For thoughts on John 11:1-45, click here.
It's a strange time. The proof was in worship this morning when worshipers picked up their own orders of service from a stack and left their offerings in the plate by the door on their way out. When the peace of Christ was passed with a wave of a hand. When the Communion table was empty. When worshipers were encouraged to space themselves on the pews with an appropriate distance between them and the next person.
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Hopper's paintings feel remarkably like today's social distancing. We are separated from one another. That much is obvious. But what are we feeling? Anxiety? Loneliness? Peace? Is this a time to think and process who we are and what life should be about?
While some of us may have chosen to give up something as a Lenten discipline, all of us have been virus-required to give up a number of things. We can live these more socially-austere days in many ways. May Sarton wrote, Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self. Will our current virus-mandated isolation be a time of poverty or richness? A time of loneliness or solitude? Perhaps answering that question would be a good use of our imposed isolation.
Edward Hopper. (Top) Office in a Small City. 1953. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Bottom) Intermission. 1963. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
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