Why everything must keep touching on the corona

I’m sick of hearing about the ‘rona.

Maybe you are also.

I’m sick of writing about the ‘rona.

Yet, here I am doing it again.

For weeks, every Tiny Bible Bit has been linked to the virus or connected to lockdown.

Frankly, for me, my world hasn’t changed that much.

Sure, my eldest isn’t at school, but my ex is at home from work and, for the last fortnight, Hanna would have been on school holidays anyway.

Work wise, I’m busier than normal, being given additional work/tasks. In this way I’m very fortunate.

My study, which has always been done via distance, has only had a workload increased because I’m now doing a full-time study schedule.

While it’s inconvenient that my gym is shut, it’s not that bad and my church/small group interactions have now moved online.

So, why am I continually stuck in this coronavirus content loop?

Because this is the context the world is in. And, like it or not, this is the world that faith is currently being lived out.

It would be inappropriate and insensitive to ignore it.
It would be foolish to not learn the lessons from it.
It would be silly to produce nothing, depriving yourself of the reminiscing of, what is, a historical time.

While it seems that everything we produce at the moment, even incidentally, will connect with the pandemic, we must remain mindful that for some - many even - wading through our unprecedented predicament is a weight they need help bearing.

Everyone is not as fortunate as me.

And, frankly, not doing vocational ministry at this moment isn’t something I’m regretting.

Remember the percentage of your life calendar

If you live into your mid-eighties, which is approximately life expectancy, then you’d live for around 1000 months.

Today I heard someone on a podcast, when talking about a significant event, mention the place it fell within their life calendar.

I like the concept of having a life calendar.

I’m a fan because this viewpoint can give you important perspective.

For example, your years of schooling - 13 years - on your life calendar, take up 8 weeks of an annual life calendar.

A university degree encases around 3 weeks.

In light of current world events, when viewed upon the framework of an annual life calendar, we are in the midst of a bad week.

When it comes to calamities, how would we view them if we transferred our problems to a life calendar perspective?

Do we, in our current life, think that our life will be irreversibly damaged due to one bad week?

Do we imagine that things will never improve?

Do we, in the middle of a busy month of life, think that their won’t be rest or a payoff at the end?

When we remember that current events, which seem large at the time, are relatively small when viewed against our life calendar then this perspective can help us get through and see that there’s a lot more living to do on the other side.

Where should we place our sins?

With Easter being here, I figure that now would be a good time to post about sin and the cross.

Why do we say that we are placing our sin “at the foot” of the cross?

Surely, we should be putting our sin UPON the cross.
Or UPON Jesus.

Theologically, this is far more accurate.

As a metaphor, we can come forward to the front to leave things at the base of the cross, but this, in most cases can be just as well represented by attaching it to the cross.

I know, it’s not the most pressing matter in a Coronavirus world, but I’d always wondered why we stick with placing things at the foot of the cross when, in reality, this isn’t where they belong.

Who is the blackest sheep?

Who is the black sheep of the family???

When we usually refer to the pariah of a family it normally has something to do with a long-standing disagreement, moral failing or extended douchery.

But I wonder, when one member of a family has a different spiritual position to everyone else, who suffers most?

Is it the believer or the atheist?

Is it harder to be an atheist in a Christian household or a lone believer in a family of atheists or agnostics?

Who is treated more like the black sheep?

Who misses out more?

I suspect, frankly, it may be the atheist amongst believers.

They are, or could be, excluded from major religious gatherings, which happen to also coincide with the secular holiday periods.

They, potentially, will feel judged - Especially if they publicly left the faith.

For those who are children of ministers, their actions will, by some, be a reflection upon the parent as a family leader and spiritual guide.

It doesn’t really happen in the reverse way. This was my experience.

Families aren’t really judged if their child, cults aside, become religious.

Holidays look and feel much the same if these’s only one religious observant person.

In a time when we may be too quick to play the “persecution card,” I wonder if a “persecuted” believer considers what it may look like being in the opposite position?