Virus in Peace-Time

One of the positive benefits of disaster—potential and actual—is to alert us to dormant wisdom. That wisdom often consists of things we have long known, but have chosen to neglect. Wisdom is right valuing in service of right acting. At a time of pandemic, as at all times, we require both.

C.S. Lewis is one of many sources of such wisdom, often a transmitter perhaps rather than an original source, given that the wisdom he offers is ancient, as he insists. On the day the terrorists brought down our New York towers, killing thousands in mere minutes, I had a class that afternoon. I put aside the topic of the day, which I forget, and read them Lewis’ sermon “Learning in War-Time,” delivered in Oxford’s university church in 1939, at the beginning of World War II. It is a defense of advanced learning—and much more—during times when other things seem far more important. I wanted it in my students’ heads along with the horrifying images they had just inhaled and the fearful thoughts that were swirling.

I think Lewis’ sermon is again a gift to us as we face another crisis. His main assertion, I hazard to say, is that extreme events do not fundamentally change our circumstances, but rather clarify them. In his own words:

The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with ”normal life.” Life has never been normal.

The unchanging reality for Lewis, as a Christian, is that we live on the edge of eternity (he might even say within eternity). And we must think and act in accordance with that reality. That is the true ‘normal,’ not the false normal of getting and spending and pleasure and power seeking and restless busyness.

The great witness to this truth, which we expend great energy in ignoring, is death. The wise of the past understood this, hence the prominence of tombs lining the corridors of our oldest cathedrals, often crafted in ways that emphasize the fleetingness of life and corruptibility of the body.

Lewis reminds us that nothing about war—or viruses—changes our relationship to death or makes it more frequent. He points out that “100 percent of us die,” and for both young and old the moment of death may be the next moment. This is not morbid, it is simple reality and it has the salutary possibility of encouraging us to live well instead of foolishly during the brief time (compared to eternity) given us.

This ought not to leave us with our head in the clouds. Lewis says there is nothing about faith that excludes, or excuses, us from “natural activities.” We do many of the things that others do: work, study, play, love, raise families. The difference is that we offer even the most mundane of these things to God. Otherwise they are a form of idolatry.

It will strike some as too high sounding to speak of God and eternity and right valuing at a time of deadly crisis. What, practically speaking, are we to do with such “wisdom”?

My answer, following Lewis, is to do the pragmatic things that we are advised to do, including keeping our distance and washing our hands. Add to that the compassionate things we are called to do, such as checking in on our neighbors and friends, donating time and money to community effects to stem the virus. Add also the things that only believers are likely to add: prayer and petitions to and continuing worship of the Creator and Healer.

And offer all these to God, in an attitude of calm obedience, knowing that there is nothing frightening about death for those who know that death has already been defeated. The same can be said about economic hardship and the other things we understandably worry about.

This will test all the virtues, including faith. It will require courage and love and hope and even imagination. For example, some folks in recent years have put little shelters on a post in their front yard and stocked it as a neighborhood lending library—take a book, leave a book (or not). I find it both imaginative and encouraging that some are now adding cans of soup. Take and eat, a sacred phrase for many of us, to go along with take and read.

Or consider the gathering that took place in our neighborhood last week. Maybe twenty folks long indoors streamed into the vacant lot next to the old fellow’s house across the street and sang to him as he waved from the window. Someone had to imagine that happening. I wouldn’t have thought of it myself.

This is what we are to do in virus time. This is what brings living peace—shalom—into the world. It’s what we’re called to do. It’s why we’re here. Virus time gives us a chance to be ourselves.