On this day two years ago, I attended my last in-person Sunday morning worship service. It was a surreal event. Only a handful of people were there, and we acted like kids worried about catching cooties from one another. My spouse (the pastor) was trying to figure out how to angle his phone for Facebook Live, something he had never experimented with before. After worship our family of three hustled home and didn't re-emerge for weeks, only doing so once we realized that Covid was not a blip and we’d have to get groceries at some point.

In some ways the start of the pandemic feels like a decade ago. The degrees of isolation and the ebb and flow of the virus have stretched out the time, plus we have learned more about Covid and ways to neutralize it than seems possible in such a short span. In other respects, though, the beginning of lockdown feels very fresh. Anniversaries - I would like to find another word for a somber annual remembrance, by the way - can make objects in the rearview mirror appear closer than they are. The sense memories enfold us and transport us to the states of mind, body, and spirit prompted by the original experience. (“On this day” reminders on social media and in our photo apps only enhance this effect.) For me that means high anxiety born of uncertainty, which manifests as body tension and mental and physical fatigue. Your reactions might be similar or altogether different, but you aren’t alone if you notice something in your being at this two-year mark that isn’t quite explained by current circumstances.

We’re holding a mixed bag as we come to this past-present mingling. We are in Lent, one of those marathon stretches in the liturgical calendar for pastors. This season both gives us a helpful focus and lengthens our to-do lists. We seem to be in a new, more hopeful phase of the pandemic. This reality brings increased possibilities for gathering and can also prompt foreboding joy: When is the next variant coming? What does the decreased attention to virus precautions mean for the big questions we’ve not had space to reckon with but now need to address? And while there is no declared war on American soil, we worry for those facing aggression in other regions of the world, bound to them as we are by our common humanity.

I name all of this to encourage you to be gentle with yourself. Acknowledge your limits. Leave things undone when needed. Take naps. Eat good food, however you define it. Move your body. Spend time with people you love. Do “unproductive” things that delight you. Look for beauty. Along the way don’t forget to keep your eyes peeled for God working - or modeling rest! - in the margins, the crevices, the cracks of daylight offered by a slightly opened door.

Remember that while memories can crash the present and the future is always on our minds, life happens in real time. Be there for it all, the hard and the holy, knowing sometimes there is little distinction between the two.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.