Days like today make me think of my Granddad.  He was a laid back and jolly guy, but even he had his limits.  I was blessed to live near him when I was growing up.  My siblings and I spent hours on end at my grandparents’ house.  I’d like to think we were generally well-behaved.  On the occasions when we got too rowdy, Granddad would boom, “Go to your rooms!”  This would inevitably stop whatever was going on and put us into giggles.  “We don’t have a room here, Granddad!”  He would grin and reply, “Then maybe I should go to MY room!”  An adult in time- out?  How ridiculous!

Ridiculous, indeed.  Our lives have changed drastically in the last few weeks.  Nothing feels normal anymore.  I feel like we are all in an indefinite time-out.  There’s a post going around on Facebook that says, “I had no idea I was giving up this much for Lent.”  I laughed the first time I saw it, but now it feels all too real.  I usually love this time of year.  Spring has arrived.  Every day brings a new tree budding, blossoming, or sprouting new green leaves. Flower petals fly through the air like snow and carpet the earth beneath the trees.  Pine trees release their pollen and it covers everything like yellow volcanic ash.  It is impossible to miss the outward signs of spring in Atlanta.  It is often said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.  But this year? Out like a lamb? Have you seen the news? It feels like a lion to me.

March brought a steady stream of bad news.  Coronavirus took hold.  School cancellations devastated my teenagers.  Family members are out of work.  We have been cut off from physical contact with our loved ones.  I was at the point where I felt like I couldn’t take one more bad break.  I was lost and the hits kept coming.  I called a loved one to check on her.  She is the sole caretaker for her husband.  He suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease and has declined rapidly over the last several months.  I did not expect the news that met me on the other end of the phone conversation.  “How are you today?” was answered with, “I had to call the police.”  Adrenaline surged through my body.  The police! What happened?

I was heartbroken to learn that he got angry about something silly (this happens with Alzheimer’s) and he ran off.  No warning, no discussion, he just bolted from the house.  They live in a mountainous area of north Georgia.  She chased after him in her pajamas and the only shoes she had by the door at the time- rainboots.  She got in the car and drove down the road after him, pleading all the while for him to calm down and come home.  He was having none of it.  He veered off of the road and into the thickly forested treacherous terrain. She jumped out of the car and tried to follow him on foot, but he eluded her.  In a panic, she called her son in Chattanooga.  He instructed her to hang up with him and call the police immediately.

It took an hour and a half to find him.  Ninety minutes of agony for all of them.  So many thoughts of what if.. landing heavily on her heart.  It was also an hour and a half long display of the best humanity has to offer.  In this current time of quarantine/shelter in place instructions, her neighbors rallied without a second thought.  The community office sent out Facebook messages asking for help.  People showed up in trucks and on 4-wheelers.  This is a somewhat sparsely populated area.  Even so, groups materialized out of nowhere and joined in the police search. Friends prayed for her, albeit from 6 feet away.  Those people loved on her and worked hard to locate him.  One of the volunteers eventually found him on a road rather far off from where he started.  He couldn’t tell his rescuer much.  He didn’t know where he was supposed to be and he didn’t remember why he left home.

Luke 15: 3-6 says this:

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.  Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’

They found him confused and sporting a few scratches, but he was basically unharmed.  They rejoiced!  In the middle of coronavirus, shelter orders, and all sorts of frightening unknowns, they rejoiced together.   Distancing ourselves from everyone goes against our nature.  We are built for community.  Notice that Jesus says, “Then he calls his friends and neighbors together..” We are designed to live in a loving community and this separation is a true hardship.  March is said to go out like a lamb.  This typically is supposed to refer to mild weather.  I would like to look at it a different way.

Jesus is sometimes referred to as Lamb of God.  He sacrificed himself for all of us.  He is our perfect model of sacrificial love.  So, with that thought process, I would like to emphasize that March has indeed gone out like a lamb.  We are all making sacrifices right now for the greater good.  Some of us are terrified and spending sleepless nights wondering how we will pay the bills.  Some of us suit up and get to work in the hospital and countless others get on with their work as best as they can.  They risk their own safety so that we have food, electricity, and security.   Things are hard right now.  I was on the phone with my mother the other day when she suddenly cried out.  A bird crashed into her living room window.  She told me that the poor bird was just sitting on the deck rail looking stunned.  I asked her, “Don’t we all feel that way right now? Like we just flew into the glass at full speed?”  Our typical routines have come to a screeching halt.  We are stunned, but we can recover.  We can’t wish reality away, but we can walk through it with overflowing compassion and love for one another.  When one of us stumbles, our community can lift us up.  Our support for one another will change in its outward appearance for now, but it will never change in substance.  A loving spirit cannot be broken.

“Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”

Philippians 2: 1-4