Covid Updates part who-knows-what

I have a few different places I record my pandemic thoughts--my journal, my blog, a special Covid-19 notebook I have--but it gets to the point where I don't even remember what I've written where, or if there's even a "part i, ii, iii" to all of it. Because, when we get down to it, this feels like the song that will never end. Or like that part in Jacob 7 where Jacob mentions that "our lives passed away as it were unto us a dream." Yep. It's feeling a lot like that nowadays--nowaweeks.

But here are some snapshots of our endless numbered days (if you get the music reference I am making, you will get virtual brownie points--which may or may not be translated into real brownie points once everything settles down).

[typical work station.]

[sam and i re-created a work of fine art.]

[repin's ivan the terrible and his son.]

[we went on walks around capitol hill.]

[secret garden house.]

[complete with home-made face mask, courtesy of betsy.]

[sam and i re-created another work of fine art.]

[i indulged my vanity with sunglasses and selfies.]

[sam and i went to a "pick your own produce" place and wore face masks and brought our own knives, so sam looks like a surgeon in the kale.]

[you can't tell, but i'm smiling.]

[BIG shoutout to some friends in my department who sent over a pile of Super Kontik cookies. MADE MY DAY. And subsequent days, because Sam and I are still enjoying them.]

[slightly crazed, but oh-so-happy to have a coconut Super Kontik cookie Tim-Tam Slam style.] 

We feel incredibly blessed that our friends and family members are safe and whole, but we know that it not the case for millions in the world, and we are doing what we can to flatten the curve. I hope that this next week of the pandemic treats us all more kindly than the last week, whatever the state of your last week may have been. 

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

This Easter, I have been thinking a lot about how the Resurrection means reunion. Because of physical distancing, lockdowns, and separation from family and friends, I've been thinking a lot about how wonderful it will be to join with people again--to go on long walks in the park with friends, to have people over to dinner parties, to hug and kiss my family members in Utah (and around the country), to go to lunch with classmates, and to just be close to people again. It will be a beautiful day when we can reunite and see each other again without anxiety and fear.

Often, I think about the Resurrection as an individual event--and certainly, Christ did resurrect individually, and all of us will be resurrected individually, and there is something really beautiful about the corporeality and uniqueness of the resurrection happening to every one--but the resurrection is ultimately a communal event focused on reunion. Not only does it mean a reunion with our spirits with our physical bodies, but it means a reunion with those we've loved and lost. It means being able to embrace, hold, weep with, and laugh with those we haven't touched in ages. It means connection--not only spiritually, but physically.

"If Easter faith is worth anything, it claims that love survives. Loves survives, without all of its adornments. The miracle of Easter resurrection, coupled with that vision of Holy Saturday, is that witnesses run to the tombs--not because they know. They run because they refuse to be disconnected."--Shelly Rambo.

Happy Easter. Christ is risen; in truth He is risen. And next year may we be having Easter feasts and rituals with scores of loved ones around us.