Reclaiming In-Person Connection

Beyond the second wave

Last week, Governor Walz announced a new round of rollbacks in the almost year-long “Stay Safe MN” campaign to slow the spread of COVID-19, loosening regulations for gyms and indoor events. The official Stay Safe MN website announces at the top of the page, “We have reason for optimism!” It’s a notable shift in tone after widespread concern over outbreaks, case counts, and hospital capacity reached a fever pitch over the holiday season. 

Given the fact that parishes are now allowed to operate at a higher capacity and are able to host non-liturgical events again, now might be the perfect time to examine how we can start building up our communities and relationships that have been in Zoom-induced “maintenance mode” for almost a year now. I think, based on current numbers, that we can start to treat remote or distance options as an exception rather than the rule. 

Particularly, we should resist the temptation to treat the “Zoom-in” option as a convenient backup plan for evenings when we don’t feel like leaving the house (am I right?). We need to start gathering in person and living real, incarnated life together as much as we can, given current restrictions, lest we start to think that being there is now something fundamentally optional. We may still be dispensed from our Sunday obligations, but the fact remains that you can’t receive the sacraments, build deep relationships, or live in Christian community through a screen.

I do not mean to suggest we should act recklessly or rush back into situations where we put ourselves and others at serious risk. We all have to pray and discern what our own choices will be and what risks we are willing to accept. But now is the time to consider the total human cost of the pandemic, not just the immediate risk the virus poses.

Presence is an act of mercy

Consider the fact that while so many lives have been lost to this virus, many others have suffered in silent isolation because of lockdowns, unemployment, and the overall stress of living through a pandemic. The CDC conducted a study in June 2020 called “Mental Health, Substance Use, and Suicidal Ideation During the COVID-19 Pandemic” and found (among other things) that 11% of Americans had seriously considered suicide since the start of the pandemic.

This bears repeating: more than 1 in 10 of the people in our country have thought about killing themselves in the past year. Make no mistake, this is not just a global pandemic; what we are living through is also a crisis of loneliness and meaninglessness. We ramped up our efforts to social distance in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus, but we had no idea the impact that imposed isolation would have on many, particularly those living alone, by severing the vital bonds of community.

My experience at my own parish has been that young people are among the most vulnerable to this sort of desolation. Ironically, young adults who grew up surrounded by technology - most of whom had smartphones by their teenage years - are burned out from the endless barrage of Zoom meetings and virtual “events.” They miss sharing life with other people and crave human interaction. We’ve seen that when the doors open again, they show up.

Covid-tide has made two things painfully obvious: that drawing near to another person is always risky business (germs, disease, and contagious suffering of all sorts being a permanent feature of earthly life), and that we desperately need to do it all the same. Allow me to suggest, therefore, that a very important aspect of evangelical witness during this crisis is presence. I mean, physical presence. Being there. Drawing near and accepting some risk for love of others. As crazy as it sounds, in 2021 it truly is an act of mercy to get dressed, defrost your windshield, and just be there - for real. 

Moving past fear

Recently in a TV show I was watching, a group of characters came in for a big, germy group hug. I was shocked at how I instinctively recoiled at the sight, almost as if something in me had been re-wired to freak out at the sight of human bodies touching one another. It was a realization that there are well-worn pathways of fear and uncertainty in my mind that were not there a year ago.

I know I am not alone in this. We have learned and adapted to an entirely new way of living in society because of the extreme demands that COVID has placed on us, and we should not minimize the difficulty that it will take for us to move from relating primarily over Zoom to meeting in person again. It may be scary for some of us. We may have to get over some newfound social anxiety.

Still, we cannot accept doing everything online as the new status quo. We human beings cannot flourish while we self-isolate, hide our faces from one another, and choose with whom we will and will not interact. These are temporary measures, and we must treat them as temporary and conditional. 
 

St. Damian of Molokai

When one of her sisters commented that she wouldn’t touch a leper for a million dollars, Mother Teresa famously responded with a smile, “I wouldn’t either. But I would touch him for the love of Christ.” It’s a word for our times.

The Teresas and the Damians and the Pier Giorgios of the world show us by drawing near to the untouchable that the love of Jesus, His Church, and His people is the only thing potent enough to free us from fear and embolden us to love even at great cost.  Let us beg for new grace in this season of Lent to move beyond fear and live like saints in these challenging times.
 

Sarah Carter lives in St. Paul with her husband, Will, and her son, Elijah. She and her family attend the Church of St. Mark and are members of the St. Mark Young Adult community. Sarah graduated from the University of St. Thomas in 2014, spent two years serving as a campus missionary for Saint Paul’s Outreach in Columbus, Ohio, and returned to St. Paul in 2016 to begin study for her master’s in theology at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, which she completed in 2019. Now she teaches moral theology and Scripture at Hill-Murray School.