NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

  "Religion, whether we like it or not, is intimately tied to the culture in which it exists." Phyllis Ticlke I, for once in my life, am not planning on making any New Year Resolutions as we leave 2020 and roll into 2021. Our lives both individually and corporately this past year have involved little else BUT change as we struggled to come familiar with the unknown entity called COVID-19.  Indeed, as the health officials became more familiar with this virus, their advice changed to reflect the new knowledge that had been gained. And so our lives changed as well. We all remember the mask question. Do we wear one or not? The answers ranged from ‘If you want to you can but masks don’t really make any difference’ to ‘They help protect others but not the wearer’ to (and I believe this is where we are right now) ’While masks protect others, they have also been shown to protect the wearer as well’. Sometimes I feel like I’ve spent the last 10 months on a Merry-go-round! Don’t get me...

  “Jesus is the reason for the season“ is a saying we are all familiar with hearing in December. This year however we well might hear people saying “COVID is the reason for the season” , the reason for in-person shopping being discouraged, for the lack of office parties and other Christmas gatherings, as well as for not celebrating with family on Christmas Day. And yes, even. (or especially) in our churches where with attendance being severely limited, there have been no Carol services, no pageants, and no packed Christmas Eve service planned for. Christmas Day looks very different this year in our house, and I suspect  in yours as well. There are very few decorations out because with no one coming into see them, why bother? I would just have to put them away again by January 6th! While we meet friends on ZOOM I miss actually seeing them face-to-face. I could go in and on, but you can fill in the rest yourselves. So some might say that Chrismas is ruined this year. But in rea...

This year has taken forever and at the same time has gone in the blink of an eye. I wonder if you feel the same way...   Last March the prospect of a month’s lockdown seemed to be forever. Had we realized then that 10 months later we would be looking forward to another 10-12 months of COVID before the vaccines have reached everyone and we can begin to relax our precautions just a little, it would have felt like forever! Time, however like religion , is a human construct, at least according to Christopher Hitchens. I remember seeing a television show where Hitchens explained how time doesn’t really exist. It is something that humans used to explain the disconnect between for example sunrise and sunset, or when you start on a walk and when you got to your destination. We have quantified that disconnect and used clocks and calendars to keep track of it. His point was that there is really only this moment right now, and what we are doing during it is really all that is. Sounds sort of ...

  This quote was in a Christ mas newsletter we received this past week and it echoes what many, if not most of us, are feeling.    “ ...it is a little like being handed a newborn baby for the first time wondering how to cope with all the differences this Christmas brings to us.”   (Judy Imrie)  A few days ago I watched a special on TV titled “The Twelve Days of Christmas” which focused on celebrations in England during Advent and Christmas in Tudor times (during the reign of King Henry VIII). Interestingly, their customs were more in line with this years’s reality than the producer had probably envisaged. Fasting was ordered for the whole of Advent, which then felt dreary and cold. Decorations were banned until Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was spent in church. Gifts, dancing and food wasn’t on the calendar until January 12. The time between Christmas Day and then was spent enjoying simple games and activities within the family. Sounds more like COVID times then ...

“It’s hard to imagine life after COVID.” (Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario) We are adaptable people, but it doesn’t happen automatically or overnight. In our pre- COVID life, we didn’t fully appreciate the importance of social interaction. Indeed we often would turn down an opportunity to have lunch or grab a coffee with a friend because we were too busy, too busy with mundane tasks or activities that could  be done alone (and indeed have been over the past 8 months). What about those things that we said we would do one day when we weren’t too busy, things like seeing a concert in a park with a friend, dropping in to visit people on a whim, volunteering to help serve a meal to the homeless? Our ability to safely (or wisely) do all these r things and a myriad of others was taken away from us without warning last March. Will we appreciate and take advantage of social interaction once it is possible again or will we forget all about the pandemic and go back to our old habits. Can it...