My head is spinning both literally and figuratively. The former I won’t fully explain here but the latter is as one might expect due to these rather unusual days. If I turn the clock back almost two weeks it is astonishing to see the chain of events and honestly both humorous and frightening.
I got up the morning of March 12th and headed to a doctors appointment. This was with a pulmonologist who I’d been sent to because I have been having issues in my lungs since early January. Coughing and congestion has been the new normal for me. A chest X-Ray showed something possibly scary but unlikely. I’d had a CT scan done and was about to get the results. So I met with the doctor and learned that all was clear. This was merely a virus which was actually starting to clear up.
I drove to pick up a long photo banner I had printed for our diocesan convention which was to start the next day. My previous two weeks had been consumed by convention prep. It is an exciting opportunity to cast vision for both student ministry and intergenerational discipleship. The banner looked great! Then I got a text. Convention was postponed due to the Corona Virus.
Wow! A lot to process there. My excitement was overwhelmed by a mixture of stress relief and sadness. I knew it may mean we won’t get the opportunity to cast vision in quite the same way. I had two students lined up to speak to the more than 300 people who were gathering at convention. I suddenly had a free weekend with my wife. I just spent a lot of money on banners and cards. I have a retreat in a week that may not happen now. That was the next text. “Is the retreat still on?”
I emailed my boss to seek his advice since he was the one to make the decision on postponing convention. He quickly suggested I seek the counsel of the youth ministers who were bringing students. Over the next 24 hours I emailed and consulted with them regarding the pro’s and con’s of moving forward. We reached the decision to reschedule this retreat for mid May. The bishop affirmed that it was a wise decision.
Saturday night I received an email from a friend looking to gather some youth ministry leaders around the country on a Zoom call to discuss ministry in this new reality. He wanted to do this on Sunday morning since he figured our services had been cancelled. Ours had not… until they were… due to the fact that some of our folks may have been exposed to the virus. Reality is setting in.
Sunday morning’s call was invigorating. There were so many great ideas flowing from the other people on the call who were already thinking about how to minister in this new reality. They were all in places where they knew schools would be out for a while. I was waiting to learn more about SC. Married to a school teacher, we expected schools to respond like the rest of the country seemed to be. They did and my wife spent two two days learning how to do distance learning.
Monday morning brought another call with a wider group of youth ministry folks around the country discussing their plans. Our state with so few cases was just waking up to this new reality that others were ready to embrace. Lots of ideas flowed. There seemed to be a divergence of opinion over whether we were in this for a number of weeks or months.
Tuesday morning we had a staff meeting on Zoom. This was a first for us. We don’t meet all that often and had never done one online before but will meet weekly now for the time being. It was good to check in with the others from our now closed office. We are all working from home for the most part. There are very few things that require staff to show up to the office for.
Wednesday my wife drove to Augusta to meet up with my daughter and bring our oldest grandson to our home for a visit. Aidan is a toddler at 2 and a half. He is fascinated with shapes at the moment, particularly octagons which he recognizes when he sees stop signs. The past week has been filled with seeing Octagons and taking walks down the street to see an octagon. It is a significant event for him.
Meanwhile I had been looking at dogs online at the animal society website. Wednesday I went to look at a few. Thursday I took Jane to see one in particular. His name is Rocky. He is an American Staffordshire mutt with some Boxer mixed in there. Rocky was eager to get out of the shelter. That might sound like an obvious statement but some of the dogs there don’t know much other than shelters. Rocky had lived in a home most of his life and ready for adoption.
Friday I was completing paperwork on the adoption when a text came from my wife. Tomorrow’s plans were changed. We were expecting our daughter, son in law and younger grandson to arrive from Atlanta. Instead our youngest son would be getting married upstate. So we had a days outing for a tiny impromptu wedding. What an exciting surprise!
The wedding had been planned for April 4th but was postponed to October. Not wanting to wait that long to be married, they still intended on a small immediate family only wedding on the 4th. Then, out of concern for the prospect of not being able to gather even 10 people on April 4th, they decided to make it happen immediately.
Despite being arranged in less than 24 hours, the simple wedding was beautiful. The minister did a great job and had a wonderful message for the bride and groom. Life carries on in the midst of quarantine. We still have precious moments with toddlers, pets to care for, and relationships to cultivate.
Psalm 100:5 – For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
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