Humanist Reflections on what the Pandemic Taught Me About Being Human

 

As this is my first time back in the ERUUF sanctuary since last March, I thought it was a good time to share some reflections on what I have learned from my experiences these last 15 or so months.  I titled it “Humanist Reflections” not because I have anything deeply religious or profound to share; rather I did it simply because my number one takeaway is that “Humans need humans!”

 

Last March, when we were heading into the pandemic, none of us knew what to expect. Most of us thought that we would put our lives on hold for a few weeks then return to ‘Normal’!  Looking back, that thinking seems so naïve, yet it reflects that, for the majority of us, life is basically good and the thing we wanted most was to get back to our lives. Now we know that what we called ‘Normal’ was in fact broken in many fundamental ways and now, rather than return, we need to rebuild better.

 

So, what have I learned? Well, I learned the importance of human contact to maintain my sanity.  Pre-COVID, I was involved in group activities essentially every day of the week, activities that couldn’t continue with COVID.  So, what happened? As you know, ERUUF went virtual: services, coffee hour, RE, covenant groups and chalice circles, meetings, choir rehearsals, etc. all went online in one form or another. People who thought ‘Zoom’ meant paying the toll on 147 and 540 to get around traffic in the Triangle learned that it meant joining your peers on a Celebrity Squares-like computer screen. I could see and hear you, at least when you remembered to unmute yourself, and, while it was functional, it was not spiritually satisfying. It was not real human connection.  And doing more of it only led to the very real ‘Zoom fatigue’. Online meetings quickly sap one’s capacity for communicating, but they don’t give back. Electronic connections don’t recharge the emotional batteries the way human connections do. They don’t feed the soul.

 

Singing in public, a spiritual practice for many of us, became a deadly social taboo. The Eno River Singers and my other choir continued to meet weekly via Zoom. We kept the flame of our shared spiritual connection burning, albeit feebly, as we would ‘sing’ muted in our little Zoom boxes, not hearing others and not being heard.  We recorded virtual choir pieces in which our individual voices would be electronically merged and shared, yet it was never the same.  Having returned this month to live rehearsals, I know that the process of hearing, in real time, my voice blend and harmonize with the voices of others is a transformational experience.

 

Early on in the pandemic I started a spiritual practice of each day calling a person in my life that I had fallen out of touch with.  I was sitting at home, confined to that physical space, as was the person I called. Despite that, the process of reconnecting, recalling shared experiences, exposing our mutual vulnerability in the face of the pandemic, and reestablishing that, for each of us, our humanity was vital to the other was deeply spiritual. Each call was different, but each reminded me that humans need humans.

 

 

Perhaps because I am coming up on a birthday with a zero in it, it is impossible to reflect on what I have gained from the pandemic without addressing what I have lost.  I already shared a reflection with you where I talked about ‘names not numbers’ as the pandemic took its toll on people I knew and loved.  There were the people in nursing homes passing without family by their side; memorial services forgone or relegated to Zoom.  However, looking back, I realize that I lost more people who were close to me from natural causes this past year than from COVID, despite the truly horrific numbers that the pandemic has taken.  Facing my own mortality, I realize now that while our lives seemed to stop for COVID, the ‘circle of life’ did not stop.

 

When my purpose on earth is to make heaven on earth and I have lost a year’s worth of construction time, as it were, what have I learned that will enable me to make better use of the tools I have to build with? Well, I learned that humans, including myself, need humans. Going forward, we need to share our common humanity, our strengths and our vulnerabilities, even more than before. We are vital to each other.  Soon, we will regather in this sanctuary as a congregation; but, more importantly, we will each play a role in establishing the ‘New Normal’, a normal that is less broken, a normal that lifts up the least. Together, we will build a ‘New Normal’ that shares all of our many graces equitably, and we will connect in a new way that feeds back nurturing spiritually to all.

 

Make it so.