From the Chaplaincy
Getting Back to 'Normal'
Despite the lockdowns and distancing we saw neighbours singing from balconies, strangers paying forward coffees, homeless rescued into short term apartment stays, friends baking for each other and donations to those who most needed it. Crafts, hobbies, connections, and friendships renewed online despite the distancing. Will that be lost if we go back to normal? Should we be even looking to go back to “normal?”
Photos from the HT staff wellbeing activities including shouting a stranger a coffee, snacks with friends online, family fun walks and care packs.
Arundhati Roy, author of “The God of Small Things” voiced a different perspective when she wrote “Our minds are still racing back and forth longing for the return to ‘normality’, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture …. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.” She sees the current despair more as an opportunity and imagines a world anew and encourages us to leave “our prejudices and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us …. and to walk lightly, with a little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Will we see an acceleration of kindness, creativity, community openness, climate initiatives, equality reforms and spirituality as the virus ends?
In the UK Telegraph Jordan Kelly-Linden examines the research.
“The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a 50 per cent surge in online searches for prayer as people turn to religion to cope with feelings of anxiety and hopelessness.”
Jump in online prayer searches at the start of the pandemic.
University Chaplain Reverend Kate Harford adds "A lot of religious communities have really positive things to say about well-being and about how to construct an identity for yourself in a time of crisis and that will be appealing right now," she says. Even some doctors stressed the importance a “spiritual immune system” during times of crisis. In Christian Science the focus is on the constant divine harmony that reigns and can be steadfastly relied on at all times.
While discussing the lockdown restrictions with some HT Year 12 students the question was posed “What is something good that came out of an amended or cancelled activity due to the restrictions?” Those brave enough were able to point to blessings and progress despite the disappointment. The senior show was cancelled but a student still learnt how to manage the backstage operations and work with new friends.
Felice in her role as Assistant Stage Manager for the Show
To those learning on the sustaining infinite today is big with blessings.
- Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy
If you missed the live uplifting talk by Nate Frederick C.S. on Christian Science, which values underpin Huntingtower, it is now available via the following link:
From the Chaplaincy Team