Covid, Mental Health, Relgion and Spiritual Communities

The public health issues gripping the world have been hard on a lot of people – indeed, I would be surprised to find anyone who hadn’t experienced some sort of negative impact from the changes that Covid-19 has worked upon our lives. I’m sure, here in the UK, we’ve all heard from friends and relatives finding themselves homeschooling their kids with very little notice and usually equally sparse support. I expect more than a few of my readers have been in that position themselves, not just heard about it at one remove. People who have lost their job or had hours cut have obvious stress. People who thrive on social contact will have struggled with the limited ability to see other people. People who have had to restrict contact even more because of being at high risk, such as the UK’s ‘shielding’ category, will have had extra stress just getting essentials, and those who already relied on shopping deliveries have had to cope with slots being much harder to come by.

Those are the obvious sources of stress, of things that can affect people’s mental health. And those are just the tip of the iceberg.

Meeting Without Meeting

Well, life is different right now, isn’t it?

For context, just in case people stumble into this once life is back to normal (whatever that ends up looking like), this is written and published during significant social distancing restrictions in Britain due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For the benefit of the international audience reading this immediately, as well as a future audience, we’re currently (22^nd March 2020) being asked not to gather in any sort of group, not to socialise, to work from home if possible, not to go out except as necessary or if we can ensure a minimum 2m distance from anyone else (they want us to still get exercise seems to be the main reason for that). Workplaces are shutting down or going to remote working. Bars, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, cafes have all been asked to close, except for selling take-away food. The government is offering grants to employers to help cover salaries of people who might otherwise be laid off. Panic buying continues to empty supermarket shelves of toilet rolls, soap, some tinned goods, and bread (among other things).

Now, in the context of all of those other things, this next feature is fairly unimportant – but it’s the reason for this blog post, so it’s going to have some prominence.

Worship and Copresence

Meeting together is pleasant, to be sure. We value our Friends as friends, and we value our relationships. We value the pleasure of catching up over a cuppa, of seeing the children of the Meeting tearing around the building. Of seeing the familiar faces, and occasionally welcoming new ones.

The heart of Meeting for Worship, though, is worship. We may have different ideas about what that means, but most would agree on coming together in silence, waiting on the Spirit (or whatever we might call it), and hearing the ministry that we hope will come from its inspiration. It is not merely being together in a space and being quiet. It is a silence not of the absence of noise, but of quieting the self to be open to Light. We do it together because we have generally found it more effective than doing it alone. It is an active passivity, and a shared endeavour that usually involves no visible effort.