These Latter Days

 

No, I’m not going on an ‘end-times’ kick, but merely reflecting on how these ‘latter days’ of the pandemic are playing out. Ironically, as the vaccine begins to be rolled out in Britain, depression returns. Through most of the year, I had remained generally positive, responding to the emergency, with determined action. This was easy, because there were low expectations, nothing to justify. But underlying it, I suppose the perpetual darkness of the soul had persisted; what US singer Bill Mallonee calls our ‘blister soul’. 

 

But now, my body is running down; sheer physical tiredness, like a clockwork toy whose spring has completely unwound. And this combines with the mental strain, like my eyestrain from working at a computer all day (pastoral work is now done remotely): poor posture, headaches from the glare and blue-light of excessive screen-watching. I remember one of the things I hated about working at the theological college was sitting alone at a desk in my office all day, unable to skive-off and grab a coffee to chat with someone – the essence of ministry, at least pre-Covid.

But this, too, is the time of the great simplification – “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture” (Ps. 37.3). Our bandwidth is reduced. We find ourselves prompted, to look more interiorly, within ourselves, to the essential. So that we can concentrate on only one thing. We find this in love: loving the Lord and loving others.

When we are on our knees, we discover our priorities, in its three-fold play of words. ‘On our knees’ can mean desperation, exhaustion. It can mean beginning to pray, which we do when we’re desperate; to orientate ourselves toward the eternal (interesting that the French Bible translates ‘the Lord’ as ‘L’Éternel’). But it may also mean getting on our knees to do hard graft.

I remember working alongside some Korean missionaries, training in London. They did the whole Korean prayer-thing, getting up at 6am everyday to pray: and they were Presbyterians, not Pentecostals! But, once, as they did door-to-door visitation in our area, they met a lady, with learning difficulties, who didn’t look after herself, and whose flat therefore stank. I asked them how they responded, and they replied that they’d got down on their knees – not to pray, but to scrub the floor! Practical Christianity indeed.

We find ourselves confined to the immediate , the small-scale, the local. “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me” (Ps. 131.1); but only what I can affect, touch, hold – what my “hands find to do” (Ecc. 9.10). Pastoral care becomes limited to the people around us. Though still, opportunities open up: I’ve been invited to do online sessions during Advent for elders at their local Centre, The Peel; encouraging their memories of Sunday School and Church-going, bringing Christ alive as an option, during this restricted Covid-Christmas, when the usual means of distraction are not available to them, or also to us.