Divine Disturbance and Collective Grief

I've been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly lately. We've been under "lockdown" here in NYC - unofficially for two weeks, officially for one week. Since the state mandate of "shelter in place", I've been slathering peanut butter and jelly (actually, Polaner's All Fruit - strawberry) on a thick piece of challah bread and devouring that daily. There's some strange comfort in this ritual at a time when all sense of time seems to be lost and every day is the same yet not.

I'm not sure why I've been drawn to this particular "quarantine comfort food" as I've been calling it. PB&J was not particularly a childhood staple for us. But there is something strangely soothing - maybe even falsely nostalgic - in this simple joy of sweetness that conjures innocence and delight.

These days, it seems to be the little things that provide comfort in the face of overwhelming information and horrific stats. A cup of coffee drunk in the eerie quietness of each morning in a city that is never quiet. Text messages from friends. A short walk outside and seeing budding blossoms on bare tree branches. A cold beer to accompany a home cooked dinner.

From the news, the COVID-19 situation in NYC looks terrifying. Friends and family from around the world have been sending messages and checking in to make sure we're all right. On the ground, the sickness and death feel so close yet also removed. We know the virus is here. By now, almost all of us know someone who has been diagnosed. And yet, confined within the walls of our home, the terror seems to lurk outside - elsewhere - hanging over the city like an ominous dark cloud, present but not quite palpable. Daily, we hear siren roars that are magnified in the surrounding silence, punctuating our hours with more frequency than what feels normal (or is that just in my mind?). Each siren accompanied by a thousand silent prayers.

I am struggling with how to live with this sense of collective grief. I am not so sad for myself - I have been immensely grateful for our continued health, sustained work, and daily provisions. Life may be inconvenienced personally but it hasn't been detrimental. But this greater sense of those who are suffering, whether from the virus or from conditions resulting in the virus' societal impact, the heaviness of the burdens carried by those in this city, country and even world.... the realization that we will not go back to the world we knew.... the severity of Loss is hard to bear. How do we share in this collective grief but not allow it to consume? How do we make space for the mourning that is happening and is to come? This virus has not only revealed but further stressed the existing cracks in our systems and infrastructure - the injustices and inequity brought to harsh light by this merciless invisible enemy. In some ways, the virus discriminates against no one. And yet in our responses and defenses, those with resources and privilege are much more equipped to fight with less risk in losing the battle.

And yet.

Somehow in all this, there's also a sense of Divine Disturbance. Perhaps underlying all this is also a struggle to bring balance again. In a world where we have acted destructively in our relationships with one another, creation, and the Creator, this pandemic also feels like a backlash against our selfish ways, just-a-matter-of-time consequences of our greed and indifference. Stripping us of all things that distract, entice, and consume us, we are left with the simplest things - focusing on basic necessities while staring our mortality in the face daily: pondering life and death, forced to be in waiting, control absolutely ripped out of our hands.

To be in the season of Lent while death and decay surround us feels highly appropriate. This is the most memorable Lent I've ever experienced as I grapple with the reality of death while crying in prayer each day. There is either more to all this or there is nothing. There is either hope or we fall in despair. There is either a Love Supreme or there is brutal meaninglessness.

Even as I draw tangible immediate comfort from my peanut butter and jelly spread, I know my heart longs for ultimate comfort. That in the midst of this, there is a way still - and that way, regardless of how scary the world feels - remains steadfast, confident, and sure.