'Will it Change Something for Good In All of Us?'

Monday May 4 2020

Mireia Vidal is a Spanish student based at New College, Edinburgh under the Church of Scotland's Faithshare Student Programme. In this diary entry from April 23, she reflects on being in lockdown in a foreign country, and on how people and churches might be changed by the pandemic.

While Spain counts more than 22,000 deaths [at the time of writing], and a macro campaign hospital plus two temporary morgues had to be hastily set up in Madrid to keep up with the virus effects, the whole country is still under a complete lockdown way stricter than the UK’s.

Life itself, and with it religious services, has been discontinued for five weeks now - though May 9 appears over the horizon as the 'liberation date', when the bulk of the heavier restrictions are going to start to be relaxed bit by bit.

Spanish churches, including my own, have adapted quickly to this scenario by need, as have many others around the world: YouTube sermons, even whole services, short thoughts sent via WhatsApp, Skype services, and text groups devoted to collective prayer, are the ‘new normal’ way to share communion, worship, hope and, more importantly in this pandemic, closeness.

This practice has been so broadly embraced that I, for one, start to wonder about its ‘overreach’. Don’t get me wrong: it’s been an extremely useful way to help to cope with the situation in a very harsh confinement context, and I’m extremely grateful for the hours of work and recording pastors and ministers have put in - at times even learning from scratch how to use the technology. On the other hand, though, I wonder whether this unprecedented flood of resources has transformed Coronavirus in our sole lens when it comes to our spiritual practice these days.

But back to ground zero in Spain, funerals and farewell services are not held because of the quarantine. Here, the horrific side of the Coronavirus goes beyond its high spreading ratio and lethality; it’s the solitude in which the deceased depart which adds a dramatic toll to an already heartbreaking situation. Dying like this severs not only the physical tie of life but the emotional strings that woven our social communities together. For those left grieving and in need to close the gap, once again cell phones are the only life-line left outside the household.

So communities have taken to sending videos and audios to those bereaved as ways to provide comfort and presence amidst the physical isolation. It’s shockingly unsurprising that in the silent death of those who leave unaccompanied and without a farewell, something of Jesus’ death itself is resembled, i.e., its anonymity. This is difficult to grasp for us Christians because of the centrality of Jesus’ death and resurrection in our faith. But at the time Jesus certainly died devoid of honour, denied of the traditional Jewish funerary practices. The parallel is even more fitting for those who die ‘untagged’, ‘unclaimed’, as exemplified by the ‘mass burial site’ in Hart Island, New York.

Being far away from home and family, friends and church, while in quarantine in a country which is not my own, comes with a mixed range of feelings. I have been in self-isolation for four weeks now. As my days melt one into another and I start and repeat the same motions - sitting in this same chair, in front of this very same computer, in this unchanging desk - I go from obsessively checking out the media for updated figures and news from Spain and the world, to complete boredom and numbness in this little bubble of mine. From sensory overload to emotional detachment in just one hour.  So I try not to check the news as much, and pray more, and hope more, and embrace the certitude we are never truly alone by virtue of God’s love.

And as I receive texts and calls from family and friends, I wonder, once Coronavirus has passed, will we be able to share so unashamedly and boldly our vulnerability? Or will we go back again to our anecdotic radio noise by default in the ICT era? Because while it is not healthy to keep up this degree of emotional stress, it is equally unhealthy to go back to our apathetic, detached normal by lack of meaningful communication.  And even if it’s true to say that Coronavirus has taken unavoidably a lot of space in dealing with our community needs these days, it is an equally valid point to say that on account of it we have shared an intimate nakedness and honesty rarely displayed.

So I'm left to wonder whether in years to come Coronavirus will be remembered for being a pandemic that did not spare even the richest countries on the world - and hence its relevance - or because it changed something for good in all of us. What will it be?

Mireia Vidal
Iglesia Evangélica Española