Being a pastor during this pandemic feels something like the life of Bill Murray’s cynical weatherman character, Phil Conners, in the classic rewatchable film “Groundhog Day.” At first, Phil is in utter denial at the prospect of the unending repetition of his days. He has the same conversations over and over and over and … . What’s that, another Zoom call where we spend most of our time trying to ask others to unmute?
The second stage of Phil’s endless day is what I’d call the “delight stage.” Phil tries out new things, eats the junk food he’d never eat in real life and spends a little too much time at the local bar. We Americans have a phrase for this stage: it’s called “letting ourselves go.” I knew I was in this stage of the pandemic when I cooked my second frozen pizza of the day a few weeks ago.
On the heels of this stage is the darker stage of despair. Living life in the eternal cycle of sameness leads Phil to the brink of hopelessness. While the movie makes light of Phil’s mental instability, there is an unfortunate truth written beneath the comedy. Within the reality of Phil’s endless day is a profound isolation and a concomitant loneliness. This reality of dis-ease has become our new normal. While the American worldview of exceptionalism and endless positivity is forced upon us from all sides, deep down we all know better. Our situation is not hopeless, but neither is it hopeful without lament, without naming the wounds of our endless days. Psychologists have named our experience of a plethora of emotions – often at the same time – as a collective grief. We are all moving through the stages. First denial: “This isn’t happening.” Anger: “Why is this happening to me?” Depression: “I cannot take this any longer.” Bargaining: “This will only go on for a few more weeks.” And finally, acceptance. I’m not sure we’ve felt that last stage yet.
We’ve all been more irritable lately, more overcome by fleeting moments of sadness, more bemused by the prospect of waking up in the same day, over and over and over and … . Our purely Disney-esque predilection to sentimentalize or belittle our societal grief is just plain wrong. Feelings are not always trustworthy, but they are nonetheless what it means to be human. Jesus, too, experienced these stages of grief. Denial: “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Anger: “Could you not stay awake an hour!” Depression: “My soul is overcome with grief, to the point of death.” Bargaining: “Lord, if it be your will, pass this cup from me.” And acceptance: “But not my will but yours.” Christianity is not the business of blithely moving past grief and suffering.
The last stage of Phil’s Groundhog Day experience is what I would call “discovering virtue.” Virtue is one of those Christianese words that has become synonymous with “values,” as if people just are virtuous or not. But this kind of virtue is something closer to what theologians call practical reasoning. Practical reasoning is how an athlete becomes a great athlete — drills, weights, conditioning, over and over and over. Put another way, discovering virtue is akin to discovering how to play an instrument. One jazz musician tells the story of getting an hour to jam with Miles Davis. When asked what it was like, the musician commented, “All we did was practice scales.” Before we can improvise in life, we need to practice. Anyone who has seen “Groundhog Day” knows that Phil begins the film as a pompous, narcissistic jerk. But with time, he learns and practices compassion and love. Over time – a lot of time – kindness becomes second nature to him, and selflessness becomes as normal as breathing.
All of this has made me wonder what small intentional ways of life we might practice in our current Groundhog Day. If you’re in a clergy Facebook group like me, you’ve noticed that some of us have practiced discouraging others. Come on, y’all — pastors just need a word of encouragement! None of us know what we’re doing in this endless day we’re having, but maybe we can start to practice grace and edification. I’ve also started noticing the thousands of videos and articles on how to be the church when we return to worship. Important stuff. But it’s also made me exceedingly anxious. Yes, all of us need to think about how the church and culture are being indelibly changed in seismic ways. However, I’m not sure having even the most creative strategies, the most innovative online presence or the best made plans will get us where we need to go. Those things were true of us before all of this, and none of them prepared us for the whirlwind.
When Jesus faced the uncertainty of his days – always when things were tense, overwhelming, and abnormal – he would “withdraw to solitary places to pray.” Seems like a real waste of time when the world is on fire. Maybe Jesus is telling us that while the church of tomorrow needs entrepreneurial leaders, it also needs pastors who talk to God. I realize that’s a lot to ask. I’m still working on how it is I talk to God at all. Some days it feels like a spousal argument, others like a child pleading to be let out of time out, always like shouting into a void. But as Thomas Merton reminds us, “Though I do not know where I am going, nor do I know the way, I do believe the desire to please God does in fact please God.”
I wonder if there is in this time an invitation to the practice of listening, of silence, of honest God-talk. For those with young kids, I realize this feels like an impossibility. I also realize that, having no kids, time for writing this piece was much easier to come by. Nevertheless, if we spend all of our time planning for the future, we will meet the future as “planners.” And that’s part of the equation. But if we spend our time listening for the Spirit’s whisper, even when it first sounds like thunder and looks like fire, we may become people who possess the virtue of listening, of silence. The future will be loud, but the world was created from brooding silent darkness.
So when your alarm rings tomorrow morning, and the radio plays the same old song, and you find yourself stuck inside the same old house, with the same old people, maybe you can put a pizza in the oven and pop on “Groundhog Day.” Maybe, too, like that self-centered weatherman, Phil Conners, you can find small moments to practice something new. Maybe you can pray. And if you have no idea how, that’s okay — we all need to practice unknowing, too. We will never know what tomorrow brings, even if it’s the same day over and over again. But we can know how we will live.
JOSHUA MUSSER GRITTER co-pastors First Presbyterian Church in Salisbury, North Carolina, with his wife Lara. They watch movies together with their dog Red.
