Emerging

Emerging from quarantine is a bit more anticlimactic than I once expected.  

The church service our pastors joyously dubbed "Homecoming Sunday" was a careful, measured (literally) experience of universal masks, friends beyond arm length, and herding through epidemiologically correct pathways.

I have hugged some loved ones in recent weeks.  But it has been less "I'm so glad we're safe again!" and more "This is a calculated risk we're mutually taking...."

I'm surrounded by opinions, often strongly worded, ranging from "It's the flu" to "Catastrophe is likely imminent."


What's a girl to do?

Well, I try to thread my way along a path that I pray avoids death by covid and death by social isolation.


I wear a mask in indoor public places, in an attempt to love my neighbor.


I sanitize my hands even more obsessively than I did before.

I let my kids do swim team but keep them home at the first sign of respiratory symptoms.


I volunteer to take swimmers' temperatures before entering the controlled pool area.

Discovered the "portrait" setting on the iPhone camera!

I help my family suit up in masks for Sunday morning worship, and sing behind mine with gusto, but I print my own sermon notes at home instead of collecting them from the common pile.


I buy my kids summer goodie packages of books and crafts to encourage them to stay home a lot.


I let my kids go to outdoor, socially-distanced youth group, and encourage them to wash their hands and stay away from others.

I thank God from my heart that we homeschool and therefore do not need to worry about whether the schools can open or the buses can carry more than 10 kids.


I tell myself quarantine hair is still in style, thereby avoiding the salon.


We do what we can do, in other words.  And we strive to be gentle with those who disagree on all sides, to live with grace and look to the Lord.