All Things Must Pass

 

 ‘Now the darkness only stays at night time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good
At arriving at the right time
But it's not always going
To be this grey
All things must pass’

  George Harrison ‘All Things Must Pass’’

 

‘It’s beginning to feel a lot like…

… lockdown!’.

So posted one of my colleagues on a Ministers’ forum on social media. Sadly, I share that feeling. I do not know what the next couple of weeks will hold and what further restrictions may be placed upon us, but it seems fairly likely that there will be more announcements in days to come and as the Omicron variant multiplies.

Like everyone else, I fervently hope I am wrong and that planned services will still take place and that our family will still be able to gather together after Christmas and – indeed – that a week abroad in the New Year will still be possible. But my doubts and anxieties are growing by the day.

Already, with my congregation, I am beginning to look ahead and see what decisions may have to be taken about the various planned events and activities over the next couple of weeks.

I have mentioned in posts before, the wonderful charity of which I have the honour of being ‘Chaplain’ – SPIFOX (https://www.spifox.co.uk/). Every year (except for last) it holds a Carol Service followed by a lunch for 1400 folks from the Scottish Property Industry raising phenomenal amounts for Scottish Charities supporting children, young people and their families.

Yesterday the decision was taken to cancel the event planned for this coming Wednesday. It is devastating for so many people and in so many ways.

So, now what?

Everyone is so weary and worried about all of this.

After almost two years, so many of us just want to get back to our normal lives and activities without the new constraints placed upon us. From weddings to funerals, from socialising to visiting elderly relatives in care homes, from worshipping and travelling without face coverings to Christmas parties and family gatherings we want to get back to what we know and love and what all helps our lives to be richer.

But we also need to step back a wee bit and get some perspective on this, and that includes addressing big issues of social responsibility, health service provision and funding, caring for others (especially the most vulnerable) the morality (and implications!) of rich nations hoarding vaccines and so on and on.

I would hope that we might emerge from all of this having addressed some bigger questions, although I fear we may not.

But we also need to hang onto the fact that all of this will pass. All things do. It is not easy and we will be carrying the scars and pain of all this for a long time yet. But it will pass.

The infamous influenza pandemic of 1918 (sometimes, but wrongly, called the ‘Spanish Flu Pandemic’) had four distinct ‘waves’ before subsiding almost exactly two years after it was first identified. The COVID pandemic may last a bit longer than that (and some experts are suggesting that it will). But this too will pass. Not that it will go away, but that it will cease to be a pandemic, will cease to be so ‘potent’, will cease to have such an effect on our lives and our society, will cease to determine our activities to the extent that it has.

And Christians believe that all of this will one day pass. That there will be a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ (however we interpret that vision). Darkness, suffering, crying and mourning will be no more. And it is that hope that has helped to sustain me and many others through these days.

All things must pass. All things will pass.