Psalm 23 (New Living Translation)

The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name.

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings.

Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

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Who could have thought, when we brought in the last of the garden vegetables in October and started cozying ourselves inside for the winter, that the whole world would still be locked indoors come spring?  When I listen to the neighborhood, silent of human activity, and when I drive on almost-empty streets, and when I keep my distance during senior hours at Walmart where an associate keeps guard over a bin of small bottles of hand sanitizer and the toilet paper is rationed, I have the same sense of surrealism that I had when the towers in New York fell.  Is this really happening?  How could this be?  Has the world gone crazy?  I’m not in the medical field—what can I do?

I’ve been reading about early Christians who cared for the sick and dying even during pandemics when government officials and the wealthy had left the cities.  In the Antonine plague (165 AD) five million people died; the plague of Cyprian in 251 had a 50% death rate.  The Christians who helped their neighbors at great risk to themselves truly believed, they knew, that their real home was in a better place; dying was not the worst thing that could happen.  What should I be doing today to love my virus-stricken neighbor?  What the Christians did during the Roman plagues filled a need that no one else filled.  Today we have government edicts and skilled medical personnel orchestrating care.  There doesn’t seem to be any point in disobeying willy-nilly and carrying victims into our homes for care.  But there is also the fear-stricken neighbor, and the lonely and the elderly and so on.  Maybe we have to step up our care for them.

A friend sent me an article by the theologian R. R. Reno (https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/03/say-no-to-deaths-dominion).  I’m not sure he’s got it right about people carrying on with life as usual during the 1918 pandemic.  A writer in our local paper did a little research on that Spanish flu.  The reason people may have, as R. R. Reno says,  “continued to worship, go to musical performances, clash on football fields,” etc., could be that they did not know how bad the situation was, since “the government essentially banned leaders and the press from reporting upon the flu epidemic.”  Nothing negative could be published that might affect the war effort.  The pandemic was called the Spanish flu “because Spain, which was not at war, allowed the press to report on it openly” (quotes in article from John Barry of Tulane University).  Warnings from the US medical community were not passed along to the citizens.  (https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/carroll/lifestyles/cc-lt-dayhoff-032220-20200320-wmahqlv3drbghpv2hziglq4jny-story.html)

But R. R. Reno makes some interesting points:  “Fear of death and causing death is pervasive,” but “man was made for life, not death….  The mass shutdown of society…creates a perverse, even demonic, atmosphere.  Governor Cuomo and other officials insist that death’s power must rule our actions.”  Children cannot play on playgrounds, we cannot touch our grieving friend, we cannot share Christ’s body and blood around the altar.  Basketball hoops are being removed and skateboard ramps covered with dirt (https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/basketball-rims-removed-skate-parks-shut-down-and-more-ways-cities-are-trying-to-enforce-social-distancing/).   We have ignored the truths of living and eternity and made physical survival a god.  “Alexander Solzhenitsyn resolutely rejcted the materialist principle of ‘survival at any price.’  It strips us of our humanity.”

So what do we do?  Stay or flee, cower or reach out?  Be sensible, but live.  I do think that, if we can do it, flattening the curve is a good idea so we don’t run out of ventilators.  If we have a spike in covid-19 illness that requires hospitalization and not enough ventilators, that’s not a potential fear that “somebody” might get sick but a real fact that a real person is likely to die.  

A certain relative is genuinely concerned for us.  We feel blessed by God to help him in various ways.  We feel responsible to try to stay healthy to be there for him, and for all our family.

My mother lives with my sister in Baltimore now, and we try to visit once a week and take lunch to the family.  Should we stop doing that?  Where has my nephew been?  Who’s been at my sister’s grocery store?  Could we infect my mother?  And Maurice—he’s over 70, and our son gives us worrying statistics on the danger we’re in.  I don’t want us all to die—and we Christians are called to defend life.  (Plus I personally have too much clutter in my house at this point to want to die now and leave it behind for someone else to clean up).  But my thinking hadn’t gotten to the theologian’s point:  “There are many things more precious than [physical] life.”  Of course.  And I know that.  But I hadn’t thought of that yet.  A woman from church was visiting her mother who has Alzheimer’s at the facility where she lives.  Of course visitors are no longer allowed, so my friend and some family members stood outside and talked to their mother through a window.  Not surprisingly, the mother kept forgetting why they weren’t inside and why no one could visit her.  And what about all the residents who don’t have first floor windows?

