Journal of the Plague Year Issue 7
It’s Easter Day, and a most unusual one, still caught in social isolation and realising that we could be frozen in this state of hibernation for months. We are compensating in our house, having remote drinks with friends, attending Church remotely—which has been amazing—and watching a live play reading of Kessler’s Orphans; but the debate over the return to normality is starting and there seems to be huge disconnect between recovery and reality at the moment.
I suppose the problem lies in the human addiction to hope, and why shouldn’t we engage in a bout of optimism, although that isn’t quite the same thing. Optimism looks on the bright side, while hope searches for meaning. Of course, the far side of hope is self-delusion, and the best example locally is the NRL; it’s difficult to discern whether they are irresponsible or mendacious or both, with their absurd plan to reopen the competition in late May. How they intend to do that is anyone’s guess, since one positive test would knock a team out of the competition and render the whole thing a joke. One suspects that things are even worse in NRL Headquarters than they are letting on. I think Rugby Union is taking a far more realistic view of things, even if there should be some concern with the mental health of some players in certain positions.
Barney Schwartz wrote an excellent Easter article in the Sun Herald—I know, not where you usually go for inspirational writing, but he is from the Centre for Public Christianity—and explored the idea that the Trinitarian understanding of God is essentially about community. I’m always careful with this kind of argument, because the danger is always present of proposing some kind of Christian exceptionalism: our spirituality is better for mental health, our theology leads to better liturgy, blah blah. But there is something to be said for the idea that being made in the image of God must mean a god of relationships, because our humanity depends on relationships.
Community is about interdependence, so it depends on constant renewal of personal relationships. ‘‘The existence of community is always under threat because that process of renewal can always fail or become perverted or distorted. It cannot simply be taken for granted,’’ Cordner says. Society – in some form – will continue after the pandemic, but community is more fragile.
SMH 12 April 2020
The negative effects of the pandemic and our response are being exhaustively documented: they are economic, social and personal. Isolation, unemployment and stress often lead to depression, anxiety, insomnia, alcohol abuse, psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Canadian psychologist Stephen Taylor, an expert on pandemics, writes: ‘‘Anxiety about your own mortality, fears stoked by a deluge of online articles: these are the most obvious psychological effects of coronavirus. Based on studies of disasters such as floods, hurricanes and earthquakes, an estimated 10 per cent of people affected by traumatic events go on to develop severe psychological problems.’’
So Happy Easter to all those celebrating alone, but together on Zoom, FaceTime, Teams and any number of other platforms. It’s nice to see your faces! Each evening this weekend is a succession of “quarantinis”, and sharing the experience certainly makes it more bearable. It is, after all, a time of hope!
As Pope Francis wrote in his Easter address, Easter is a reminder of the conquest of fear, death and selfishness (“Indifference, self-centredness, division and forgetfulness are not words we want to hear at this time.”).
This is a different “contagion”, a message transmitted from heart to heart – for every human heart awaits this Good News. It is the contagion of hope: “Christ, my hope, is risen!”. This is no magic formula that makes problems vanish. No, the resurrection of Christ is not that. Instead, it is the victory of love over the root of evil, a victory that does not “by-pass” suffering and death, but passes through them, opening a path in the abyss, transforming evil into good: this is the unique hallmark of the power of God.
URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
Perhaps one should read it while listening to “Catch My Disease”!
