Craig Childress Johnson

Flattening the Curve - Finding Peace in Pandemic Craig Childress Johnson

Months ago, my world went on full-scale pandemic lock down. I'm now at the end of my eighth week of what feels like a solo flight through deep space. Eight weeks can be a long time for someone who gets cabin fever after four hours. Yet, life is abundant and meaningful. Many have seen this unprecedented disruption of daily life and the imposition of limitations on personal freedom as a hidden agenda by power brokers to take over our lives. I see it differently. It's a vast opportunity to slow down, get still, listen, reset priorities, and do some of the things I've neglected for years. I feel like I have been granted an open-ended personal spiritual retreat. These past two months have proven some of the most useful days of my life. All of the distractions, amusements, and dissipations of my usual life have been stripped away; the literal and figurative silence has been a source of serenity and productivity. In pandemic, we're all students in a course of study we don't even know the name of. We have yet to master the skills required to be successful at this new way of living. Paradoxically, the way to maximize this unplanned time out is to create our own structure. I still use a color-coded daily planner as I have done for decades. I have places to "go," people to meet with, projects to complete. If you want each day to really count, "If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed." Do it well; do it early in the day. Getting up at first light, making your bed, performing the prayers and meditations your faith journey calls for, getting dressed, grooming, washing the dishes, putting them away. Simple stuff done well, consistently, will change us because we will have grown into disciplined ways of living. We will be ready to do the big things right. Life really is that simple. We make a thousand choices every day, ones that can change the world, if we choose right. One of my choices has been to write musings each day while in quarantine. I was in several coronavirus hotspots overseas as this pandemic was first emerging. I spent a month on a cruise ship as this pandemic was gaining unseen traction in many lands. I came home with all the right symptoms to be a statistic. It has given me a different perspective informing my experience of lock-down and disruption. At the end of the day, the thing getting us through the uncertainties of pandemic will be faith and trust in the one who has ordered our days since time began.