Pastor Melinda, Puyallup UMC
One of the biggest struggles for me throughout this time of COVID-19 has been dealing with all the changes in my regular rhythms of my life. I no longer drive back and forth to Summit UMC Monday through Thursday. I don’t spend Sunday mornings leading worship. I don’t make plans to meet friends for dinner on the weekend. We haven’t celebrated birthdays by gathering with family. Pastors and laity didn’t gather for Annual Conference in person this year. Over the past weeks, I’ve often commented that my life feels like the movie, Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray’s character wakes up each morning to live the same day over again. Without regular changes in time, place, and activity, my days and weeks blend together.
I have heard congregation members express similar feelings. Some have talked about the difficulty in finding meaning in daily life when their favorite regular activities have been canceled. Others have mentioned the loss of the rhythm of weekly worship and gathering with others for fellowship. These changes throw off our sense of balance, and we may feel out of sorts, irritable, or anxious.
Initially, I didn’t think too much about my changed schedule. Most of my time and energy was focused on simply getting through the immediate crisis. But now that we’re roughly four months into this time, I’m beginning to feel the need for a new sense of rhythm that can sustain me long-term.
As I wondered about how to do that work, I thought about the ways monastic communities structure their days. Monks usually don’t work outside the monastery where they live, but they follow daily and seasonal rhythms in community together. In The Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris writes about how living in residence at a Benedictine monastery changed her perspective on time. She quotes a friend who tells her, “The Benedictines, more than any other people I know, insist that there is a time in each day for prayer, for work, for study, and for play.”
Benedictine communities follow a set schedule together according to the Rule of Benedict, but we all have the task of creating our individual daily and weekly schedules. Admittedly, I would not choose to be up for morning prayer as early as some of the Benedictine monks, but I have the same need for a daily time of silence and rest in God’s presence. If I don’t intentionally structure my time, I lose a sense of balance between the different areas of my life. It’s easy to make time for work and more challenging to find time for play, but without time for fun, my life becomes draining and monotonous. Even monks and nuns take days off and take retreats! Thinking about time in these broad categories helps us see what’s missing and causing us to feel out of balance.
Time is one of God’s gifts requiring stewardship. Just like money doesn’t manage itself at my house, neither does time. Our lives have been disrupted as a result of COVID-19, but God’s steady presence reminds us to keep seeking balance. Through times of prayer, work, study, and play, God meets us in different and necessary ways. As we learn new rhythms that can sustain us long-term, we trust God’s strength to anchor and guide us through this challenging time.