A Moment Aside ----- 5 May 2020

St. Antony of Egypt, desert hermit

     Looking out the window this past evening at dinner with my wife and daughter, I saw the moon, which was just about full. I wondered how long - "how many moons" - we've all been in this lockdown situation. I looked it up and found that the Province of Ontario declared a "state of emergency" by an Order in Council on 17 March 2020, so it has been almost two months since that declaration.

     If we take a moment to think about it, there is a certain passage of time in the Scripture that indicates that something special is happening. That passage of time involves the number "40." Israel wandered in the desert for 40 years. Jesus fasted and waited in the desert (the "wilderness") for 40 days. He stayed with his disciples for 40 days after the Resurrection. Our Lent is 40 days long in preparation for the festival of the Resurrection which we call "Easter." Forty years could be taken literally or it could be taken to mean some extended length of time. Either way, the message is clear: things take time. Our lockdown has gone on longer, but I don't think the exact number matters much.

     Israel's time in the desert was harrowing, no doubt, and a time of testing for the people. Yet it is also seen as a special time when God was closest to the people. As wanderers, they had no home and they relied on God for everything. So they received water from the rock, quail in great numbers, and manna on the ground every morning. Jesus was in the wilderness after his baptism by John, where Mark 1:12-13 says:  And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. The mention of  both Satan and the "wild beasts" show that this was no picnic and was dangerous to life, limb, and spirit. Many Christians have gone into "the wilderness" some way or other in order to lay aside distractions and be in touch with God. Martin Luther was "kidnapped" and lived in Wartburg castle for a time, a refuge that saved his life since he had been declared "outlaw" and that permitted him to translate the Scriptures into the people's language. The iconic face on the top of this article is Antony of the Desert, the first of the so-called 'Desert Fathers'. He was the first "monk" and stayed alone in the Egyptian desert until his faith called him to go and comfort his fellow Christians who were being persecuted by a heretical group in control of the Imperial government.

     We have been forced into a desert of sorts, although one with food, television, internet (for many), washing machines, and comfortable beds. We've still be forced to not see each other for reasons of health and "flattening the curve" and that is still a desert. Families have been separated and are unable to offer comfort during time of fear and loss and are unable to celebrate the simplest joys. It has been a "dry" time. It has not been easy. No way on God's green earth has this been easy.

   I'm not one to say we should use this time to learn a new language or build a new skill or better ourselves in some way. If you have, good! If you haven't... well, neither have I. The attitude that says learn/try/develop something is just another way to say "make something worthwhile of yourself." Some of us have to just get through this. There is mourning to do, anger to feel, fear to quell, and frustration to endure. For some, there has been infection to fight and I pray that all of us have come through this in good health.

     We may have learned what we can do without. We may have learned the true worth of people whom we have ignored or under-valued in the past. We may have felt the desire and the need to see our families and friends and have a better understanding of the worth of all those people to us. If that's the case, we're better for it, for as good as a new language, a new skill, a new piece of knowledge might be, this is more human and more humbling.

     If COVID-19 has left us healthy and yet more human, more humble, and more real, there is much to be thankful for... even in the midst of suffering and loss of life and there has been plenty of that.

     When things ease up, what we return to cannot be what it was. If we continue to do what we always did and be who we always were, the desert has been wasted on us. Still our Lord tells us that there still is grace a-plenty in store and that will not fail.

Will you join me in praying this psalm, Psalm 121, when you can?

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
 My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

    he who keeps you will not slumber.

He who keeps Israel

    will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

   nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

    he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep

    your going out and your coming in

    from this time on and forevermore.