I’ve been thinking this weekend about how the timing of the coronavirus has coincided with the season of Lent. Lent doesn’t seem to get a lot of press this day and age, unless you’re Catholic or are part of a more liturgical Christian persuasion, but it can be very instructive in times like these.
The 40 days preceding Easter have traditionally been a time of fasting and reflection for the Church. Of course, fasting during Lent is entirely voluntary. Coronavirus, on the other hand, has brought about an involuntary kind of fasting, mandated by various levels of government and private enterprises.
I would suggest that in our culture, we’re so accustomed to consuming whatever we want, whenever we want, that immediate gratification is second nature to us and the idea of want or lack rarely crosses our minds. Much of the current generation hasn’t lived through anything like what we’re experiencing at the moment, and quite frankly, we’re pretty ignorant not only of what crises have been a part of the human experience in the past and how people coped with and persevered through them.
I think there’s a lot of wisdom in the lenten practice of fasting. Of course, “giving something up” is much different when it’s voluntary as opposed someone else telling us what we can and can’t do, but the exercise and discipline of going without introduces to our experience the possibility of a lifestyle of dependence and trust which we may not otherwise give much thought to. It’s also a very tangible reminder that our reality is not the ultimate reality and that the satisfaction which our hearts desire can’t be filled with money and stuff.
I know that of course most of us wouldn’t choose to give up 30% or more of our 401(k), or all of our toilet paper, for Lent. The magnitude of economic impact due to the coronavirus pandemic is, at least in the short term, massive and doesn’t even compare to doing without, say, meat or wine for a few weeks. But lenten fasting has always been more about the heart and mind than the stomach and pocket book.
Most of us (at least in the circles I run) understand intellectually that economic shocks like the one we’re currently experiencing are cyclical and temporary. History teaches us that over time the markets will recover, the economy will rebound and that life will return to normal.
But intellectual knowledge and experiential reality don’t always mesh snugly together. We humans are emotional creatures, hard wired to want control over our environments and often captivated and controlled by our passions and fears. We still have to live through the next few months and cope with the world around us. We have to make choices every day about how we let it affect us.
But what would it look like to embrace our losses – losses of the sense of security we felt as beneficiaries of a decade long bull market; losses of the comfort and stability of our daily routines; losses of confidence as it relates to our employment prospects and income; losses of the sense of invulnerability those of us with good health feel – and offer them up as a lenten fast, trusting that God is sufficient to make up for these things?
I’ll close this post with the Collect for the 2nd Sunday in Lent from the 1928 Anglican Book of Common Prayer as my prayer for the coming week:
“Almighty God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; Keep us both outwardly and in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.“