2 years later, important to find meaning in pandemic

As I write this article, it has been almost exactly two years since our state was shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like so many, I find myself still seeking to wrap my mind around all that has taken place since March 2020.

Images have been seared into our collective memory, statistics now mean more than numbers and, in a way that only tragedy can do, we have become part of a collective story, one greater than any one of us and yet connecting all of us.

Like the generation that lived through Pearl Harbor, like my generation that lived through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy, like the 9/11 generation, those of us who have lived through COVID-19 have a story, and the power of that story rings and resonates in ways that cannot be fully described.

As we stand two years removed, I suppose that there are some questions we must ask and that we must answer, and the answers we give will tell in great measure who we are as a people.

The first question we must ask and answer is: What do the past two years mean?

Everything in life has meaning and contains some purpose, and even those events that were painful and that we would have preferred to avoid give us something and teach us something — even COVID-19.

It is easy, I suppose, to look back and see only the inconveniences, the masks, the closed stores and limited movement, the interruption of life and its events. But is that all the past two years have meant? That is the question we must ask and answer.

I believe that these past 24 months have meant that we discovered we are stronger than we thought we were, more connected than we imagined we were and more able to adjust than we ever dreamed. That may well be the meaning of the past two years.

Secondly we must ask: What might we have missed?

This is closely tied to the first question, and here is why: If we do not know the meaning, we can miss the purpose. So, what might we have missed? Let me suggest that we may have missed opportunities to grow, to connect, to contribute and to make a difference. We may have missed time to really get to know ourselves and others.

The good news is it is not too late. You and I can still make it happen. We can do it today.

Finally, we must ask: How do we move on?

Mask mandates lifted, travel resuming, everything back open — so, is it over, back to normal? Or do we commit to a new way, a better way, a way that takes what we have learned and live it out in our lives?

I hope we opt to move forward wiser and better than when this began. Then — and only then — we will have redeemed all the past two years have done to us and taken from us.

Bishop Timothy Clarke is the senior pastor of First Church of God on the Southeast Side.

Keeping the Faith is a column featuring the perspectives of a variety of faith leaders from the Columbus area.