The most tempting way to keep account of time these days is in increments of how long it will take for things to go back to the way they were. Will it take four weeks, eight weeks, all summer, a year? How long until we can put all this behind us?<\/p>\n
I long for the day when I can teach in a classroom and worship in a church and fly on a plane to visit my parents. Love makes me count the hours. But keeping account of time by love with the saints also means resisting the desire to go back to the way things were. Because that way is marked by economic and social inequality that has made the burden of this virus fall hardest on the most disadvantaged, by a health-care system that leaves so many unprotected, by the ridiculously low pay that people doing the most necessary jobs receive. None of this can be accounted for by love. It\u2019s not enough to want our old life back. Especially in the season of Easter, we are called to make room for more life\u2014not just for ourselves, but for everyone.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s one thing we\u2019ve learned through the work of social distancing, it\u2019s that everyone\u2019s life matters to everyone else\u2019s. As we struggle to inhabit the time we have been given, that\u2019s a measurement by which to keep account of our days.<\/p>\n