Coronavirus & Self Care
This is the first blog in the Restore Ministries series on self care.
We are just over halfway through one of the weirdest years in our lifetimes. We have had droughts, fires, floods, and are partway through a global pandemic.
How are you coping?
For some of us the past few months have brought with them an opportunity to slow down and de-clutter our lives. The lockdown carved away some distractions and helped us re-focus on important things. We spent more time with our families, less time on materialism, and we rediscovered the deep value of relationships and community. In short, we prospered. But while some prospered, others struggled. For many, the removal of distractions forced us to look our troubles square in the face – and it wasn’t pleasant. Hairline cracks in our lives opened up and felt almost cavernous.
In April a good friend of mine suggested to me there was likely to be three waves to this pandemic – the biological wave (the virus), the economic wave (the recession), and the mental health wave (the personal effect).
He was right.
Whilst we seem to have avoided much of the biological and economic wave, only time will tell what the fallout will be on people personally. The media hasn’t always helped. Whilst they play a valuable role in communicating what is happening, the Australian media has been better than most at inspiring panic. Just last week (20th July 2020) the Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a graph in their nightly finance report which illustrated Australia’s performance in the panic index (an index which measures the frequency of panic, hysteria and Coronavirus in the media). What did it show? Well, it showed that when it comes to panic and the news, Australia is a world leader. And it is not the first time we have excelled at panic. In early June, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on some research confirming Australia holds the record for the most intense panic buying in the pandemic. I have no doubt the strange connection between Australians and toilet paper will linger throughout the world long after this pandemic is gone.
Panic is a little unfamiliar to Australians.
We are laid back.
We are relaxed.
This is not us … except it is.
This is the culture in which we live. It is here that we live, love, play, and work. Expect it to take a toll on you. Expect it to take a toll on your friends and your family. Expect it to take a toll on anyone you love and care about.
And this is where it can get tricky. Love anyone and you are not just carrying your own burden anymore, you carry some of theirs also. Carrying burdens is the evidence of love (Galatians 6:2), the cost of caring for others. Danger has arrived at our doorstep and we are not just concerned about ourselves, we are also concerned about those we love.
How is John and Kate’s marriage going?
How will my parents cope with less contact with the outside world?
What about the people in my church?
How are those kids going to handle being locked up with an angry dad?
The burdens of those who love others are multiplied.
Spare a thought for the pastoral types among us (paid or unpaid). The past few months have been particularly taxing for them. Whilst some have been actively helping to carry other people’s burdens, others have carried burdens but “had no opportunity to show it” (Philippians 4:10). Whether you are a friend, family member, counsellor, pastor, psychologist, small group leader, or fellow church member, the season we have been walking through has had its fair share of curve balls and you could be forgiven for feeling a little exhausted.
But the complexity of serving others doesn’t end there. Our roles have changed, the method for doing ministry changed, and we haven’t had much of the close personal connection which energises us. The ground has been moving beneath our own feet even as we have worked hard to support others on shifting ground.
The early days of the pandemic saw many pastorally oriented folks running pretty hard in an effort to care for others. We could almost taste the panic in the air. But as we reached out, many of those we were burdened for disappeared into the lockdown ether. We couldn’t see them personally, we couldn’t touch them, we couldn’t go out with them, and a good number of strugglers went to ground. Sure, we had Zoom and Skype, but we got zoomed out. We called and left messages, and we texted, frequently with no reply.
In the end, we ran out of gas.
Things began to get a little loose personally.
Some of us were open about it. Others were less so.
We began to see we needed to slow down and catch our breath.
As the season dragged on, discussions about self-care seemed to become more prevalent and more relevant. We saw and heard others needing to slow down and be careful. We read articles about it on the internet, we had discussions with others about it.
We at Restore Ministries see it as our mission to support and equip the church for long-term sustainable ministry. We want to add our voice to the self-care discussion over the coming months.
What is self-care?
In general terms, it is when someone takes care of themselves, especially in busy and stressful times. Self-care is something which everyone is encouraged to do to preserve their personal wellbeing. The essence of it is captured in comments such as these:
“Look after yourself.”
“You need to make time for yourself.”
“Be kind to yourself.”
But there is a problem with self-care.
The first time I heard the term self-care, there was a car crash in my head. The two cars were self-care and Psalm 23. They seemed at odds to me. Am I my own shepherd, or is God my shepherd? How does Jesus’ care of me interface with my care of myself? What does it look like for God to make me lie down in green pastures?
The category of self-care captures something helpful, but like most secular psychological categories, it brings with it a bunch of unwanted freight.
Here is the main problem with self-care: it doesn’t get us where we want to go – it doesn’t naturally lead us to Jesus.
In the end, it leads us to us.
The Bible has better categories than self-care, categories which lead to increased wisdom and closer connection to Jesus. We will be unpacking some of these over the coming months. Here are a couple to whet your appetite:
Wise living.
Wisdom is all about living skilfully. To grow in wisdom is to grow in living skilfully. How does one do life in a way that is compatible with who they are? What do our strengths, weaknesses, and natural capacities have to do with the way we live and love? How can we do ministry sustainably over the long term?
Doing ministry humanly.
There is a big difference between creator and creation. Whilst there are similarities between the way God ministers and the way he calls us to minister, there are significant differences also. How do we do ministry in a way that is consistent with how we have been made? Where do we overstep the line and try to operate in a way God has not designed us to operate?