I miss being in contact with people of course; that is by far the worst consequence of the lockdown. But I manage to find things to fill the time. I’m even getting used to all my sport being about ten years old - it makes the disappointment of watching your team lose easy to avoid.
But this will all have to come to an end soon. The world HAS to get back to normal one day. And, if we’re to make any realistic start on reversing the damage done to our communal and economic lives, that start will have to come soon.
But closing something is much easier than reopening it we are learning. How do you go about lifting restrictions completely without putting undue pressure on all those people we rely on when things get a little out of hand?
With pubs, shops and football you can see the obvious problem of people going, to slightly differing degrees, wild at the chance to be reunited with their passion. Not so with churches surely. While mosques and some evangelical congregations are used to being full, it’s hard to see the sparse gatherings at many of the more remote churches going on some all-day prayer bender and piling more pressure on the NHS.
The online communities of many of the churches and other places of worship have been busy speculating how re-opening the churches while still observing the rigours of social distancing might impact on the way things are done. Sitting at a distance, as previously mentioned, might not be a problem. The direct contact of communion or healing may have to be sidelined for a while longer. In some churches it’s even been mooted that hymns and singing be halted for fear we shall all be firing out clouds of Covid-drenched air in our zeal. It’s probably a good point.
There would be a clear problem in meeting any restrictions on age though and with the government keen to avoid letting the vulnerable back into potential danger in the first wave of relaxing restrictions, this could be tricky. In many of the churches I’ve visited I have been the youngest person there even as I approach 60. Many of the smaller churches rely on retired clergy returning to keep services going.
But churches - and for that matter temples, mosques and other holy places - are more than just the weekly programme of services and meetings they offer. They are a focal point for those who rely on them and they offer a constant place of refuge from the worries and stresses of daily life wherever you may be in life’s long journey. For many, particularly the elderly, being denied the opportunity to pop into church outside the ‘normal hours of business’ has been the biggest blow of the lockdown.
And it’s here that the solution may lie. Could not our churches take a lead from the supermarkets and offer times when access is allowed only to the vulnerable? Those leading our religious communities have shown remarkable versatility in maintaining worship. I think both they - and the churchgoing community itself - have the common sense and the adaptability to make things work.
The government has been necessarily strong in dictating what we can and can’t do in lockdown. And for the most part we have all respected that strong position and knuckled under for the greater good. But the government needs to be strong enough now to hand back that responsibility to those who have been ensuring society runs smoothly for the benefit of all for generations. It is time, though with a measure of calm caution, to open the church doors again.
