I greeted last week’s reimposition of lockdown with a fair bit of gloom and considerable frustration. I know it is necessary and I am broadly supportive of the measures being taken by our Government in these most difficult and unpredictable of circumstances.
But I (like most others!) am not at all enjoying this.
When one friend spoke of feeling imprisoned, I agreed. That is exactly how I feel. We are not free to do those things that we want to do, see the people we wish to see, go to the places that we choose to go. And even if these are things we might not have done, the fact that we cannot choose is what makes it feel like being imprisoned.
But, that said, I am also learning a lot in lockdown… mainly about myself!
I am realising something of what makes me tick, and discovering aspects of my personality that have surprised me.
I had always understood myself as being fairly introverted and certainly always felt comfortable in my own company. Indeed, I sometimes feared that if I did not have reason to go out or see others then I might end up a bit of a recluse.
I was wrong!
I have discovered just how much I need contact with other people; and by that I mean real ‘in person’, physical contact, not simply via a computer screen or a phone. I am so missing being with people! One of the things that brought that home to me is when I had to attend the dentist for a dental procedure. Now, going to the dentist would not rank as one of my favourite pastimes! And yet I came back from that appointment with my spirits lifted, a spring in my step and a smile on my lips (and not just because of the tooth repair I had just had done!). I was positively happy simply because I had been out of the house, had travelled a few miles (legitimately!) and chatted with other people (albeit a receptionist, a dentist, and a dental nurse). I think I may have been so chatty that they probably couldn’t wait to get me to open my mouth and start the necessary work just in order to shut me up!
And I am most certainly suffering from the absence of corporate worship. The spiritual wells are getting very low. This is not because I am neglecting personal spiritual disciplines, which I had once imagined could alone sustain my spiritual being. But because I am missing out on being with others in worship (and also missing singing praises and sharing in the sacrament).
Online worship is fine, but it isn’t the real thing.
Lockdown may have been irritating
and frustrating in so many ways. But it has also been a learning experience.
