A Story Bigger than a Pandemic

(I started this blog in August and decided to post in September without changing it. If that doesn’t say “blogging in 2020” I don’t know what does.)

I count on August for a few things: extreme heat, school supplies in stores, neighborhood pools closing on week days, and the beginning of holiday season. For me, August signals the coming of Fall which signals the coming of holiday season. Holiday season encompasses October, November and December with a teeny tiny stretch into January. The pinnacle of this season is Christmas which is as obvious as saying the sky is blue. (I see you Halloween and Thanksgiving people but you’ll have to write your blog, ok?) Since I love the holiday season most and I’m devoted enough to love the lead up to the holiday season, I also love the things associated with this time of year: school buses in the neighborhoods, football, pumpkin spice anything, also actual pumpkins. There comes a Saturday late August or early September when something switches in our house and we start wearing Ohio State t-shirts every Saturday for the rest of year. This switch is orchestrated by my husband who wears Ohio State t-shirts all year round. I welcome the switch because it means we’re in the beginnings of the season I love (or the lead up to the season but you get me). And in the spirit of honesty, I don’t mind seeing Christmas stuff in the stores a little early. July feels like a stretch (I’m looking at you, Hobby Lobby), but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make me smile. I set my seasonal watch to things.

So what happens in the pandemic year of our Lord 2020?

2020 is the year where time warped. March lasted until June. We haven’t actually started summer but my cell phone keeps saying it is August. That can’t be right, can it? There haven’t been summer block busters or neighborhood barbecues. When asked what day it is my friend replies, “Blursday.” Amen. It is like an off version of Groundhog Day no one wants to watch, let alone live. But here we are. My family has been sheltering-in-place/isolating/whatever you want to call it for over 23 weeks now. WEEKS. (That’s over 5 months or 161 days in case 23 weeks didn’t sound impressive enough.) We expanded our bubble to include some of our immediate family members who are also sheltering/isolating/whatever so it isn’t as painful as the first month or so. But now we have entered August—the beginnings of joy!—and yet the familiar markers are fraught with stress, fear, uncertainty. School supplies are in the stores, but who is going back? In what way? For how long? Will there be sports and other extra-curriculars? Any spectators at them? Will things be stable enough to remain open and sell pumpkin spice stuff? What will I wear on Saturdays?

Some of these are very serious questions with serious implications. Others—like my Saturday t-shirt regimen—aren’t worth worrying about. But even within a silly question about t-shirts there are serious questions with serious implications for the players and coaches worried about their health and their future. And that is part of the heartache of this pandemic, isn’t it? Everything has become serious and everything requires a decision. Any new invitation, any new opportunity must be run through the gauntlet of risk calculations. It is exhausting. The decision fatigue is real. And the anchors that held us so faithfully in the past look less and less reliable as this pandemic marches forward. As this happens, we begin to see the need for an anchor, a foundation, that cannot be shaken by this pandemic. The markers, the rhythms that shape our lives must be able to withstand the onslaught we are facing even now. What can be that shelter in the storm? For us at The Canterbury Collective, it is the story of God in Christ lived out in the Christian calendar.

The Christian calendar (also referred to as the Church year or the liturgical year) is a way of marking time based on the life of Christ. It contains feast days and fasts; seasons of celebration and seasons of repentance; high, holy days and long stretches of ordinary days. There are days to grieve and remember those loved ones we have lost. There are days to learn from the saints who have gone before whose faithful witness might illuminate new ways for us to live faithfully in the here and now. It is a calendar, a rhythm, that encompasses all that life brings because it tells the story of the God who is the creator and sustainer of life. Each year as you begin again (and as St. Benedict tells us we always begin again), it is like twisting a kaleidoscope. You find in the new season a richness, depth, and beauty that is now revealed from your participation in the same season the year previous. Slowly, quietly, anchors have been set in place.

Right now (late August as I write this), we are in “ordinary time.” This is the longest season of the Christian calendar. It is a good place to begin. There are special days to look forward to like the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (October 4) and All Saints’ Day (November 1) to name two you might have heard before. More than that, there is time to start reorienting to this way of thinking and living before the new year—according to the Christian calendar—begins. In the Christian calendar the new year does not begin on January 1. Rather, it begins on the first day of Advent, the first season in the Church year.

