Yesterday I walked into my classroom with no real concept of what kind of work lay before me. Monday kicked off with a brief staff meeting and the circulation of speculations among staff.
COVID-19.
It’s changed our lives. It’s changing the landscape of education; of families’ day-to-day experiences. It is not only affecting our privileged North American population. I keep hearing snippets of the surreal effects this super-virus is inflicting on communities all over the globe. A world-wide pandemic. Nobody alive today has seen anything like it.
It has been surreal to pack my students’ personal effects and school supplies into plastic bags. Hands covered in latex protection, skin dry and cracked from more soap-and-water washings than I would normally have done. Social distancing prohibiting the proximity we are accustomed to. Halls that are usually teeming with the vitality of children, eyes wide and cheeks glowing with enthusiasm — now quiet, save for the footsteps and voices of us adults. I know it will only be a matter of time before I miss solving the post-recess problems of snowballs thrown, forts being accidentally damaged by a careless foot, and temporarily disbanded friendships. I already miss their unrestrained excitement, the sparkly eyes that look up at me adoringly every day, the sincere hugs of affectionate 6- and 7-year-olds who know me as their teacher and a safe person.
That is just a snippet of the bitter side of this bittersweet unfolding of unchartered experiences.
Yes, there is a sweet side.
While some are closing their fists tightly and acting out in fear — and truly, the human side of us cannot blame them — I see a remnant rising up in generosity, faith, and hope. People who are usually running at the rat-race pace of a consumerist society are forced to slow . . . d o w n . . .
and to have conversations. To reach out to those who are fearful. To re-evaluate priorities. To embrace time with family, friends, spouses, children. To revisit hobbies that have been collecting dust on the back-burners of their overloaded commitment plates. To practice instructing our hearts in truth when the world and human feeling scream at us to panic, to close our fists, to succumb to fear.
But the word of the Lord says
Fear not.
So as you begin to process your own thoughts and experiences of this season, be mindful:
For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven…
Where, or in whom, are you finding your purpose right now?
songs of stippled stardust 