thinking about all the people that I hadn’t seen in two weeks. Someone had tacked directory pages onto the seats so when you entered the sanctuary, all you saw were white sheets of paper tacked to the ugliest lime green chairs displaying the faces of the regular attendees and their regular seats; an act that both eased and sharpened my ache of missing community.
In the past week, I’ve introduced the software FlipGrid to the women’s bible study group (and exchanged more than a few emails trying to get it up and running) and set up a Zoom meeting for my fall house church group. We’re trying to connect through the only way most of us can now—virtually.
Like de Chardin, we do not have bread or wine or an altar, but we can make altars in our homes and in our spaces on the internet. I am striving to use this extra time gifted to me in this quarantine to continue to explore how to listen to God and how to serve him best while I am still house-bound. Here are a couple things that I have done to introduce prayerful attentiveness and general positivity into my days:
Let me know where you have been cultivating positivity or an altar in your own life. Happy Sunday, friends.
* * *
March 24th, 2020
I got on Twitter, and now I’m mad.
If you’ve talked to me in the last couple days, I’ve been pretty blase about this whole ordeal. I am in an extremely privileged position: I have some duties that I can do remotely so I am paid yet my workload has effectively been cut by 75%, I live in a house that communicates well and loves each other and is okay with me wanting to hang out with them a lot, my family is in constant communication and is hanging in there, my house has enough food, and I have more than enough entertainment to keep me sustained. This quarantine has kind of been a dream come true for me.
I’m learning how to hold my position in this quarantine with the fact that there are people around me that are fearing for their lives because of this disease. There are people who have lost their jobs and don’t know where else to turn. There are people depending on the government to freeze rent or they may get evicted. There are Asian Americans experiencing extreme racism due to this disease beginning in China, and this racism is coming from the top of the country—Trump—all the way down to Instagram live commenters on author Kelly Yang’s free online writing class for teenagers. There are students who are going to fall further behind because they don’t have the structure of school to support them and their families.
So now I’m mad, and I’m not sure where to put it. Into further educating myself as an anti-racist educator? Into reading the professional development books that crowd my bookshelf? Into resting and taking a break over the burn out that has been slowly creeping into my life? Into deciding if I want to stay at my current school? Into this blog post?
Realistically, there’s not much I can do to prevent the spread of this virus beyond what my housemates, my family, my friends, and I are doing. We are staying at home, only getting groceries when absolutely necessary, and trying to keep ourselves healthy and whole. Does that give me the excuse to sit on my couch and watch Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again? Read more books of poetry? Take a nap? Is it enough to know and acknowledge the pain, or should I as a privileged person take it on myself?
I’m putting some of my money where my mouth is, but I’m not sure what else to do. Guess I’m going to continue to learn and take care of myself the best I can.
A practice that I have kept very inconsistently but doggedly is reading Common Prayer compiled by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro. There’s a beautiful book but also an app and an online version for ease of access. It is simple enough that I don’t give up after missing it for a few days but deep enough that it prompts me to further reflection.
Daily the authors share a quote from a foundational Christian thinker. Today’s is from Pierre Teillhard de Chardin, a “twentieth-century Jesuit philosopher.” He prayed this prayer:
Since once again, Lord, I have neither bread nor wine nor altar, I will raise myself beyond these symbols, up to the pure majesty of the real itself; I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labors and suffering of the world.
Many of the things in our lives have shifted radically over the past few weeks, but one of them that I never anticipated missing was not gathering in a space of worship. I was there last Sunday to run the soundboard as we recorded the sermon to put online (Creston’s not a very techy community—haven’t quite figured out the live stream). As Linnea got up to preach, I got a little choked up thinking about all the people that I hadn’t seen in two weeks. Someone had tacked directory pages onto the seats so when you entered the sanctuary, all you saw were white sheets of paper tacked to the ugliest lime green chairs displaying the faces of the regular attendees and their regular seats; an act that both eased and sharpened my ache of missing community.
In the past week, I’ve introduced the software FlipGrid to the women’s bible study group (and exchanged more than a few emails trying to get it up and running) and set up a Zoom meeting for my fall house church group. We’re trying to connect through the only way most of us can now—virtually.
Like de Chardin, we do not have bread or wine or an altar, but we can make altars in our homes and in our spaces on the internet. I am striving to use this extra time gifted to me in this quarantine to continue to explore how to listen to God and how to serve him best while I am still house-bound. Here are a couple things that I have done to introduce prayerful attentiveness and general positivity into my days:
- Common Prayer and the Biola University’s Lent Project: I’ve been even worse at keeping up with this, but it has a piece of music, a poem, a piece of art, a scripture, and a devotional for each day. A rich resource.
- Zooniverse: a crowd-sourcing science platform. Great to make your TV bingeing time feel semi-productive for someone other than you.
- FlipGrid: an asynchronous way of leaving messages for other people. I’ve been using it to connect with other English educators (sidenote: you can watch my video here—scroll down a bit) but I’m certain you could set one up for your family/classroom/whatever.
- Morgan Harper Nichols: Instagrammer who shares words of encouragement on abstract art. Honestly, I usually scroll past her stuff, but it’s a nice shot of positivity when I do take the time to read.
- Daily Examen: I introduced this to my housemates for my house devotions Thursday. We walked through the steps and used a zine to capture our thoughts with art and words. It was a practice that made me think more deeply about my emotions that day and what I wanted to lift to God.
- Accountability Log: Last October, Elizabeth and I created a shared Google Doc where we reflect on our spiritual practices. It was supposed to keep us accountable (and it does sometimes), but for me it’s a really great place to reflect in writing about what God is teaching me or what I’m mulling over.
Let me know where you have been cultivating positivity or an altar in your own life. Happy Sunday, friends.
March 24th, 2020
I got on Twitter, and now I’m mad.
If you’ve talked to me in the last couple days, I’ve been pretty blase about this whole ordeal. I am in an extremely privileged position: I have some duties that I can do remotely so I am paid yet my workload has effectively been cut by 75%, I live in a house that communicates well and loves each other and is okay with me wanting to hang out with them a lot, my family is in constant communication and is hanging in there, my house has enough food, and I have more than enough entertainment to keep me sustained. This quarantine has kind of been a dream come true for me.
I’m learning how to hold my position in this quarantine with the fact that there are people around me that are fearing for their lives because of this disease. There are people who have lost their jobs and don’t know where else to turn. There are people depending on the government to freeze rent or they may get evicted. There are Asian Americans experiencing extreme racism due to this disease beginning in China, and this racism is coming from the top of the country—Trump—all the way down to Instagram live commenters on author Kelly Yang’s free online writing class for teenagers. There are students who are going to fall further behind because they don’t have the structure of school to support them and their families.
So now I’m mad, and I’m not sure where to put it. Into further educating myself as an anti-racist educator? Into reading the professional development books that crowd my bookshelf? Into resting and taking a break over the burn out that has been slowly creeping into my life? Into deciding if I want to stay at my current school? Into this blog post?
Realistically, there’s not much I can do to prevent the spread of this virus beyond what my housemates, my family, my friends, and I are doing. We are staying at home, only getting groceries when absolutely necessary, and trying to keep ourselves healthy and whole. Does that give me the excuse to sit on my couch and watch Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again? Read more books of poetry? Take a nap? Is it enough to know and acknowledge the pain, or should I as a privileged person take it on myself?
I’m putting some of my money where my mouth is, but I’m not sure what else to do. Guess I’m going to continue to learn and take care of myself the best I can.
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