Are we coping? (Preaching the Gospel of hope in a tumultuous time)
FIELD NOTES
By Rev. Allie McDougall
THE SPIRIT of this column has been to comment on the “post-COVID zeitgeist” – the spirit of a new age in the shadow of a life-altering global pandemic.
More than five years on, we are still attempting to stabilize and define a new normal, a new baseline for how we live, work, play, and relate to one another. Instability persists and this is borne out in the edginess I perceive in myself and others. Interpersonal tension is high, the ability to cope with mounting pressure and stressors is at an all-time low, and the hope of relief for life’s burdens has been heavily diminished. Because it’s not only the COVID hangover that troubles us, but the possibility that the world has not recovered and has indeed been flung into deeper confusion and division.
I think our response to the pandemic itself was the first red flag for the age to follow. Rather than being unified around a common goal, Canadians found ourselves split on public health policy and the politicization of the same. This has led to further ideological entrenchment, which persists into the current federal election cycle.
We are mired in distrust of once-authoritative institutions, from government to ecclesial, and steeped in cynicism about the integrity of our leaders. Average Canadian households are bearing incredible financial strain in response to the skyrocketing cost of living and stagnating wages. The economic future of this country is subject to the whims of our southern neighbours.
Our news cycles are filled with death and endless war, broken up by invitations to spend and consume more and more. The coping mechanisms offered, while not substantially different from tools used historically in times of crisis, range from mindless consumerism to pharmaceutical treatment to limitless access to recreational drugs, pornography, and smartphone escapism.
When I spend time with friends, family, and parishioners and get beyond small-talk pleasantries, there is a quality of brittle fragility. People are hanging on by a thread to accomplish the tasks of daily life, assaulted by psychic and spiritual anxiety and genuinely afraid of what the future holds. It is a difficult time to preach the Gospel of hope and the promise of liberation that comes in God’s Kingdom when the present moment feels terrifying, when the world has changed but not enough for a new normal to emerge.
Perhaps this is the new normal? The world that existed before the onset of the pandemic was not perfect by any stretch, but our collective memory is short, and we tend to idealize the past. The idea that the future might be worse and less prosperous than the past we recall and cherish is frightening and stressful, particularly for those who were raised in the bright shining hope of the 20th century. If you were promised a future of infinite growth and progress, the acceptance of a future that is defined by scarcity and reactionary reversals feels impossible. Living in the lurch of a pendulum swinging into the unknown is uneasy and anxiety-inducing.
This Eastertide and in the lead-up to Pentecost, we must remember that the Church thrives and grows in seasons like this one, where the ground feels uneven and liable to split open. The earliest followers of Jesus were subject to the whims of empire, wrought with division, and existentially threatened at every turn. These were followers of Jesus who believed, with great cause, that Christ’s Second Coming was imminent, not out of paranoia but to preserve hope in the face of an uncertain future. Sharing in their apocalyptic thinking is not a flaw or failure of hope, it is the choice to re-centre ourselves in the greatest, consummate hope of the Christian faith. This too shall pass (i.e. the turmoil of the present moment), but we have no assurance that a better, more loving, more compassionate world will be brought to its fullness outside of God’s plan to restore the Earth and establish His reign forever. The earthly, immediate hope is that the work has begun in the work of Christ and that the light of the Kingdom shines through the cracks in the veneer of this broken world. Our part in striving for that kingdom is to look for those lights, and maybe make a few cracks ourselves.
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’” (Revelation 21:1-15)
Rev. Allie McDougall is the Vicar of St. Paul's and St. Stephen's, Stratford.