The Creativity of Covid

Throughout the pandemic, especially during Lockdown, it was recognised that the isolation could cause loneliness. So there were many suggestions for ways to maintain our mental health. These ranged from sports and exercise, through quiz nights online, to arts and crafts. And this concern has continued as the crisis looks set to continue into the winter. 

Grayson Perry, the ceramicist, for example, did a TV programme, in which he recruited his celebrity friends, to do something artistic, as a way to encourage viewers to emulate them. When he encountered some who were anxious about getting it ‘right’, he said something that is remarkably freeing: “Your mistakes are your style.”

Contemplation and Combat

When I arrived in the inner city for ministry, it was common to recommend contemplative spirituality, the cultivation of silence, as a spiritual discipline. Digging into the works of Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, would offer greater deeper resources for dealing with the stresses of urban mission. So, I built a practice, in my 20s and 30s, of regular retreats, and personal meditation. 

Discovering a Different Church

Church is different. Today, we had our first service after lockdown. Numbers were limited, to comply with social distancing regulations, we all wore masks, and there was no singing – a real sadness for a multiracial, urban, charismatic and Baptist, congregation, used to singing their heads off on Sunday mornings, in praise to our King! 

Critiquing Black Lives Matter

I’ve heard Christians criticise BLM for several reasons:

 

 

 

 

1. It’s political.

2. Not only ‘black’ lives matter: white lives, and those of other minorities, also matter.

3. It supports other ideas, besides racial justice, which Christians shouldn’t support.

4. It is a Marxist, or terrorist, organisation.

5. It is violent. 

Living with Uncertainty

Yesterday I spoke to some local shopkeepers oppposite our church building. They were worried about the loss of customers, and fearful because their landlord was still demanding high rents. One of our church leaders, who runs a web-design company, told me that many of his clients are experiencing uncertainty, because they don’t know how to plan for their businesses.

Whole Lotta (eschatological) shakin'

I was cycling yesterday past the university bookshop, where I have spent many happy hours, since I arrived in London years ago. I stopped at the lights and glanced over to the windows, and saw they were selling everything with a ‘green sticker’ for a pound.

It occurred to me that this is another sign of the crisis facing our retail industry generally, including bookstores, during the pandemic. This is intensifying the problems they faced previously from internet shopping. But how many physical stores will keep going? 

Filling the Religious Vacuum

We met them while we were recording our worship songs in the church garden.  They had heard the sound and come over to investigate – largely I suspect because, during lockdown, there was little else going on. A young couple in their twenties, they explained their interest in spirituality, the laws of attraction and such like. They realise there was something missing in our pre-Covid society, with its hollowed-out materialism and consumerism. Instead, they hoped, the crisis, through disrupting patterns of shopping and working from home, would enable people to realise the true inner values. As we discussed where people might find these spiritual values, while they pinned their hopes on this amorphous non-specific spirituality, I was able to suggest it could only be through Christ.