On
my office file cabinet I have a magnet that scolds, “You’ve been bad. Go to
your office!”
Of
course this echoes what some of us heard as children, “You’ve been bad. Go to
your room!” The isolation, the confinement, and the implied restrictions served
as punishment to dissuade us from bad behavior. In more recent times it was
called a “time out.”
In
the olden days, when I was growing up, it meant no television, no telephone, no
play, and for some, no dinner—this in the days when there was only one TV and one
phone in the house, and no devices on which to play games or watch something in
your room. Do we mistake our present isolation as a kind of punishment?
This
is how those most privileged among us might experience the “stay-at-home” confinement
of our worldwide pandemic. A slight inconvenience, but a nagging reminder of
the dangers of our footloose-and-fancy-free days when we could do just about
anything we wanted.
It
reminds me of when I was once shushed by a favored aunt as a little boy. Me,
trying to be the best-little-boy-in-the-world, an offender?! How could this be?
Now,
don’t get me wrong. As an introvert, I appreciate time alone or time with a
few. As a spiritual person, I know I am not alone, but surrounded by a great
cloud of witnesses before God. As a reader, I enjoy hearing from all kinds of
people. As a writer, I am gratified to have people read my stuff. Even this
post I feared would sound like whining!
But
I’m writing this because I know I am not the only one who feels discombobulated
by the necessity of social distancing, limited physical contact, and fearful
interactions. When I go to buy our groceries, I feel as if I’m on a risky venture.
When I don my mask and sometimes gloves, I feel like I’m getting ready for a walk
in space.
I
couldn’t bring myself to watch the prison drama series, Orange Is the New
Black, because I find the idea of imprisonment depressing. The earlier
prison drama series, Oz, also didn’t appeal to me, despite its erotic
male content.
Long
ago I had a dream in which I found myself in prison, cut off from all those
people I cared about and cared about me. I thought, well, with so much time
on my hands, I could get a lot of reading done! But, in the dream, I was
too depressed to pick up a book.
Maybe
all this reminds me of my years in the closet as a gay youth. Maybe it’s
reminiscent of the limitations of an early adolescent political conservatism that
was transformed by education and compassion and maturity. Undoubtedly it smacks
of the confining Christian fundamentalism that held me down and held me back from
truly enjoying the world and even enjoying myself until I was in college.
The
apostle Paul had his own fundamentalism to overcome, one that prompted his initial
persecution of liberalizing Christians. And he purportedly produced one of his
finest epistles while under house arrest in Rome: Ephesians. Concerned with the
partisanship within the early church, he eloquently argued that now, in following
Jesus, Christians were one, overcoming any “dividing wall of hostility.”
I pray those who believe in a fair and just representative democracy may share such a vision of unity in our present state of house arrest.
I pray those who believe in a fair and just representative democracy may share such a vision of unity in our present state of house arrest.
Related
posts:
I
will be leading a virtual, at-home retreat open to the public for Columbia
Seminary’s Spiritual Formation Program with Zoom sessions September 17-19, 2020
entitled
You are invited!
The site’s dates include “reading weeks” beginning August 31st in
which you are invited to comment on the texts for the retreat and a final day “Sabbath”
for rest and reflection on September 20th.
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Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser.
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Chris--I think this is a very thoughtful reflection of our current situation in this pandemic. Stay-at-home, shelter-in-place, quarantining can be so emotionally draining, even for introverts who like to read. I like how you connected it to your time as a "closeted gay" and to political conservatism and fundamentalist Christianity. I always enjoy reading the posts on your blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wes! Always good to hear from you!
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