Waiting

Each day a reflection, here in the quiet of the morning.

The morning seems the same as every morning before it. The clocks have turned and it is light much earlier now. I look out this window and can’t see that anything at all is different. But almost everything is different. Just like that.

And people are reeling. It seems that everyone is shaky.
Here are some of the forms of the shakiness;

There is the counting. Counting can take on a few manifestations. Perhaps you are counting the cases or the deaths. Counting cases of an illness and deaths caused by that illness can make you shaky. This form of counting includes also the counting of distances. How close to me is the illness. I live a few blocks away from Lynn Valley Care Centre in one direction and Lions Gate Hospital in the other.

There is the counting of implication and impact. How will this affect me and my family? How do you count money and savings in a time like this? For many of us, we know that we live in relative affluence and that we won’t be the ones first hit by the financial implications of this crisis.

But we still count.

And we count the time.

How long?

How long will this be and how much will it take? Everything changes so quickly. Just about everything that we were used to filling up our days was gone. Just like that.

Just about everyone is shaky. We don’t know how much this will cost. We don’t know how much suffering will be occasioned. If ever, though, there was a moment of “we are all in this together”, this is it. We may have to social distance (that’s verb now), but we will find ways to come together.

When the ground seems unstable, when what used to be certain is uncertain now, well then, you can become shaky. But if you can, find your legs again.

The Psalm for today is Psalm 130:

“Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.”
Can you imagine the cries from the depths around the world? People shut up in their homes, people trying to get home. Something is amiss is the 130th Psalm and something is amiss in the world right now. And then the Psalmist says, “If you kept a record of iniquity, who could stand?” In other words, if God wanted to punish people then things would not be good at all. However, as the Psalmist says, that is exactly what God is NOT like. Don’t put up with any of that hateful, ignorant talk about God punishing people with natural disasters or crises like this. That’s primitive God talk. It’s a kind of paganism, a fear of a tyrant god.

It’s not the time to rush to ignorance, blame and fear; as tempting as it can be.

We know so much more now then we used to know. I read an article this morning that was in National Geographic (March 14, 2020). It was about the bird masks that doctors used to wear during the time of the black plague. That is the kind of article that is coming up a lot now. Curious times.

You have seen these masks, they have long, curved beaks. Apparently the belief was that the plague was caused by foul air and that perfume and insence could ward it off. The beaks were long like that because a concoction of 55 herbs, (viper flesh powder, cinnamon, myrrh, honey, etc.) would line the inside of the mask so that they could neurtralize the plague air before it made its way to the doctor’s nose and lungs.

The plague bird doctors also sometimes carried sticks to poke away the victims of the plague.

Eventually they found out the truth of what was causing the black death. It was a bacteria, not foul air, though there were many reasons for the air to be foul.

I am glad that later this morning when I go to listen to the BC COVID update it is highly unlikely that Dr. Bonnie Henry will be wearing a bird mask. If she is, I might feel a little more shaky than I do right now.

Instead, I will listen and be grateful. Grateful for people like Dr. Henry and all of the other health care professionals, grateful for those working on a vaccine.
I’ll pray for those suffering. I will pray for those leading us at this time. I will pray for you.

The Psalmist ends the short 130th Psalm with a cry to those around him.
“O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love.”

Israel is his people, the community the nation. It’s like crying out, “O North Vancouver, O Kirkland, O Italy”, it’s a cry for the good of the world.

Just before that the Psalmist says what he will do, he gives us a kind of opposite to the shakiness.

It’s this;
My soul waits.

It’s waiting of soul and spirit. It’s not quite like waiting for a bus. It’s waiting without knowing when or how, but knowing entirely what.

And at the end of the Psalm the what is revealed – “plentiful redemption”

We wait for goodness. We wait for joy. We wait for healing and wholeness and gathering again.

PLENTIFUL REDEMPTION

Amen.