Checking In

Night before last, I took my after-dark walk here in Hendersonville. The streets were mostly silent. A normally vibrant town was nearly deserted. It was eerie.

It was as though I were walking in a late 1950s episode of The Twilight Zone – the one where Henry Bemis (actor Burgess Meredith’s character) survives a nuclear blast. 

Bemis initially rues his lonely survival; but then realizes he’s become flush with that most precious of gifts: time.

Time is now on Bemis’ side. Freed from the responsibilities of spouse and job, he can give himself over to reading, the one thing that makes him truly happy.

But as he picks through the rubble for books, his glasses are dropped and shattered. Bemis is stunned. Poorly sighted, he realizes his heaven has just become his hell. So he looks to the skies and cries out, “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”

I think about this story line as I make my virtual rounds within and beyond the fellowship – not because it resonates with what most folks are experiencing, but for just the opposite reason: because so many of you are meeting the stress and fear of COVID-19 with little concern for its fairness. 

Of course some of us are suffering mightily right now, and it’s clear this suffering is going to get worse before it gets better. As I’ve said elsewhere, this is no time for political opportunism or unfounded sunny predictions. 

But if your many emails, texts, phone calls and video conferences are any indication, your focus is on making it through, picking up the pieces, and walking together toward a reality can only imagine. 

What I’m not hearing from you are cries against fairness. No blaming, no shaming, no railing against the Holy. What you’re telling me is – even from the depths where some of you dwell at this very moment – this is about taking the right precautions, increasing or starting practices that ground you, and asking what if anything you can do to help somebody else. Fairness is rarely in the equation.
 
So thanks for modeling what spiritual maturity looks like in times of deep trouble. Your examples help lighten the load.

Hang in there,
Don

Don Rollins is our Interim Minister. For more information about Rev. Don, go HERE.