By Laurie Prince
Last night President Macron of France announced his country will remain under lockdown until May 11. On that day, only schools will re-open. Restaurants, cafes, museums (including the Louvre), hotels, and cultural sites will remain closed until mid-July.
We were supposed to leave for Paris in a few weeks with our two oldest granddaughters. Our plan was to explore the city from a beautiful apartment in Saint-Germaine-des-Prés. Afterward we’d take the RER—the fast train—to Angers in the Loire Valley, rent a car, and check in to a chateau I scouted last summer. There we’d welcome extended family and a few friends. We would spend a month together in France, a trip I’d been saving for and planning for years.
Suddenly, just like that, everything changed.
The pandemic has taken so much from so many. I don’t need to detail the ways; we all know them. For me, in my tiny corner of the South in a body that’s aging faster than you can say Jiminy Cricket, I’ve been crushed. With dire predictions that travel may be unsafe until 2022 (although by then, Covid-20 may be circulating), maybe I’ll never get to stand on the Eiffel Tower’s platform with Stella and Ruthie and look across the rooftops of Paris. Maybe we’ll never watch the tide rush in from the western terrace of Mont-Saint-Michel or bike the gardens of Versailles. Maybe we’ll never sit under the stars and talk about God’s hand on this remarkable country. My husband turns 70 this summer and I’m not far behind. Who knows if the hundreds of decisions and plans and payments and phone calls and emails can all be executed a second time? Who knows if we’ll even be healthy enough for a trip in the future?
I realize my loss is insignificant compared to friends who’ve lost parents. Others have lost jobs, housing, the prom, and even a shot at the Olympics. It will be years before we understand the toll the pandemic is taking.
Yet as a family member pointed out last month, God is at work. She said it while we were at a “gender reveal” party in mid-March, prior to the lockdown. I’d never heard of a gender reveal party, but I soon found out this is a big deal. Similar to a midday cocktail party, there were lots of drinks, hors d’oeuvres, a fancy cake, and swarms of people selecting a boy or girl sticker to wear. The party had the early blush of pandemic distancing with a “no hugging or kissing” directive, which of course lasted about 15 minutes. Late in the afternoon we took the elevator to the rooftop pool and pavilion of the uptown apartment building. When cannons blasted pink powder, we cheered in surprise, “It’s a girl!”
In the midst of this joyful chaos, a grandmother-to-be said she was excited about what God was doing in the pandemic. I about fell over. Mainly because she’s the life-of-the-party type and this was a pretty great party. Her unexpected comment was an early sign of how the pandemic would change us. Some would wring their hands while others would look for the hand of God.
Up until then, I’d been nursing low-level anxiety, mainly over whether restrictions would get so bad that I’d have to cancel the trip to Paris. With her words, I started paying attention. I started thinking about something bigger.
Now it’s mid-April, and it’s clear we have a long road ahead of us. I’ve canceled our trip to France.
Yes, I’m seeing God at work because in the midst of world financial markets plunging and incomes evaporating, we’re slowing down. The Bible says that being in a hurry makes one poor (Proverbs 21:5), and I can’t think of a better way to describe how we lived before the pandemic. How many of us complained, “I’m so busy?” Or what about, “I’m exhausted!” Too often this meant too busy or tired to pray, to read scripture, to focus on what others might need from us.
Here are two ways I’m noticing change.
Being in a hurry took us away from life together.
Since January I’ve been thinking about a Dallas Willard quote a friend shared: “Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” The philosophy professor and Christian author, who died several years ago, observed that hurry was the great enemy of modern spiritual life. His advice became my 2020 New Year’s resolution, mysteriously preparing me for what would happen in the months ahead.
Hurry has shaped our daily opportunity to break bread together, and the quarantine is forcing us back home. We love productivity in America, and think the more we do the happier we’ll be. If ballet or science projects or soccer practice interrupts meals five nights a week, well … that’s okay. Parents say “yes” to things because they’re good, not stopping to think about a greater good they may be losing.
Being in a hurry (or being worn out from being in a hurry) has contributed to our habits of processed foods, take-out, high-fat restaurant meals, and eating on the run. How many times have I skipped a meal only to make a stupid decision later? It seems weirdly coincidental that the abbreviation for the “Standard American Diet” is SAD. While other cultures around the world understand why it’s good to share meals together, Americans have traded that ancient wisdom for a stopwatch.
