Isolation Needed For Our Future Togetherness
By Rev. Dr. Betty W. Holley, Contributing Writer
The era of COVID-19 has challenged our lives since March 2020 to the present moment, the beginning of this brand-new year, 2021. Churches, K-12 schools, institutions of higher learning, local, state, and federal governments were forced to go into isolation to save lives of out brothers and sisters, globally. If we ever want to experience some form of togetherness in 2021 and beyond, our isolation must continue.
Never has the word “isolation” been given so much attention and a plethora of definitions. What has been your experience with definitions for the word “isolation?” Was it being separate from your church family, no family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas, stuck outside the United States in a foreign country, mandated stay-at-home order from work or school, no visitation with love ones in nursing facilities and hospitals or unable to attend funerals of persons known and admired? How best we can isolate has become lifegiving for survival during this COVID-19 pandemic.
With isolation comes pain is the bad news. Whatever definition adopted for the word “isolation” to get on the other side of this pandemic challenge, has brought pain like never before. It has been said that “Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional;” a quote attributed to the Dalai Lama, Haruki Murakami, and M. Kathleen Casey. This is a true statement whether in the middle of a pandemic or not. Where there is life of any type, physical or emotional pain or both, will exist. The good news is that since we cannot go through life without experiencing physical or emotional pain in any given situation, we have a choice as to how we will respond. Victor Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Frankl was not only a renown psychiatrist, but a Holocaust concentration camp survivor, who was not a stranger to pain and suffering. How we choose to navigate our way through the pain puts the ball in our court! How we choose to navigate there lies our growth and freedom. Yes, we are in the middle of the worst pandemic we have ever seen. Yes, our physical doors to the church are closed. Yes, our life-giving electric charge, social interaction with each other, has been plugged. We cannot choose whether we are going to experience these things which are indeed painful. Pain has its own life cycle. Pain hurts sometimes quite a lot; but pain is indeed temporary. Pain does not have to lead to suffering. Reacting to our pain with resistance-not wearing a mask, not social distancing, gathering in large numbers at the church or in our homes, will prolong our suffering, our isolation. Riding out our various hurts without resisting-wearing a mask, social distancing, not gathering in large numbers are our options toward a future together post COVID-19; even after taking the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.
