Together We Are Apart
There’s the familiar ding of headphones connecting to a laptop. Rustling from someone’s shirt unknowingly rubbing their microphone. The video chat flips screens back and forth, desperately tracking the orator amongst laughter and feedback. A wave. “Can y’all hear me?”
We are divided. Separated for the good of each other. I’ve been to and touched and experienced different parts of the world than you lately, so we cannot be together. Social distance, inserting physical barriers of the unseen divisions we naturally catalog in our subconscious.
Scott Erickson, 40 Days Prayer Book
Scott Erickson, 40 Days Prayer Book
We’re very aware that we’re different from one another. We don’t need to be reminded. As humans, we excel at identifying our differences and distinctions. We process data by recognizing distinctions, we make economic decisions based upon individuality and rarity, we classify every living organism based upon distinctions. Individually, I boast about certain distinctions of my own, making sure others realize these distinctions individualize me from the rest. I conceal other distinctions, knowing they could be the immediate trait that brands me. I remember people based upon their distinctions, the things that stick out as unique and interesting. Sometimes in admiration and envy, while other times in skepticism and judgment.
We don’t need to be reminded that we’re different. Society has wired us to operate around identifying these differences. Our skills are different. Interests are different. Character traits and tendencies are different. And overwhelmingly, our environments, experiences, and consequently, perspectives are different. It’s these differences that, on a day-to-day basis, we recognize and sort. We don’t notice the standard beak and build of a flock, but the distinguishing marks that categorize each member.
In this period of division and separation, we’ve been throttled into a new normal that distances us from one another. We’ve been divided based upon our exposure to the world. Your exposure most likely doesn’t look like mine, so we are separated. Yet somehow during this separation, this physical representation of our differences, there’s a clear picture of our shared reality. Somehow we’re not just seeing the marks that distinguish the individual, but the unity of the flock. We’re recognizing our shared experience amidst our new present reality.
Scott Erickson, 40 Days Prayer
Scott Erickson, 40 Days Prayer
Our deeply human response to this crisis shows that, while we’re different, we’re all deeply human. We’re reminded that we all bear the same image. I was made based on the same image as you. By the same hand we were crafted, and from the same image we were shaped. God didn’t make a human and dash on a bit of His image at the end. He created man and woman in, rooted and based upon, His image. Our bones and breath concede to our unity in a way our minds proudly fumble with. We are the same far more than we are different. This new normal is reminding us of that.
And during this new normal, we’re scared. We’re anxious. We’re uncertain. We’re struggling with not being able to plan for the future, with finding identity or validation without our normal happenings, with anger towards injustice, with isolation, with battling laziness and temptations at home all day. We’re baffled at how to do life — how to homeschool, respond to the devastating demands in the health industry, be an effective worker from home, run a church, disciple, serve those around us while not endangering our world. We’re re-wearing the same outfits every day, figuring out how the heck to cook, making jokes about toilet paper, and wondering why teachers get paid so little because homeschooling is like herding cats in a science lab that’s also your kitchen table. Our world looks different right now, and it’s in this transition that we have a clear lens to see our similarities. This unifying experience reminds us of our unifying existence.
“Can y’all hear me?” A kid runs across the screen, screaming at their sibling, I hear someone’s dinner cooking, knife chopping, oil sizzling. We sit and chat about our related yet odd present day-to-day life, recognizing that our inherent image, our core existence, overcomes space and time. God’s image resonates through our being, and we are together.