We just watched the series finale of Schitt’s Creek, a comedy about a wealthy New York City family forced to live in a small, rural town after their financial empire collapses. What sets this amazing show apart is the evolution of the family members. The residents of the small town are never the butt of the joke, but rather the condescending and often neurotic, self-important arrivals from the Big Apple become the punchline.
Who are they now that their former identities no longer matter? How might their mild trauma and undesirable situation become an opportunity for transformation? Over the course of the series, the simple, open-hearted townspeople crack open the hearts of the self-absorbed city folk, who discover and embrace a richness of humanity within and all around them.
During the Coronavirus pandemic, we have been evicted from our places of familiarity, routine, and safety. We find ourselves in unfamiliar, uncertain, often frightening territory. Right now, our immediate focus is and must be survival. How will we care for ourselves and those we love? How will we respond to the needs in our community and support one another?
We also face questions of identity: Will we allow ourselves to be cracked open, personally and collectively, during this pandemic and beyond? Will we discover a depth of love and compassion that transforms who we are, what we value, and how we live as a species on this planet?
This week our faith traditions offer stories to help hold such questions. Christians observe the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday (Holy Week). Jews observe Passover, when the angel of death “passed over” houses marked with the blood of a lamb, after which they leave slavery in Egypt for a promised land.
The point of these stories is not that there’s a personal escape hatch for trouble. All around us, families are dealing with suffering (physical, emotional, and economic) and even with death, which has not passed over their homes.
These stories tell us that the way of salvation is simultaneously personal and collective, internal and external. We recognize midst our physical distancing an innate solidarity with all life. We open our eyes to see the resurrected Christ everywhere in every face. We resolve that during this suffering and on the other side of whatever resurrection might come, we will remember our common vulnerability and our common Sacredness.
Midst my daytime pondering on these things, I had a dream last night. In the dream, I am with a chaplain colleague and his spouse. We look out over the landscape of where we live: desolation everywhere. Barren. Dry. We talk about another colleague who has had to move a ridiculously distance away to somewhere even more desolate.
Midst the despair, a woman appears. She is thin and middle-aged. She projects a sense of calm strength. She makes large circles in the air. With the first circle she says, “One Shared Life”. With the other circle she says, “One Shared Happiness”.
I begin to feel a new sense of hope. I feel an innate connection with everyone, with all life. I am not in this alone, and it’s not all about me. I am one part of the shared life. I can relax into that truth and not take desolation so personally. I ease into what is and into my own skin. I trust a deep joy that can never be extinguished.
As we enter the days ahead, may we be willing to be broken open and our hearts resurrected so that when this trouble passes over, we are different and know ourselves to be One Shared Life. So that, even midst our personal and communal pain, we know the One Shared Happiness holds, and that holds us.