Advent is a four week season that precedes Christmas. It starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas so the specific date can fall on the last few days of November or first few days in December. In 2020, Advent begins on Sunday, November 29th. But rather than starting with confetti, fireworks, and hang overs (or saying “Happy New Year” at 10:00pm and calling it a night), Advent invites us to something much different. Advent invites us to join the story of God as people waiting for, hoping for, longing for, and looking for the coming of a Savior. It invites us to wait and hope as those who did before Christ was born, and it invites us to wait and hope for Christ’s second coming.* This allows us to recognize our longings, our disappointments, our needs, our failings. It is a season that makes room for grief and pain. This can shock your system when you are used to the first 24 days of December being characterized by ribbons, carols, cookies and busyness. I believe this year we will need Advent more than ever. Collectively we are living through trauma and division politically, socially, and economically not to mention the natural disasters of wildfires and hurricanes. And for many we’ve had to adjust our regular practice of worship. In the past, our public worship gatherings have served as places of healing where we dialogue and process all that we are facing making their absence especially painful this year. Simply putting up a Christmas tree and drinking eggnog won’t heal all the pain we are experiencing. In fact, without acknowledging the pain and confusion this year has brought, we might make much of the Christmas season hollow, sour or worse. So we humbly step into Advent and find a place to wait, to grieve, to repent, to hope.

Christmas follows Advent full of the joy Jesus’ birth in a manger heralded by angels and shepherds alike. We celebrate a full 12 days concluding on January 6th with Epiphany. We continue the story of Jesus’ life and the story of the people of God through Epiphany and into Lent whose start is marked by Ash Wednesday. Lent is a season of fasting and preparation. It leads us through Holy Week, the holiest, highest celebration in the Christian calendar which culminates on Easter Sunday. On Easter Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and triumph over sin and death! Easter is then given its own season—50 days of feasting after Lent’s 40 days of fasting. The feast is always longer than the fast. The story continues as we mark Jesus’ ascension into Heaven as he is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Then we celebrate Pentecost as the Church is filled with the Holy Spirit and sent out into the world. Ordinary time follows this celebration, and eventually we will end back at Advent ready to start the journey once more.

*Perhaps the story of Jesus’ life is unknown to you. Perhaps you are unsure if all of it is true or if it even has relevance for today. Maybe you’ve heard parts of it, maybe even believed parts of it in the past, but it didn’t seem to hold up. There is room for you, your doubts, your questions, your disappointments. You might even find some questions answered or new questions to ask. There is no prerequisite for living in this rhythm, this story. And if you’ve stuck with me this far I imagine you are interested in a story that is different than the one you are living. Consider this your invitation to live life a little differently for the next year or so. Who knows what might happen?

The Christian calendar isn’t an instant fix. It takes effort and intention. I find this especially true in the Advent and Christmas seasons. At times this way of ordering life has felt like an antidote to the malaise I was experiencing, or a cast in which I laid the broken pieces of life so that over time they could mend whole, strong and straight once more. Other times it has been like putting on glasses so that what was fuzzy could be made clear, and once or twice it has felt like pulling back a curtain to reveal a horizon I didn’t know existed. Still others it was like taking your car in for a routine oil change only to discover that funny noise you were ignoring was actually the brakes on their last leg.

I pray 2020 will be unique. I pray we won’t have another year with so much pain, turmoil, division, and unrest. But I’m also holding things a little looser than I used to. So rather than expect this will be a unique year, I am expecting to participate in the Christian calendar again and again in good times and bad. I’m expecting some years will surprise and some years will disappoint. In all years, I’ll aim to stay in step with the Spirit and the saints who’ve gone before in this story, this rhythm, and enjoy the delight of good company and the reliability of a well-traveled path. Will you join me?

**Addendum: I saw a “Spirit Halloween” store the other day while driving. So apparently there are a few seasonal markers bigger than a pandemic.