Hmm, should I vent a little more about our president and Christians who unreservedly vote for him again in this post?
Not gonna lie, the vulnerability hangover was a lot last time. I joked that I’ve been blogging and podcasting and even publishing videos about sexuality and pornography and some of my deepest masculine insecurities — and that particular political post may just be my second-most “hangovery” feeling I’ve ever felt from my writing, after releasing my first book.
Ah, the writer’s life. Always such loads of vulnerable FUN.
Now that it’s after Labor Day, the coffee shops already having long pumped out their pumpkin spice lattes, the reality is setting in that this whole coronavirus thing . . . wow, it’s really here to stay a while, isn’t it?
Spring has turned to summer has turned to fall, and I feel the once forming shell of how to do this life this year quickly hardening.
No longer am I “adjusting” to this pandemic; I think we’ve all adjusted by now, one way or the other. I’ve changed because the world has changed, for better and worse, and I don’t know where this pandemic will leave me on the other side. Spiritually. Emotionally. Socially. Wherever and however and whenever we get there.
Goodness, am I going to be irrevocably socially awkward upon a return to social gatherings?? (Don’t answer that.)
So many new realities have settled and solidified over the course of this year.
The loneliness? It’s just a thing now. Most days will be spent hardly interacting with other humans, face-to-face with no screen involved, at least, and this is just how it’s been for three seasons now, and this is how it will be for the winter and a long time yet to come.
The stuckness? It’s just a thing now. Most days will be spent doing the same tasks or lack thereof, again and again, whether it’s working from home or binging TV shows, because there’s hardly anywhere to go, and this is just how it’s been for three seasons now, and this is how it will be for the winter and a long time yet to come.
The waiting? It’s just a thing now. Every day is spent anticipating news of some breakthrough, some sense of progress, some faint spark in the endless dark. But the light never comes, and this is just how it’s been for three seasons now, and this is how it will be for the winter and a long time yet to come.
With that last one, the waiting, I’m realizing through this pandemic just how much our patience and attention spans have suffered with the advent of technology. We can’t go a few minutes without pulling out our phones. We post something on social media and want immediate likes and comments and dopamine-hits. We groan when our Internet connections take more than three seconds to load a page.
Buffering. Is there another word that invokes such annoyance, such stress?
We already couldn’t freaking wait for anything these days. And then this coronavirus hit. And it’s obvious we’ve never been more impatient, more desperate.
People are actually holding “No Mask Rallies” in America, not because they’re necessarily scientifically misinformed (believe me, another political post for another time), but because we just can’t take it anymore. We’re all so sick of waiting and waiting and waiting; on some base, human level, I get it.
I look at Scripture and see the Israelites waiting years, even multiple generations, centuries, for God to speak, move, do something, anything —
And gosh, six months of a pandemic suddenly feels like nothing compared with the half-millennium between Malachi and Matthew. What if we’re only just getting started on this new road leading into this new era?
Six months into a pandemic, three into an autoimmune disease, my outlook feels more than a little frantic right now. Constantly on my phone or laptop and craving some sense of connection or novelty. A momentary break in the loneliness, the stuckness, and the waiting.
Sometimes the break comes. Often it doesn’t. Often I am greeted with silence. Thick, dark. Empty.
More than ever I’m recognizing how badly I need to cut this tether to technology. Not permanently. Not fully. But significantly.
Some way, somehow, I need to be okay with the silence. Because the silence has been here for six long months, and the silence will be here for many more yet to come.
But how does one enter into the silence?
How does one sit in the silence?
How does one rest in the silence?
How does one cry out to the God who will not speak back?
And how does one continue to follow the God who will not speak back?
He’s spoken before and, oh, I’m certain He will speak again. But that doesn’t quite help us in this maddening moment, does it?
We desire words. We desire action. We desire the light to return.
We desire not a return to the old way of doing things, but a new way, a better way, a way of beautiful ashes shed, reborn.
We have seen God redeem what is broken and hopeless before. We know You can heal and instill hope once again. We know You one day will.
And we are desperate for You to do this. Soon.
For we are tired of waiting.
Of this silence swallowing us.
Of wondering, even wincing with increasing dread . . . how much longer?
