Together Apart
I don’t think anyone needs me to enumerate the pain and difficulties that have been brought on or exacerbated by COVID-19. Honestly, I’m not the right person to speak from that perspective. At worst, I have been inconvenienced. I know that there are others who are bearing the brunt of the pandemic. Who live in isolation and uncertainty, pain and loss.
But I have caught a glimpse of hope in the strangest of things. We can somehow be drawn together by this time of being apart. It’s a paradox. It seems as if it cannot possibly be true, and yet I’m certain it is.
Because I’ve been living it.
My family just experienced what I believe will be a favored Christmas together. With my dad on chemotherapy, my brothers and I couldn’t justify exposing him to our three families for a normal holiday celebration. So, my older brother chose the first nice day of their Christmas vacation and drove the two and half hours home to spend as long as we could all stand it out in the cold together. It was a Campfire Christmas, soup and hot chocolate outside rather than the traditional baked ham around the dining room table. Presents opened beside the fire pit rather than the tree. We fittingly gifted our parents new patio chairs and an umbrella to shade their table because of the increased time we have been spending outdoors when we visit.
We lasted over six hours, in what turned out to be a sunny and pleasant December 27th. And I know that the memories of that Christmas will last far longer. Memories of caring, creativity, and camaraderie.
It’s a pattern I have seen emerging. Somehow, our need to keep physically apart has managed to deepen relationships. My kids have reached out to older adults in our church, mailing notes and artwork and doing secret deliveries to their doorsteps. In turn, these adults have shown up for them with cards and treats to mark special occasions. We had deliveries for Easter, birthdays, the first day of school, and Halloween. And I felt like my doorbell never stopped ringing the week of Christmas.
There is a level of caring that didn’t seem to be there before. As if somehow this experience has helped us to see others better than we used to. There’s also a heightened sense of creativity, as people have found new ways to connect or resurrected old ones. (I’ve spent more money on postage in the last ten months…)
And there’s growing camaraderie as we face and work through less than ideal conditions together. Campfire Christmas. Playground playdates in the cold. Small group meetings outdoors in the baking heat of summer through the blustering winds of Fall. And even worse, the dreaded Zoom meetings when the weather simply won’t cooperate.
Caring, creativity, and camaraderie are at the core of what it means to be human. They are present in the Genesis account of creation. God gave man a part in his creative work, assigning Adam the task of naming all of the animals. And God gave him a companion because it was not good for him to be alone. It appears that we need other people to love and be loved by.
In the circumstances we are facing right now, our physical interactions have been limited. But I would argue that at the core, our community has an amazing opportunity to be knit more tightly through the experience. As we practice living together apart in this season, I think we might find that we have become better at living together together in the days to come.
Other WillowingWell Devotionals
