This Week at Trinity, Beamsville
Friday, April 16, 2021
Dear Friends,
This week the realities of the pandemic became decidedly personal. I do not want to sound as if, until now, I’ve been sailing along without impact or care. As you know well, because it is true for us all, every facet of life has been touched by this virus. I also know well that, until now, our family has not known the depth of fear and door-step threat that so many have faced. As some of you know, that all changed in a heartbeat last weekend, when news came that my in-laws were exposed to a positive case. They immediately began a quarantine which is to continue for a while yet, and thankfully remain both symptom free with negative test results to date. That does nothing to abate the present worry, but it is what we hold on to, with hope. With pre-existing conditions and immune-compromised lives already, and no vaccine protection prior to contact, this virus would show no mercy on their elderly bodies. How heartbreaking to know this scenario is repeated across the region and the world, minute by minute.
In the midst of this week’s coping, news came from a lifelong friend: her spouse was sick with COVID, exposed at work. Their whole household is now sick with it, including her elderly mother, alone in her home. By mid-week, her spouse was hospitalized, and remains there. They are bearing up bravely, and he sends messages out from his hospital bed, with unending praise for his nurses; his heroes, he calls them. They are isolated from each other and the world and praying this passes without too many long-term impacts. I can’t bear to think of them not there, if worse comes to worst. In trying to explain to our Abbey who these folks are in my life, the best I could come up with is that I cannot imagine my childhood memories without them. I would like my adulthood to say the same.
Like many of you, my default to others’ suffering is a longing to fix it. Here I am without that elusive magic wand, yet again. I send messages of prayer and support and love them from afar. I leave flowers on their porches, trying to bring some beauty inside those stifling walls. I lament the length of days and nights for them, aching for it all to go back to the way it was.
Along the way, I cling to perspective, to hope, and the medical heroes at work around the clock, around the world. I cling to faith that does not bring quick-fix answers but holds me steady when I start to swirl ahead. I cling to God, who is most real to me in Jesus. I cling to Jesus’ living promise to hold me and you and all God’s cherished people, everywhere, in unconditional Love. This is the essence of the global, beloved community we are called to preach and defend… using words when necessary.
With love to you all,
Heather
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
(Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Why We Can’t Wait’, 1964)