CoVID19 Response: What It Feels Like
The best way for me to process my feelings is to write. The best way for me to connect with the world around me is to share my soul. In times like this, processing and sharing - and offering hope - well, it’s more necessary than ever.
What a week this has become!
It started off normally, really. We were all aware of this virus, but it seemed like something happening to other people, everywhere else. We were quite okay - and just moving forward with life. Some people apparently started washing their hands for the first time - but for normal humans, we kept going.
Then, the talks of canceling became actual decisions. No longer musings or thoughts - they suddenly existed. …and we had to figure out what comes next, how to move forward in the aftermath.
On Wednesday when we received an email (by we, I mean the entire university community) at 10:24 am that at noon all face-to-face classes would be suspended…I was shocked. I was advising a student and we were just talking about what that might look like, and how the university hadn’t informed teachers they’d needed to be changing anything, etc. - and, then - there it was in black and white: suspended.
Figure it out. Quick.
Two hours later as I was eating lunch, I experienced a feeling of panic. I suddenly felt unmoored. Drifting. Scared. I felt actual waves of anxiety distancing me farther and farther away from what I knew, what was safe…what was secure.
I hadn’t felt that in 18.5 years. I recognized that this was the exact way I felt on 9/11 and those days after. …and my heart goes out to my students even more.
You see, I was a student - a senior in college on September 11, 2001. Senior year is a time of uncertainty anyway - especially for student teachers. I was waiting to hear on my assignment for the spring - praying that I’d be in an Ames-area school so I could continue with my SALT leadership duties and growing in my faith, and of course, staying connected to my friends.
I didn’t know what I was going to do after May 11, 2002 when I walked across the stage…but I’d been mulling over the idea of a missions trip and possibly teaching English for 2 years in another country. I wanted to be open to the possibilities of where God might lead me…yet I didn’t really want to be confined to a small-town in Iowa trying to teach know-it-all farm boys about stuff I hadn’t really done myself.
…and then, out of nowhere, 4 planes were hijacked and crashed…thousands were dead. …and what was happening? What were we going to do? What is the future going to be like?
And that feeling of not-knowing, that uncertainty - the fear of “What is happening? What will be?” that washed over me on Wednesday. I remember watching fighter jets fly over one night, while I was closing up Reiman Gardens - I think it was a week or two after 9.11. …and that feeling/fear of, “This is reality now” - that’s like what I felt Wednesday.
A friend came into the office that afternoon and said, “I am calm when talking to others and keeping them calm…but when I’m by myself, I feel panicked. My rational brain is not taking over.” Same.
On the actual day of September 11, I came home from class bewildered. It was bright and sunny…and it’s like the day didn’t match what was happening. My world felt like it was in slow motion. I spent that afternoon in my room going through a Bible Study on finding your identity in Christ - and that helped root me into Truth. I needed to be grounded into something - someONE - stable, and I did that.
Today, I’m going to Adoration. Nigel asked how long we’ll stay there…long enough to be grounded. To be honest, I haven’t spent the last 48 hours praying. Spinning, wondering, planning, telling Nigel not to go home - that’s what I’ve been doing. …but, that will change right now. I’m going to go immerse myself into the one stable presence on Heaven and Earth: Jesus. I’m going to be still, and let my soul rest in commune. I know where stability is found - and it’s not within me or even my 2-months supply of toilet paper.
More than ever, we need our communities of people. With our have-to calendars now all wiped clean, perhaps we will finally have time for REAL connection with each other - of course, respecting appropriate social distances. ;) Let’s not waste this new gift we have been given. We have a chance to connect with those in our immediate presence; we might have to do it via Facetime - but, we can do it.
This isn’t an easy time. We can, though, stay rooted in hope - and connected to each other. I know of no other way to move forward - or, even, to stay still. :)
May the Peace of Christ descend upon your heart today. May you know how loved you are. May we not forget that there is a Hope and a Future awaiting us - and it is here right now in the present. (and in the Presence)
