When I was growing up in the years B.C. (before COVID-19), Ms. Joyce would stoop to wrap each child in her arms as we exited single file from her Sunday school classroom. She’d always say, “Amen.”
A hug can be a prayer.
In the year of COVID-19, the church I serve has offered online worship since the outbreak in March. Our congregation recently began gathering for outdoor worship as well. We pray the Lord’s Prayer. We hear familiar scriptures like Matthew 25 and Psalm 23. There have been instrumental versions of “Be Thou My Vision” and “Amazing Grace.”
Yet a maximum of 50 parishioners can attend each week. They have maintained social distance in their “circles of safety” chalked in the parking lot. Each person has worn a facemask. There have been no receptions in the fellowship hall.
No hugs.
Are certain people in your congregation proud to refer to themselves as “huggers, not shakers”? One such parishioner told me, “That two-fingered peace sign just ain’t the same.”
I think our country is suffering from a deficit of hugs. Our thoughts and prayers are with the hundreds of thousands who are grieving. But we must keep beloved relatives and friends at a distance of six feet.
It just ain’t the same.
Recent weeks have brought promising news of vaccines. For the first time, there is light at the end of a tunnel. Although the way the year has gone, a colleague suggested that light might be an incoming train.
Still, our Advent faith promises that the people who have walked in deep darkness have seen a great light (Isaiah 9:2). We imagine church on Sunday morning in 1 A.C. (after COVID-19), sitting in our familiar pew, rising to our feet and belting out the old familiars. How sweet the sound!
And after the service, hugs and hugs and HUGS!
Whether great bear hugs or brief side-to-side squeezes or leaning down to wrap arms around a young disciple, those hugs will be Amens. As we wait with hope, we continue to pray:
O Lord, your beloved Son longed to gather us like a mother hen embraces her chicks. We yearn for the comfort of connection, for our losses are terrible, our griefs heavy. As we are wise and patient in taking precautions against this deadly virus, grant us a childlike hope for brighter days. Guide us through this time of physical distancing so that, once it is safe, we will have maintained the emotional connections that allow us to hold one another. Wrap us in your steadfast love in the name of the Incarnate One. Amen and amen.