And then there is a bigger issue altogether:  What is the Lord God Almighty doing through all this?  Jody Wood, director of New York City Intercessors/UN Global Prayer, suggests, based on Hebrews 12:25-29, that God is shaking the earth and its systems to destroy the false foundations upon which people have built their lives (https://youtu.be/GWYn5r60dhk).  Will we listen to God and hold to his unshakable truth, or, having made up our own rules for living, will we find we have built on sinking sand (Matthew 7:24-27)?  Oh, that many would run even now to the cross of Jesus, the immovable Rock of our eternal salvation and the only hope for lasting peace!—while there is yet time.

It’s a lot to balance—questions of life and death, principles of truth and goodness and beauty.  Indeed, is beauty anywhere at all in this mess?  But it is.  I saw it.  Driving home from church last Sunday, where six of us provided a streamed worship service on Facebook live, I was practically slapped in the face by the earth in sudden and full spring bloom—pink and white trees, with yellow forsythia and daffodils below, shining under under a sapphire sky that for days had been gray.  Were there always so many trees on this road?  Do they always bloom at once?  Even in troubling times, if God’s people don’t praise him, the very rocks will cry out! (Luke 19:37-40)—and the trees and the flowers and all creation.  God holds us in the palm of his hand (Psalm 95:4-7).  He is working out his perfect Kingdom purposes in us through Jesus (2Timothy 1:8-10).  He sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).  One day the fallen kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever (Revelation 11:15).  Lord, may we look forward to that day with faith and patience.  On the hard journey that is life (John 16:33), give us the courage to love one another deeply (1Peter 4:8).  Help us not to look at the turbulence around us but to cling to your steady hand (Matthew 14:22-32).  Guide us along right paths so that we bring honor to your name (Psalm 23:3).

So I pray and think and hope I don’t take too long to act.  How can I be a witness to the truth and power of the gospel in this time?  How can I honor the Lord?  We have decided to still visit my mother.  I—we all—can love the ones in our household, write notes, make phone calls, work from home, support local businesses as much as possible, deliver groceries, find a way to connect with neighbors, support our churches, donate what is needed locally and farther afield, pray for one another by name.

Let me know if you would like Maurice and me to put your name on our prayer list.

Lord, we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you (2Chronicles 20:12).  Guide us along right paths so we bring honor to your name (Psalm 23:3).

St. Ulrich castle near Ribeauville’

Alsace

In June we climbed around castle ruins and explored the Maginot Line, touring below and picnicking above, on our way to Maurice’s plein-air watercolor course in Alsace.  While Maurice and the other artistes set up their easels in charming settings along the Route du Vin d’Alsace, I got to know the half-timbered villages on my own before setting off through vineyards or up mountains with my hiking poles and camera.  Amid painting and hiking we also saw Romanesque churches, concerts, World War 2 cemeteries and, in the wine village of Riquewihr, a parade of wordless and jaw-droppingly flamboyant masqueraders.  Stork nests seemed to be on every high roof and we could see the baby birds practicing their wing-flapping.  I chatted in my rusty French with locals–the grocer, the pastry shop owner, the grape pruner.  One day our group went to Strasbourg, the engaging city where you round a final corner and there is the cathedral, right smack dab at the end of the block, its soaring lines of lacey stone snapping back your head, lifting your eyes and drawing out your breath.  At a nearby restaurant we learned to make tarte flambee, an Alsatian pizza-like dish originally made by peasants in communal ovens with the week’s leftovers; now it is typically topped with creme fraiche, onions and lardons (one of those European meats that pretend to be bacon).  When his classes were over, Maurice let himself be persuaded to accompany me on a hike along a mountain ridge from one castle ruin to another; even though it was farther than we thought plus we accidentally took the long route, the castle on the other end, patched up and with an admission charge, was a delightful find with wall-walks overlooking the countryside, piped-in medieval music and Nutella waffles for refreshment.  One evening we went to a fete de la musique in Bennwihr, a village almost completely destroyed in the Battle of the Colmar Pocket in December 1944; the bell tower of its new church was built of rubble from the town’s houses.  The tiny music fest featured a huge grill, a giant barrel where wine was sold, a patisserie table, an oompah band and traditional dancers who looked like they were having tons of fun.  We were quite obviously the only foreigners there–probably the only people from out of town.  It was definitely authentic.  “Every time I see you you’re smiling,” Jerry told me one day. Alsace was so lovely and we were so blessed; why wasn’t everyone smiling? Keep reading

