Fraying at the Edges

If I have to be on one more Zoom call I’ll scream. OK, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but nonetheless, I’ve had my share. We are working from home, these days, as are many. Those who can. Us non-essentials. Side note: liquor stores are essential? Never mind. I was talking about Zoom meetings. They are great. Really. It’s almost like sitting in the same room. Except for almost everything. No, sorry. It is a way to connect. To see the faces of those you work with. To be able to talk some instead of just sending emails and trying to have a conversation but feeling a step or two behind. My daughter Maddie started a Weber family WhatsApp group. We’ve got some of the family on it. Others are boycotting, I think. Anyway, La Donna and my sister Tricia were trying to do family genealogy through the app last night and it was hilarious. Losing the reference and answering questions two texts up and forgetting what the subject was and having to repeat yourself because it was too hard to scroll up and find the thread again. I don’t know if anyone was any wiser after that long text conversation, but it was fun to watch. 

Zoom meetings. That’s that I wanted to talk about here. Zoom meetings. How did I get to WhatsApp and email? That’s the big problem with this work at home thing. Too many distractions. I’m trying to write and the cat sits in the hallway and yells at me because if I’m going to be home and interrupt her nap time, then by golly I might as well be useful and feed her. And if I try to ignore her she beats on the door. Well, the big one does, Dora. The little one gets up and walks across my keyboard. Hard to type when a cat is walking across your keyboard. At least I’m not La Donna. When we’re down stairs reading or watching TV and the little cat, Cato, short for Catastrophe, will get up on the back of her chair and chew on her hair. I guess I don’t have enough to chew. She doesn’t do that to me. Just climbs up on top of me and sticks her face in my face. Which is also how Dora will wake me up if I’m sleeping past get up time. She’ll just get on the bed and stick her furry cat face in my face. Try to sleep through that. Can’t be done. Trust me.

Zoom meetings. I haven’t had a zoom meeting with my cats, or the dog for that matter. The dog has learned a new trick. Again, because we’re home all the time, he has to go outside more often. At least he says he has to go outside more often. But in fact he’s figured out that every time he goes outside he gets a cookie when he comes back in. But we’re now wise to his game, so we only give him a half a cookie. Which means he now does it twice as often. Who’s winning here, I can’t tell.

Zoom meetings. My original point, was that I thought the other day that someone should have taken a screen shot of our zoom meetings from the beginning of this quarantine thing. When we began it was truly like we were in our office, meeting in the little conference room night across the hallway. We were bright eyes and frankly a little excited about the change and the possibilities of working at home and yet still staying connected. Technology seemed like a gift from God that was here to make sure that we didn’t lose a sense of community, that we were reminded that we were on the same team, working on the same projects, a part of the same church body. We knew we were the lucky ones, able to take what we were doing and without too much upset and begin working remotely. It was a good thing. 

But then as the days and then the weeks progressed, it went from being a good thing, to being a necessary thing. We were trying to keep producing the content that pastors and churches were needing, some of which they asked for, some of which they didn’t know they needed. But we, and a whole lot of folks, just kept pushing out content. Articles, podcasts, reflections, liturgy, conversations, questions, lots and lots of questions. Some of them were of the “have you thought about this” variety, others were “are you sure you want to do that” and a few were “don’t you want to rethink this whole thing?” To make sure we were asking the right questions, we had to check in, with each other and with others. Zoom meetings.

Then other departments, other teams began making suggestions about what our team ought to be doing. They want to be helpful, of course. I don’t question that. But it seemed like the piles were getting higher and the requests were getting harder, and the list of things to do that I left the office with a couple of weeks ago have now been neglected in favor of a million other things, it seems. And when we log on to the Zoom meeting I sometimes have to wait for someone else to speak so that I can know what this one is about. 

Zoom meetings. I look into the eyes of my team members and the others who have dialed in or logged on and the eyes seem just a little more glazed, the smiles a tad more forced. I’ve had to start combing my hair, you see. That sounds odd, I know. I keep my hair short, what’s left of it, yes thank you, so that I don’t have to comb it. But now it’s growing out and needs to be cut, but there’s this quarantine thing, maybe you’ve heard about it. So after my shower, I actually have to find a comb and comb it. 

And here’s the thing with Zoom meetings, not only do you get to see you teammates, your co-workers, but you see yourself. Right there on your computer screen. I keep trying to adjust the little built in camera to make myself look like I think I look rather than what I really look like. But so far that hasn’t worked. We’re all fraying around the edges. The tension of this unusual situation is getting to us. I get wounded by email that aren’t personal, I feel burdened by responsibilities that are implied if not directly given. We started this thing thinking it was going to be a week or two, then we’d be back to the office, back to the restaurants, back to school, back to sports, back to concerts, back to life before we knew it. Now it stretches before us like an abyss and the other side is obscured by the gray clouds of unknowing. 

And we can’t feel too sorry for ourselves, not really. We’ve got it easy. There are so many other suffering much worse than I am, than most of us reading this are. Businesses that might not reopen, workers wondering if they’ll be recalled, those for whom the promised stimulus, should it ever come, might not make a dent in the debt accruing. There are those on the front lines of the pandemic whose lives are at risk daily. There are populations who are so much more vulnerable and for whom we worry. And all of that makes us reluctant to admit our own stress, our own fears and anxiety. And yet it is real. It isn’t a weakness to admit we’re all fraying around the edges. 

Which is why we need to turn to praise. Praise, really? What about lament, that seems more appropriate. Yes, certainly, there is time and space for lament. Let it out. Offer it up. But one thing I’ve learned from the lament psalms is that always, almost always turn to praise. We need praise. We can’t live in lament this whole time. We can’t let lament be our only word, as real and as necessary as it is. We need praise.

One of my supervisors sent this video today. I put it on my Facebook page. I link it here, if I can. It’s worth looking at, if you haven’t seen it. And if you have, then watch again. It’s done by a group called “the Work of the People” which is the definition of liturgy. It’s called “Praise Song for the Pandemic” and written and read by Christine Valters Paintner, from Abbey of the Arts, music by Giants & Pilgrims. Please take a look. https://www.facebook.com/theworkofthepeople/videos/2606014466331448/?vh=e

And to accompany that thought, I’ll leave you one of my favorite passages of scripture, a reminder that no matter how great the struggle, we are never alone in that mess. There is a presence, there is a living hope. Sometimes it is hard to sense, so that’s when faith kicks in. We know that God is with us. Even on zoom meeting. Even at home. Even apart. Even afraid. God is with us. We are not alone.

Isaiah 43:1-3a But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Shalom,

Derek