Whenever you are sick, you need time to heal. That makes sense, right? Hopefully most people get that. You can tell if they get it when they lay down and rest, take the time they need to have their body and mind recover and repair. I know some people that can’t seem to do that. They are in some weird kind of denial that sleep and healing is for weak people, and they are not weak.
But most of us, when we get moderately sick or injured, seek some healing. We know that we must take some time to rest and heal so that we can gain strength to be better in the future.
Apply this thinking to the Pandemic. If you think about the injuries that took place over the last 3 years or so, they are incalculable. Let’s just say, the pain scale does not have enough numbers in it to describe the level of pain in your community or the whole world for that matter.
I was in the hospital this week before a patient died, some two hours in fact. I’m praying with her, smiling at her, reading Scripture with her and then she is gone shortly after that. This happens every day. I spent many days like this as a chaplain, being at the bedside hours, sometimes minutes, sometimes as they took their last breath. As sad as this might sound, this was common.
The thing that is different because of the pandemic is that people are dying more alone than they have in the recent past. Only two people were allowed in the room with their loved one. And some 25 people were waiting in the waiting area. The time spend together was taken from them, made smaller because of the health concerns.
I am not offering a critique of how we have handled the pandemic, I am asking about how we are going to recover from the pandemic. It seems that many people just want to see it go away, and then sort of forget about it, almost as if it never happened.
But healing can only take place if we remember that it happened and how it traumatized us as people and communities. We need not relive it but go through it together. We need rituals and celebrations and remembrances and hopes of new living and thinking from lessons learned and life lived.
I have a feeling that we were deeply wounded and will be carrying the scars of those wounds for a long time after someone sounds the All Clear Signal. We are carrying deep wounds, terrible memories, and devastating trauma in our bodies. We need to learn the lessons of togetherness, support, renewed vulnerability, awe and wonder. We need healing in various forms.
Now is not the time to close the book on the pandemic but a time to open the book of healing and health. The first book will close itself. But only we can open the pages of the second book. Now is not a time for denial of the need for healing, but a time to embrace healing and the joy of recovering what we have lost, and learning to live anew with what we cannot recover. Make healing a central part of your personal Mission for this year. Healing for you and healing for others. I’m praying for your recovery, as you are for mine.