“We need faith”
What does it mean to believe in God amid a pandemic? Coloradans answer
Two weeks ago, Joe Stone and his wife became sick. They didn’t know whether they had the coronavirus and couldn’t get tested. So they stayed home. Stone’s daughter couldn’t visit.
As Stone’s anxiety deepened, the Westminster IT worker turned to his Buddhist faith to find peace. He meditated, attempting to turn his worry into compassion.
“Because we can’t go outside, we go inward,” he said. In a time of incomprehensible upheaval and uncertainty, Coloradans of faith have turned to their beliefs to help process it all. Some have found difficult questions: Where is my God amid this death and loss? Why is this happening? Is it a punishment?
“I believe almost every person of faith during crisis does struggle with hard questions,” said Natalie Keller, youth director at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church. “Why would God do this? Why did God let evil take a foothold? Is this God’s punishment for not forwarding that chain email in 2007?”
Many have also found a balm — a way to process immense change and see a larger picture, even as the sacred rituals of many faiths have been disrupted. Many are finding comfort there, in their prayers and video Bible groups, in Scripture reading and meditation. Faith has allowed them to connect to a larger purpose, they said.
“From a spiritual perspective, we need faith in God,” said Rabbi Joe Black of Denver’s Temple Emanuel. “We also need faith in one another. The two are not necessarily different. I believe that we find God within humanity.”
Re-creating ritual
While many faith communities have pivoted to online services, there are some traditions that can be difficult to replicate remotely. For many faiths, the act of sharing a meal or holding hands during a prayer are just as sacred as the prayers recited.
For Muslims, physical proximity is an integral part of community prayer, Denver infectious disease researcher Nabeeh Hasan said. As both a scientist and a leader of the Colorado Muslim community, he worked hard to convince mosques to close, even though doing so meant losing a critical aspect of practice. It was a bitter pill to swallow, he said.
“When we stand for prayer, every person praying stands shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot, to show that nobody is superior to the other, that we’re equal,” Hasan said. “It shows that we’re next to each other in the faith. That we close the gaps between us.”
That loss of physical community is traumatic, especially for those accustomed to gathering five times a day to pray, he said. The Muslim community is also grappling with what to do when Ramadan starts
April 23. Traditionally, days of fasting are broken by a large community meal. But that’s not possible now. Some people might have to break their fast alone.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” Hasan said. “We don’t have an answer.”
Connecting to long-held traditions and finding community was one of the reasons 29-year-old Colin Mays joined a non-denominational Christian church when he moved three years ago to Colorado Springs. Singing hymns, receiving Communion and reciting prayers that have been repeated for generations helped him feel more connected to humanity, he said.
“It keeps me connected with my ancestors and the people that have come before me,” he said. “It reminds me of who we are and where we’ve been.”
Making sense of suffering
Lindsay Reed checked out Dante’s “Inferno” from the Denver Public Library about six weeks ago, before the grip of the virus had taken hold on the city. The classic epic poem describing the rings of hell was too much sometimes — she has to put it down sometimes.
“I just read with this sense of horror,” she said. “When I’m able to step back and think about it, it’s almost too close to what’s going on.”
Estimates that COVID-19 could kill up to 240,000 Americans are indeed hellish. Heartbreaking images continue to pour in from across the country: bodies being loaded into refrigerated trailers in New York City, grandparents dying alone in hospital rooms because their families can’t safely say goodbye. The collective grief can be overwhelming, and is causing many faithful to ponder questions that seem unanswerable.
But difficult questions are an essential part of faith, said Black, the rabbi.
“It’s that lack of knowing that is an essential part of faith — we don’t know everything,” he said. “It’s the questions themselves that are sacred.”
Jews for generations have grappled with questions of how a loving God could allow horrors such as the Holocaust, he said. Even amid normal loss, Black hears similar questions as he sits with the dying and their families.
“I think we need to avoid language that we’re being tested, punished or blessed by this pandemic,” he said. “I don’t think this pandemic is the work of God, even though it’s natural.”
Keller, the Episcopalian youth director, said every person of faith struggles with difficult questions.
Sometimes there are simply no answers.
“We may never know why terrible events happen,” she said. “We can take comfort in the fact that God meets us in times of trouble, God grieves with us, God turns our grief into beauty and compassion.”
Finding hope
Stone, the Buddhist IT manager, healed from his illness and last week he reunited with his daughter. Through sitting with his suffering and anxiety, he felt more connected to others.
“The extreme anxiety we all feel around this — we’re all in the same boat, nobody’s not,” Stone said.
One of the key tenets of Buddhism, after all, is that suffering is a part of life. By accepting that idea, he was able to meditate on compassion and empathy.
“Therein lies the healing part of it,” he said.
Some faith communities are seeing a surge in attendance to virtual services. Matt Patrick, a pastor at The Well Church in Boulder, said about double the amount of people are watching livestreams versus normal in-person church attendance. Temple Emanuel in Denver has seen the same, Black said.
“What we are finding is people are craving more than events and services, but are craving a faith community,” Black said. “I think people are returning to that need.”
And that’s where people are finding strength amid a virus that creates so much isolation and loneliness. In the volunteers who call elderly members of their congregation to make sure they have someone to talk to. In the church fundraisers to help with a medical bill or lost wages.
“Is there holiness in a disease? That’s a tough question,” Black said. “But I think there’s holiness in our response to it.”