Dearest Humboldt Neighbor,

This week has been hard for me. I know it’s been hard for you too. 

I know we’re all feeling differing levels of grief and despair. I know fear lurks nearby and wants to reside within you, to dictate your response to life. I know the seriousness of the situation and the hardship it’s bringing your way. I know it’s only been a week but you’re already at your wit’s end and you’re becoming less able to step back from your kids, spouse, responsibilities, loneliness, isolation, and “what if’s” to gain a new perspective. 

Will you do something for me? I want you to check your pulse, take a deeply healing breath in, filling your lungs with the peace and grace of life, and exhale it out. You might find you need to do this a few times.

It’s hard to know how to navigate your people through something you’ve never experienced before. For you to believe you have to know how to help them through isn’t fair for you or them. So step back for a minute. Gain some perspective through deep breaths, each being its own prayer. Know you’re not alone right now. 

God is with you. God loves you, delights in you, believes you are worthy of divine love. I’ll believe it for you when you can’t, because it’s okay if you can’t. 

Taking these deep breaths allows us to pause, savor, be present to ourselves, and gain new perspective. And sometimes a new perspective is what’s needed to find hope in each day. 

As a local pastor I helped usher in a season the Church goes through every year called Lent. Lent started on February 26th this year and will last until Easter, where 40 days are set aside to intentionally prepare and pay attention. Lent always brings me a new perspective, and this year is no different.

About six or seven years ago, our church wanted to figure out who we were as a community. We wanted to know who we were without the lights, the decorations, the image we tried to project. We felt a spiritual nudge to take Lent to a different level, away from the personal experience and into a communal experience. We decided to strip away all the details, the candles and sound system, the band and stage, the media and screens. Throughout the 40 days of Lent we gathered together around the Bible and Communion/Eucharist. We sang the old hymns from the hymnals. We prayed together and shared each other’s burdens and discovered how non-essential all the extras were to authentic community. 

Stripping away allowed us to gain a new perspective. We were changed by that experience and we never went back.

I wonder how this experience we’re in right now is changing us as a people? 

I know none of us were prepared for the ache separation causes, the anxiety which comes from laying employees off, being out of work, shutting and locking doors without any guarantee when you’ll be able to open back up. None of us were prepared for canceled trips, missed birthday parties, funerals no one is allowed to attend, weddings postponed, fields and pools and dance studios emptied, homeschooling our kids. No one was prepared for our computers to become our greatest source of connection. 

But I wonder how we’re being changed by this? What new perspective are we gaining? What will life look like moving forward? What has been stripped away that must be brought back and what must be left behind? What are you discovering about yourself right now?

Many of you are suffering right now. Many are filled with despair, grief, fear, and anxiety because of how uncertain life is. Most of us mask these emotions and feelings by filling every empty space in our life to avoid the pain happening all around us and in us. Most of us have never paused long enough to see a new perspective. We’ve had the long held habit of filling every empty space with Netflix, soccer games, meetings, events, parties, homework, and social media. 

I want to invite you to embrace the emptiness and unknown. Acknowledge what you can control and then acknowledge what needs to be stripped away. Maybe for now all you can do is make meals and clean up meals. Maybe it’s making sure to drink enough water and move your body every day. Maybe it’s forgetting the laundry for a bit so you can read a book you want to read out-loud to your kids. 

Maybe for now it’s allowing the empty space in so you can gain some perspective of what belongs and what must go.

We will all be changed by this experience, but we are not alone. Some things will stay. Some things will go. And maybe we’ll be able to gain new perspective about what truly matters.

So check your pulse. Take a deeply healing breath in, filling your lungs with the peace and grace of God’s abiding love, and exhale it out.

I’m praying for you.

With an abundance of love,
Pastor Bethany 

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Bethany Cseh is co-pastor of Arcata United Methodist Church and Catalyst Church.