We adults average 37 minutes a day in the kitchen, which is a clue as to why 42 percent of us are obese. You can’t prepare fresh foods, set the table, and clean up for one meal in 37 minutes much less breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m not suggesting we all become scratch cooks; I’m simply observing that the quarantine is returning us to the kitchen and the pleasures of feeding ourselves and each other. There’s a wonderful comfort in baking bread or braising a stew, especially when shared with those we love. My nephew in Washington, D.C., sent me a photo last week of a loaf of brioche he’d made, followed by a photo of croque monsieur, the French sandwich constructed from thick slices of brioche. I had no idea he could cook. In our household, the highlight of the quarantined workday has become dinner, and we are cooking together like never before. Last night we had popovers with South Carolina grits and Gulf Coast shrimp. It’s been ages since I’ve made fresh popovers, which I first tasted at Jordan Pond House in Maine. Tonight we’ll have miniature French tarts for dessert, topped with Chantilly cream and raspberries.
I love the way we’re spending more time at the table; it’s a tradition from earliest times. So many stories in the Bible occurred around a meal or a table—Abraham and the angels, Joseph with his brothers in Egypt, the Passover, King Belshazzar’s feast. I think especially of the Last Supper. And our arrival in the Kingdom of God will be celebrated with a feast.
Being in a hurry disconnected us from the natural world.
By God’s grace the pandemic hit us in springtime. There isn’t a more beautiful time of year to see the earth’s glory, yet how often before coronavirus did we stop for a closer look at a budding dogwood or to listen to birds? Now, the only refuge many people have is a back yard or a city park. The natural world provides something good, something fundamental to our experience of being human. Although we gravitate toward manmade things (our house, the mall, the car, the screen), they’re not alive. We need that connection to living things, to our planet.
The last time I was outside this much, I was a child. These days, when I’m anxious and pacing the house, feeling as if I’m bumping into myself, stepping out the front door immerses me in a world that lifts my heart and feeds my senses. We have a little bridge on our driveway, and yesterday a great blue heron flew past and landed in the woods less than ten feet away. I’ve seen him only a few times, fishing down in the creek or perched far away on the pasture fence. As he stood perfectly still on the forest floor, sunlight fell across his orange beak, causing it to glow. The light also passed through his eye, making the yellow iris translucent. I was stunned by this great bird’s beauty and size; he stood nearly my height. After a minute he lifted his wings and flew away. Racing up the driveway, I flew in the house to tell my husband about the astonishing visitation.
The world outside is so full of life that I can’t get enough of it right now, and I’m not alone. Liz Crampton reported on Politico.com that seed stores are logging record-high sales, including a Virginia seed company with a 300 percent increase in orders. Although some people may be buying seeds in an apocalyptic panic, many are craving living things. Even my friends and family are getting in on the trend. One of my girlfriends gave me ten packets of flower seeds for my birthday! (What was she thinking?) My sister gave me a shrub. I do not have a green thumb. And a family member is germinating vegetable plants in dozens of starter cups. Nature is gaining a new fan base.
Not only is the quarantine drastically affecting our relationship with nature, but it’s also affecting nature’s relationship with us. By early January NASA was reporting a significant change in images of China taken from outer space. Pollution had dropped and skies were clearing. As the months have passed, air across the globe has become cleaner and the world quieter. Since freeways and airports have little traffic and large events are nonexistent, seismologists say the earth itself is growing still. The vibrations of the planet’s crust have decreased due to the decline in human activity.
Be still …
The opposite of being in a hurry is to be still. These words of Psalm 46:10 seem meant for our time: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” As the lady at the party said, God is doing amazing things right now. Parents are spending time with their children as never before. Friends tell me about seeing dads in the front yard playing catch with their boys; families are taking walks together in the evening. I’m reminded of the last sentence of the Old Testament: “He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents…” (Malachi 4:6). God the Merciful is drawing families together.
Unable to go out to restaurants, people are also sitting down at home across from each other at the table. Without a waitress or distractions of other diners, they’re breaking bread together. We’re getting to know and enjoy each other in old ways.
Even that great arbiter of modern life, the Internet, is yielding unexpected grace. When we watched the first season of The Chosen, a series about Jesus choosing his disciples (free this month via an app), my heart burned. I hadn’t felt that kind of love since my conversion. I couldn’t quit thinking about Jesus. God is doing a new thing! And what about the City of New York? Can you imagine a reason, other than the coronavirus, for the city to ask Samaritan’s Purse to set up a field hospital in Central Park? What a beautiful picture of the grace of God encamping in the world’s greatest center of commerce. “Let everyone who is thirsty come!” (Revelation 22:17 ISV)
Thanks be to God for his sovereign purposes, even in times of loss and confusion. In his mercy, He’s showing us the cost of our previously chaotic lifestyles. He’s calling us to be still, to stop hurrying, to go deeper with each other, and to know that He is God.