Being at our cottage in Prince Edward Island, I now have a larger appreciation for how COVID is being handled in different parts of the country.  In some ways it is almost like it no longer exists – or at least it is no longer a serious problem.  It is just one of those chronic health challengers we have to live – and hopefully not die from, like the flu.

  Both back at home in Ontario and here in cottage country, there is what can only be described as a relaxed view of COVID.  Most restrictions have been lifted or at least loosened.  We have no restrictions for travelling through provinces and no quarantine requirements or testing upon arrival in P.E.I.  which has assuredly made life much easier.  There are recommendations that we wear masks in stores and public places which is observed more in the breach than in the observance.  It is very easy to go with the flow and forget about wearing one.  

The application of restrictions can lead to a somewhat illogical result.  The Anglican Church here allows us to meet without masks and to sing all the verses of hymns.  However, wine is not to be received by the congregation as it would normally, and only the priest partakes of the wine.  Go figure.  

I believe that we should not let the experience of the COVID pandemic fade into the mists of our memories and not try to use that experience as we move forward both in our religious life as well as our daily life.  This was addressed recently in one of the Daily offerings from the Society of St. John the Evangelist:  

Renewal

We are in the midst of a re-creation moment. As our world continues to reverberate from this once-in-a-generation pandemic, we are confronted with the opportunity to live differently, to not let a good catastrophe go to waste, but to heed the things that the Spirit has prompted in us: outward forms of love and stewardship, and inward forms of healing and renewal.  -Br. Todd Blackham

Many in Anglican Church and other mainline religions today in the West, despair that the church is dying and there won’t be much of the church left in twenty years, if present trends continue.  The Anglican Church in my home town of Parkhill, St, James, closed at the end of June as the latest of many church closings in our Diocese.  It certainly won’t be the last.  I won’t say it begs the question, but it certainly raises the question, what will replace it?  Canadian and all of the Western world is becoming persistently more secular with the church apparently having a much less significant part in the lives of people - particularly the younger generations.   

I really don’t know the answer to that question.  However, what I do know is that something or somethings will arise to replace organized religion.  In my understanding, this will happen because it will be the work of the Holy Spirit.  That part of the Trinity in Christianity faith and dogma often does not receive as much attention as the other two parts God the Father, and God the Son.  This is, at least in part, because it is unpredictable and not under the direct control of church authorities.  This was address in one of the Daily Meditations of Richard Rohr: 

The work of the Holy Spirit, seismic and subtle, never seems to land us in a place of perfect stasis and equilibrium for long.  Rather, it teaches us to be flexible, malleable to the ongoing creation of God such that when we are confronted with an invitation to adapt, we can respond with freedom rather than resistance. Is there some new freedom that the Holy Spirit is inviting you into these days? ‘God dwells wherever man lets him in.’  Buber, The Way of Man, 33

So, in light of this, how do we not let a good catastrophe that COVID has given us go to waste?  It is not going to be easy for many of us who have set ideas of how we should be and what we should do.  We need to have open hearts and minds and spirits to what the future holds and where the Holy Spirit (or just ‘spirt’ for the secular folks) is leading us.  We need to use our discernment in determining if something is the work of the Holy Spirit or is the work of other forces.  However, we need to be open to what lies ahead.  

May you be blessed to engage the Holy Spirit on your journey.