It’s starting to happen.  Anxiety has turned to angst.  People are searching for justice in this phase of dealing with the covid-19 pandemic.  Examples of the irony of humanity are beginning to reveal themselves.  If the world was not in crisis the scenarios might be found amusing.

Unfortunately, there really isn’t anything humorous about any of it.  At the same time, the silver lining in this time in history is the opportunities for a do-over.  The year 2020 will be remembered as the “Great Reset.”  That is if the human race can find its way through this season of sobriety.  I have every confidence it will, with some scrapes and bruises along the way no doubt, but it will.

When someone is sober, or has a sobering moment if you will, it is the realization that though things may have come to a crashing halt, there is a shot at another chance to do things better.  Without minimalizing the seriousness of these examples, it is the experience of an addict coming through a successful intervention, a newly single person after a divorce, even the survivor of a near death experience.  There is that one moment, that defining moment, that transitions a person from what life was to what life could now become.  This transition comes suddenly, unexpectedly, and with blunt force behind it.  And yet, if embraced, provides an opportunity that might otherwise not be available for quite some time, if at all.

What I have just described is what could be understood as a form of freedom.  I recently read a post somewhere that defined sobriety as the middle balancing point between intoxication and abstinence.  Those two words, intoxication and abstinence, are complex in and of themselves depending on the applicable context.  For your sake and mine I’ll forgo the word study.   What I am driving at is that the moment of sobriety as I previously described is that point separating the intemperate past from a potentially ascetic future.  The same post I just referenced also stated that “wisdom knows that true freedom lies with the one who can enjoy anything without being a slave to anything.  The freedom to savor and be satisfied and to know when it’s been enough.”

This season of quarantine has slowed the world down.  All of our lives, as we have become accustomed, have been stalled like a plane taxies the runway awaiting the go ahead to take off.  As with anything with wings, flight is freedom.  In the meantime, we are forced to consider many aspects of our lives and what they will look like going forward.  Our job, our lifestyle, our family and friends, our goals, our belief system, our worldview, and the list can go on.  So, as some are making questionable choices as portrayed by the media with protests and political posturing, I wonder how the rest of us will use this chance at a reset.  When we finally get to take off as the various phases of opening our nation and world play out, will we have the courage to make the necessary adjustments to steer in a better direction perhaps, set a more realistic pace, embrace the new normal, and appreciate the opportunity to do so?

I don’t understand everything about this crisis we are in.  I’ve had my moments of doubt and confusion.  The stress that comes with quarantine and ambiguity has certainly taken its toll on my mind and body.  But my soul, fueled by the grace of God, the presence of Jesus Christ in my life, and the power of the Holy Spirit, holds strong in anticipation of our future.  The first verse of Galatians chapter 5 from the Message Bible says it best: “Christ has set us free to live a free life.  So, take your stand!  Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.”