the Alhambra, Granada

Spain

In April we had another Spanish adventure, this time accompanied by our old friends Bob and Gwen, where, amid fragrant orange trees and dark cork forests and thousands of patchwork hills of olive trees, we were once again awash in olive oil and rioja.  In Andujar Maurice fought the law and the law won, a parking misunderstanding to the tune of three euros.  Trying to drive to our Granada hotel, we barged into the city’s do-not-enter-unless-you-want-a-ticket zone…several times…the three passengers each bombarding the driver with their own set of agitated instructions, eventually forcing the poor driver to navigate a pedestrian-only lane by the stream, thus requiring shoppers and strollers to splat themselves against the wall as we barreled by; we finally parked and took a taxi to the hotel (which is what Maurice wanted to do in the first place).  Another day we drove high into the mountains, then climbed a rocky trail higher still for a look at primitive paintings made of soot, iron oxide and animal fat in the Pileta Cave, lantern lit and very insecure of footing (so you know it was great fun).  Then cheerio!–we ducked into Gibraltar, a little spot of England on the Med, with fish and chips, red telephone boxes and the department store Marks and Spencer, purveyors of my favorite chocolate bourbon biscuits.  We took a taxi tour around the Rock, and at one of the stops a large macaque monkey unexpectedly jumped on my head.  Did you catch that?  A large monkey.  On my head.  I’m not sure why the Spanish want this place back.  That evening I took an extra swig of the post-prandial, pour-it-yourself homemade hooch the restaurateur plopped down gratis on our table. Our military space-available trip home on a C5A was the most comfortable flight we’ve had in decades; not only was there legroom but so few passengers were aboard that everyone could lie down on a row of seats for a snooze. Keep reading

It was one of the places we went that wasn’t crawling with souvenir sellers or encrusted with gilt.  Tabgha it was called, derived from the Greek for “seven springs.”  Maurice had sent me to Israel with my friend Pat for her trip of a lifetime.  We were walking down a pathway in a park-like setting that ended at a little church on the left perched on a big chunk of black rock.  To the right under a shady tree was a circular seating area of concrete benches around an altar where we shared communion. Beyond was the rocky shore of Kineret, the deep blue Sea of Galilee.  Our wonderful guide George told us a lot of things happened here.  It was where Jesus called his first disciples (Luke 5:1-11).  It was the “solitary place” of Mark 6 when Jesus fed the 5,000 (v. 30-44); archeology reveals no evidence ever of human settlement here, so it has always been a “solitary place.”   Here was where Peter made the dangerous statement that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:13-20).  But what really touched my heart was when George pointed out this was where, after the resurrection, Jesus cooked breakfast for the disciples when they had given up and gone back to fishing (John 21:1-14).  Right here on the rocky shore Jesus had brought bread and set about fixing breakfast.  But first he climbed up on the slab of rock that was right next to us.  The sea here was a good fishing place; six of the seven nearby springs emptied in these waters.  One of the springs was quite warm so fish were likely to gather there.  But the waters were never still and it was uncertain exactly where the fish would be.  Sometimes fishermen would hire someone to stand up on the rock, see where the fish congregated and point the fishermen in the right direction.  But the disciples had no money, and no fish spotter and, though they fished all night, no fish.  So Jesus climbed on the rocky outcrop, located the school of fish and called out, “Friends, haven’t you any fish? Throw your net on the right side.”  The disciples eventually recognized Jesus, brought in a big haul and found breakfast ready.  Right here.  They settled somewhere right on this rock with Jesus.  It was the ordinary stuff of life, really, hard work and fatigue and breakfast.  The rocky shore probably doesn’t look much different now than it did 2000 years ago.  There was the morning sun and the splash of water; there were the same people from the day before.  The disciples had just what I have right now, ordinary responsibilities, everyday blessings.  Right here on this rock they had Jesus.  And I have Jesus, and I am here on this rock where he sat on the shore of the sea.  Suddenly time does not matter.  He is here and I am here.  I am part of Jesus’ body, as his disciples were.  By his Spirit we are all one in Christ and seated together around the throne. Hallelujah!  May you meet the living Lord Jesus where the springs bubble with life and the waters are warm.  May you meet him in solitary places where there are no fish.  May you meet him in the manger under the star this Epiphany season.  Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Tabgha, by the Sea of Galilee Keep reading