Far from Home (Jill Pasteris)
I am currently far from home, entering the seventh week of a planned two-week trip to our daughter’s in order to help out with her newborn son and two-year-old daughter. As my husband drove me to the airport on March 11th, the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic already had displaced much of my happy anticipation of the trip. My son-in-law picked me up at the airport, and I have been in a car just once since then, which was over six weeks ago. The family and I take daily walks around the sidewalks of their large, suburban subdivision, calling out friendly hellos to other pedestrians and bicyclists while keeping an appropriate distance. Our food and supplies are delivered by strangers to our door. As we live in a kind of bubble, Lent and Easter have passed over us, leaving us healthy and connected to others of our faith by powerful video sermons. Somewhere in this situation, I know there are messages that God wishes us to search for and ponder.
God is all around us. He always has been and He always will be. But how do we feel and experience that presence when we are separated from most of what is “around us”? Many of us are currently sheltering in place, and some of us are sheltering in places that are not our own, separated here and there across the country from all that we are used, finding refuge far from home in places that have generously been opened to us. Inside these island refuges, various media sources provide us with video and audio feed of places, people, and events that our heads tell us are real. Yet our hearts yearn for something more tangible -- the kinds of personal, intimate experiences that we can call our own and possess in our memories forever.
In this post-Easter interval in the church calendar, we might consider how our experiences during the first stages of the pandemic can help us better grasp the circumstances and significance of the recently celebrated Holy Week and Easter Week. We can reflect on the many aspects of torment that our savior suffered on our account. Jesus knew that he was in God and God was in him, but, for a terrible interval of time, the Son felt the absence of—and what seemed to be rejection by—the Father. Perhaps our current voluntary or enforced separation from those we love or cherish provides us with some insight into what may have been the most devastating pain that Jesus endured on the cross – the most real, the most intimate sense of separation and loss. In addition to the blessings for us, Easter marked the end to Christ’s agony, separation, and death.
We, too, look forward to the end of our separation from each other. We are fortunate in that God has been with us and made his presence known throughout these stressful times. We typically have had access to communication, if not personal contact, with those we hold most dear. May this be a time of special reflection and gratitude to a Lord who is always with us even when we feel separated, isolated, and alone.
I am far from St. Louis, but grateful to be in the midst of my extended family. When I eventually fly home (in a few weeks?), I will start a two-week self-quarantine from my husband in order to avoid bringing him the coronavirus through my air travel. It will have been over two months since I was home. However, what a marvelous opportunity I am enjoying as I watch my usually distant grandchildren grow and develop in these fast-changing intervals in their lives. As for my incredibly patient husband left alone back in St. Louis, he and I talk every night by phone, much as we did as graduate students before we were married. God brings light into our lives even in the midst of darkness.
Jill Pasteris is a Carver Project faculty fellow and Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Further Reading:
Dava Sobel, Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love (2011)
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