Notes for the Week Day of Pentecost May 31 2020

Dear friends…
As a child growing up in England, I used to play in bombed out buildings, climb over old, decaying bunkers still staring out to sea, and step onto specially marked places that might once have been homes to large artillery, and partly caved-in foxholes, homes of young men defending the beachhead. None of these possibilities in history ever registered in my young mind. They were just leftover markers of other lives, at another time, leaving it to me to make up my own imaginary adventures as I played in, on and around them.
Most of these childhood memories have lain dormant until today, when it was my turn to step into an orange circle. The circles are all lined up, six feet apart, and one must stay in an available circle, until the circle in front of it becomes empty and one is free to step six feet forward.
As I shuffled forward, with others shuffling at least six feet away from me me, the leftover markers from WWll, which had provided me with so many contented hours of play, slipped quickly back into memory. I wondered if, a long time from now, when we are free to simply walk into a store, clumsily bumping into people coming out as we are going in, and exchanging pleasant apologies as we fend for our way, if children, who are still very small, will find the fading orange circles and play games in and around them. Perhaps they will hop from one to another, judging each other’s ability to not step on the circle’s outer white ring, yelling “Out!” if one does. I wonder if the history of COVID-19 will register in their minds, or if they will know much of anything at all about the pandemic of 2020, as they play on.
Will they know, or remember that they were told, about when we all wore masks and kept special gloves handy in case we had to pick something up that we weren’t sure had been sanitized? Will they know, or even care, that we couldn’t nudge, touch shoulder to shoulder, hug or kneel together to pray? Will they understand our collective, often unspoken, fear? Our concern that, unknowingly, we could actually be the one carrying a deadly virus that might infect another we love or might never have met? And, that knowing this was as frightening a thought as catching the virus ourselves?
When I was playing in abandoned bunkers, I never thought about who had felt sheltered and protected by them, or how the bunkers helped to mask fear of their own unseen enemy. But today, stepping from circle to circle, under the watchful eye of vigilant staff, the memory of those unseen, unknown defenders came clearly to mind. My thoughts slip from their assigned roles of fighting and defending, to people everywhere, since the beginning of time and history until today, lining up for food, lining up for clean water, lining up for their fair share of flour and fresh vegetables, and shamefully, even now, even in the midst of a world-wide deadly virus, clutching documents to prove their existence so that they might find escape from fear.
All I know is, that once I summoned up enough courage to go to the grocery store to buy some veggies and milk, I was glad of the orange circles that controlled my rush to get it over, to be away from it all, from innocent good people who feared me as much as I feared them, shuffling slowly forward from circle to circle, to be free from risk, free from so much unknown, and to reach the safe walls of a home.
When we can see the whites of the eyes of the enemy, we know what we’re up against. When the enemy is invisible, it puts us all on edge, and we begin to look at each other more intently, ensuring that all safety measures are in place and being adhered to. The orange circles, so familiar to me now, are my silent, if gaudy, protectors, maybe my life preservers in waters that are only just beginning to subside, and like underground bunkers built as barriers between me and the enemy, I give thanks to God for their existence. I give thanks to God for all those who move to protect a world of vulnerability, and for those who put their lives on the line to ensure it stays in place.
One day, I will step across the orange circles, not noticing them becoming scuffed and obscure over time. But I cannot help hoping that their remnants will not completely disappear, so that one day we might see some children jumping from circle to circle, not running in circles in search of an unknown destiny, but intently jumping into the center of each, without going outside the lines for fear of being called “out.” Then, smiling at the irony, we will remember.
We journey together
Mother Esme+

Steady my footsteps in your word; let no iniquity have dominion over me. (Psalm 119:133)