Grace in a Covid Age

Most of us struggle to connect with people from time to time, but never has this been more consistently true for many of us than in a Covid world. The misunderstandings and different interpretations of our shared reality sometimes seem insurmountable; but for people who follow Jesus, this shouldn't be a big surprise.

If you've spent any time reading through the letters to churches that make up much of the New Testament (that's the part of the Bible that was written in Jesus' time), you'll probably remember some pretty intense disagreements and struggles in the early church. There's always been a lot to work through when any number of humans is involved! It has never, ever been easy for us to understand each other fully.

Many of us, too, have spent too much time in circles where we feel unseen, unheard, and undervalued; or where we've realized others are unseen, unheard, or undervalued. There's a growing realization for many that it's not only okay, but healthy and necessary to fight for safe boundaries and basic rights, to love ourselves even as we are, and to sometimes not "be okay."

How are we supposed to reconcile these things? How can we work together while advocating for ourselves and the underserved?

There's absolutely not an easy answer. Any easy answer would certainly look foolish next to the incredibly complex situations we often find ourselves in.

But I want to suggest that we must try. We must try to continue to be the body of Christ, despite our differences. We must try to continue to be the people God made us to be, despite our differences.

We cannot make everyone happy. We should not bend to what is wrong in order to claim some type of false unity, either. A "unity" that comes at the expense of truth will help no one.

And the division in our world has intensified. But... There were many pieces of that division already planted and growing before 2020. Yet, we used to have a fuller picture of each other.

For one thing, I don't think we should ignore the cost of increased isolation in this season. Those people who seem impossibly different from you - do you remember when you shared meals together? Had play dates? Read books together on topics where you *could* understand each other? Do you remember when you used to sit next to each other at school concerts? Rock babies together in the church nursery? Run into each other at the grocery store?

We often don't get the opportunity to see each other as complete people, but especially right now. That's so hard. When all you can see of someone is the parts of them that make it hard to relate to them, it becomes even harder to have the kind of family relationship that Jesus said we could - and should - have as his church.

When I used to work in daycare there used to often be one or two children in my classes each year who would be difficult to spend time with. Relationships are hard, and that's a truth whether it's between adults, children, or adults and children. And there were certain children who were just difficult to connect with.

Each time I had one of those kids, I tried to find a beautiful thing about that child to focus on; a fragment to help me understand the deeper beauty inside of them that I wasn't always seeing. Sometimes it took a little while, but it was always, always there. For one child, it was the fierce love and loyalty they felt towards their little brother. For another, it was their love of dinosaurs.

Try to catch and hold those glimpses. I imagine there are very few people - if any - who have no beautiful pieces inside of them. After all, God says we are all made in his image. That doesn't mean we're all right all the time, of course, but it means we all have worth and value.

Now. Finding a way to love each other is non-negotiable. But hear me. That DOES NOT take away the need to have healthy boundaries. Sometimes we need to love and forgive someone but also not spend time with them right now. Sometimes we only spend time together in certain contexts. That is okay. There were times the baby church in the Bible drew up boundaries, too. But it's not step one when things are difficult. We should not ask people out of our lives lightly. We can disagree with someone - even on important things - and still exist alongside them at some level.

Let's strive to love even harder this coming year. You know what that means for you - whether it's to fight for the unseen; to find a way to relate to the ones in the spotlight; or some measure of both.