An Existential Crisis

We are now in the ninth month of Coronavirus, an event that the philosopher Andrew Harvey has called “a defining crisis of human evolution, an apocalyptic situation:

Apocalypse is a word that turns in two directions: on one hand, it can be used to mean destruction, the complete unraveling of all the old structures. On the other hand, it comes from the Greek for the unveiling, revealing. So, this absolutely terrifying apocalyptic crisis, which is a concatenation of crises, is in part a climate collapse. It is also a potential economic collapse. It is evidently now a Coronavirus pandemic, which may be the seed for other pandemics. But it is also a profound moral and spiritual crisis. All these are converging. They are coming together for a distinct purpose: to force humanity to evolve to another level of active universal compassion. (see the video here: https://youtu.be/gSOCmjgKirA )

Whether we agree or not, it is clear that we are in the midst of a crisis that is likely to profoundly change, among other things, the way we work, where and how we live, and how we do church.

If we had come through Coronavirus successfully by the end of August, even September, there was a chance that things would return to life as we knew it. However, we are now in the second phase of the virus, one that appears to be more virulent and dangerous than what we encountered before. Many countries are now experiencing exponential growth in the number of infections and an increasing numbers of deaths. Most age groups are now at risk. The virus has mutated, and it now appears community spread is a fact. As a result, many jurisdictions are imposing increasingly strict regulations, and considering, or have entered into, lockdown. People are again being advised to stay home and meet only with those they live with. Trips outside the home are supposed to be limited to essential activities like grocery shopping, medical requirements, or work… and there is yet a third wave of the virus predicted. What, then is our path forward?

One thing that is clear is that many people will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future, perhaps permanently. Corporations and government organizations are discovering that work can be done effectively using tools like ZOOM conferencing.  People can now work collaboratively, remote from one another. They need not even be in the same country to do so. As a result, these organizations have begun to rationalize their need for physical space. Indeed, some have already made the decision to let go of up to a third of their office space; with potentially more reductions to come. Professional employees, like accountants, have been familiar with “hotelling” for some time. Now the practice is spreading to administrative and support workers. In the latter case, many have also been outsourced “offshore”.

Employees working from home have also begun to move out of high-cost, dense, urban areas like Toronto to areas that formerly would have been beyond practical commuting distance. Some are moving as far away as Belleville, where the costs of homeownership are significantly lower and the pace of life is less hectic. These communities also “feel” safer because they are less dense and less diverse.

The implications of this for church would appear to reverse the comments I have made elsewhere, in the section of this Blog entitled “Workplace – Ministry Opportunities at Work”. Freed from a daily commute of several hours, residents of outlying communities may actually connect with churches in the communities in which they live. However, for many Church is not something they are yet willing to attend until there is an effective vaccine for the virus, and it has been proven to work. They are not planning to return to physical church any time soon. Many have also found that Church by ZOOM works well enough, and is much more convenient; particularly when the experience of physical church has been significantly altered to keep people safe. There is no choir. Only a single cantor is permitted. The congregation cannot participate in singing. Communion is only of one kind. As in the SARS crisis, the common cup has been banned for the duration. Church attendance has been limited to 1/3 of capacity to a maximum of 50 people, and attendance is either first-come, first-served, or by booking a ticket in advance. The serving of any food is not permitted. The “Coffee Hour” has been banned, and social gathering after church is not permitted on the premises. It is even discouraged outside the building. These restrictions are common across all risk categories, at least until society is fully open once again… or at least they were until the second wave of Covid appeared and the infection rate began to spiral out-of-control.

In Ontario, the government now has a tiered system of restrictions, depending on the infection rate within individual Health Authorities. The highest risk category is Grey – Lockdown.  Toronto, Canada’s largest city, has now been moved into the Grey zone, the highest risk category, with significant restrictions on personal freedom and the closure of all non-essential businesses. The use of Zoom, and similar programs like Skype and Google Meets, will now become even more essential to maintain contact with patients, clients, and parishioners.

All of the above will entail stress, fear, loneliness, and mental anguish as people are prevented from having physical contact with one another – no meetups for coffee or a meal, no going to the gym or a movie, or a play, a gallery, or a sports event, no restaurant dining or meeting for a drink. Worship services under lockdown are now limited to 10 persons whether in the Church or outdoors, including the clergy and assistants. Fellowship activities are forbidden; and although baptisms, weddings, and funerals are permitted attendance is limited to the same number of 10 persons total including the service team. Church, you see, has been determined, by governments, to be non-essential.

Clergy have generally not been permitted to provide pastoral care to the sick, the dying, the aged, the afraid except through the telephone, by email, or by ZOOM. Human touch and the reception of the sacraments of the Church have been denied to those in their most urgent need. People are dying alone, or among strangers, denied the last opportunity to be with their family.  

As the course of this virus proceeds, church revenues are dropping – indeed donations to all charities are down considerably. Some Parishioners have lost their jobs, some have lost their businesses or are about to. Some have moved. Choir members and other key volunteers have fallen away if the numbers appearing on ZOOM worship are any indication.

We now must be honest with ourselves, and face the possibility that it may not be possible to go back to Church as it was pre-Covid in the foreseeable future. Church attendance was already declining, despite our best efforts to stem the tide. This was not only so among the mainline denominations, but also among the evangelical churches. However, there was hope that we could yet turn the corner and return to what was. Whether we can do so now is very much open to question.

The Anglican theologian the Rev. Dr. Sarah Bachelard believes we are now at a point much like the people of Judah were when taken into Babylonian captivity.

When the people of Jerusalem were exiled to Babylon in the 6th century BCE, their lament – expressed in psalms of exile – functioned as a means of coming to terms with their loss, bewilderment, and dispossession. At one level, this agony of the conquered may seem far from our experience. But in another way, it is perhaps quite close. Because thanks to the pandemic, we too are living in a kind of exile – as life as we’ve known it slips away. Of course, unlike the Jewish exiles from the 6th century BCE, we’ve not been forced geographically from home.

In fact, many of us are more confined to home than we’ve ever been. Even so, we find ourselves in a strange land. And many of us are feeling profoundly dislocated and unsettled, bereft of a way of life. Like those ancient Jewish exiles, we don’t know when things will return to the way they were. We have to find a way of coming to terms with what has befallen us and what it could mean for our future. We are discovering the necessity of lament.

The destruction of Jerusalem was a long time coming. Along with the destruction of buildings, families and communal life, came the painful collapse of the communities’ symbolic world. The life people had anticipated to live just disappeared.

We too are displaced in our own way, and maybe it is necessary that we too weep when we face the travail of our world and her creatures in these difficult days. The work of lament is that it clears space for meditation, for letting go our thoughts and anxieties.

See the video of Sarah’s remarks here:https://youtu.be/rRDkw-7bFfY

Letting go of what we have lost is necessary spiritual work to prepare to fully engage with where we are and what is to come. In doing so, in your life, you may wish to ponder the following questions:

1. How are you dislocated and unsettled right now?
2. What are you lamenting? What do you need to let go of?
3. What is essential for you that you will not let go?

By the Rivers of Babylon …

https://youtu.be/vYK9iCRb7S4?t=7

Next: What Can We Do Now?