Inside Outside: A Pandemic Engagement
In the season of our isolation we have finally found the secret to conversations. Forced to slow down, self-isolate, shelter-in-place, “separate for 14 days”, or stop for who knows how long, we have been pushed to look at ourselves and those around us in new ways. To protect us, those we love, as well as, those we don’t know, we’ve been commanded to go inside – literally and figuratively—and see what’s there. Reluctant as we may have been, hesitant as we may have seemed, unwilling as we may have appeared, we now have no choice. If you are blessed to have a place to go, you must start where you are –inside –and engage others differently from that vantage point. There’s something about being inside that teaches you how to go outside.
We were one week into the official declaration of spring and we were already wanting a new season, believing that the one we had just moved into hadn’t really shifted our perspectives as it usually does when the equinox happens. Somehow it seemed like winter-- not the cold weather that marks the season but bleak conditions anyway. News feeds reported people sick and dying at an alarming rate everywhere; uncertainty abounded. We saw the world witnessing one of the worst disease-stricken experiences it has known, with little sign of abatement. There was (and is) reason to be inside.
But the sun was shining on that Thursday, so my husband Joe and I went walking in our neighborhood, eager to get outside while following the government-imposed mandate to keep social distance from other people to avoid the spread of COVID-19. We were anxious to wave off the fear of a world-wide health crisis that has shaken us to the very core. We walked a new walk – not over any new streets or through any different neighborhood or in any new direction….but with something new we had learned being inside.
Sometimes finding out what’s inside can be scary. It can give you a chance to examine what’s deep in your closets or even in your soul. Most of us never have spent more than a few waking moments examining either. We’ve never spent more than a little time asking ourselves what we thought about tough questions facing us every day and how the answers might affect our conversations. We seldom have summoned our God-given inner courage or our already-ordained inner resolve and thought about how they affect our talk. We have forgotten the faith in God that brought our ancestors through and affected their choices, ultimately shaping their lives and ours. But the season of going inside has pushed us to remember.
Being inside shows us how to have the compassion we need to start conversations and the resilience we need to sustain them. It helps us take our eyes off of our outer selves and focus them elsewhere. It helps us to be still and meditate. It gives us time to plan. It helps us listen more, connect more, reach more, learn more. We phone people we haven’t talked to in years; we think about those we love the most; we fix things that have been broken forever; we repurpose objects that have been prematurely discarded; we weed out things that need to go; we consider people we’ve never met; and we come to understand that spring is not simply an external season to be admired but is something internal to be embraced.
So it is no surprise that on the day we went outside to walk, it was a new walk. We took selfies and they were photos not simply of us but of our new way of experiencing God’s gifts.
We saw things we had never seen before in a way that was fresh – houses that had been there for years, Bradford Pear trees that bloomed as they had for three decades in their royal elegance, long time neighbors we didn’t know who waved from their doorways.
It’s impossible to see what’s in the Divine plan. But it certainly seems like God has pushed us inside in preparation for something else. He is giving us something to say and time to say it. In the process, God is teaching us about ourselves so we can engage better with others. That way we can have conversations and can experience the richness of what He has in store.
Read: Beyond Roses—An Obligation to Speak (Finding Voice for Conversations)
Visit: www.JudiMooreLatta.com