Staying Connected

What have I learned in this time of pandemic, derecho, racial inequality, and political unrest? That it is utterly important for us to stay in contact with one another. I find myself pacing around in our apartment—a certain restlessness that comes from isolation and a lack of exercising. And during that period it has given me time to time to think, pray, and call people on the telephone.

At first it seemed like I needed to call everyone I knew: people in my church, people in the Inter-Religious Council, family members, friends I had lost contact with. I think I was trying to reassure myself that things were all right, that somehow God was still in control of the world, and that things would eventually get better.

It was amazing how happy most people seemed to be to hear my voice when I called them. Of course, there were those who were perhaps leery of my call from out of the blue, and maybe rightly so, since I never or rarely called them. And I found myself taking notes so I could remember what illnesses they had suffered or the names of their children. Things I should have known or wanted to know but had never bothered to ask.

Then something incredible happened. On the day of the derecho, a friend from seminary called as the sirens went off. I hadn’t talked with Gary since our seminary days 40 years ago, and I had tried many times to track him down, all unsuccessful. But finally, we broke through, and that friendship has blossomed long distance into weekly phone calls. Another new best friend.

In the past three years I have had my own illness to contend with, a cancer that I thought was stopped with surgery, but which required an additional string of radiation treatments. So I was working on my empathy, my ability to reach out of my own pain and suffering and relate in some small way to the pain and suffering of others.

While I do not have that urgency to call people that I once did, I still find myself needing to talk with someone in my network at least once a day. I think and hope it has made me a more loving person. That is the least I can learn from all this suffering and madness.

By Charles R. Crawley