Soul Distancing: A Quarantine of the Spirit
It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Quarantine, Portland, OR. Day 10.
I am pretty blessed in my life circumstances. Although I have a job that doesn’t pay spectacularly, there’s money in the state budget (as far as I am aware) for me in spite of the ongoing chaos of COVID-19.
I live in a reasonably inexpensive house. I have a functioning white Volkswagen Rabbit named Neo (coined by multiple viewings of The Matrix. Follow… the white Rabbit. Get it?). Grocery stores have had most of what I need, save for anything resembling what I think they once called paper.
But you know where I am filled to overflow? Where I sense a joy rising as circumstances around the world continue to grow dire? The area of life God really desired for me to expand and flourish and blossom and press into as a source of hope for anyone who might read this?
My friends. My family. My relationships. Put simply, the various people God has blessed me to love and to love well.
Over the past ten days, I have reached out to many of the contacts in my phone. Many people who, whether through time, distance, busyness, or other extraneous factors, have vanished from my life.
But not through strained dynamics. Not through dissimilar interests. Not through a political argument on Facebook.
Through soul distancing. Long before our bodies were told to stay home through state and federal order, the madness and hectic-ness of modern living quarantined our spirits. To pursue vocation, to pursue adventure, to pursue acclaim, to pursue status, to pursue numbing, the world of tech addiction, social media comparison, constantly filled email inbox, and over-scheduling isolated our hearts and souls long before COVID-19 isolated our bodies.
Rewind several years. Close to the tail end of 2014. I had just recently ended a long, drawn out, toxic relationship. The carnage done was done by both, yet the extent of the damage is not the focal point of this piece.
My heart was entirely shattered. My mind awash in establishing new rhythms and routines for life filled with dissociation and disconnection. And my soul began its journey of distancing from others.
Porn use increased dramatically. Online gaming was commonplace from the moment I got off work to the moment I went to bed. Beer cans were everywhere, if exclusively microbrew (very delicious) and not dingey PBRs.
In the words of Tim Keller’s Prodigal God, my younger brother path of self-discovery was set. Tired of attempting to morally conform to religious patterns and routines that didn’t work, I persisted in the world, hoping to find out who I really was apart from spiritual institutions. Yet it did not work. I survived, and was hardly close to thriving. Still, I ran headfirst into what the “world” might offer a deeply broken heart.
I had been the older brother, going to all the groups and crossing off all items on the checklist. But it didn’t work in giving me my inheritance, so I changed roles, became the younger brother, and demanded my inheritance. I did what was “right” for so long and which left me feeling empty, then sprinted headfirst to what was “wrong” and, after only a year and a few months, I still… felt empty.
I meandered, slowly, back to community. To people of Christ. To brothers and sisters that, while still being as flawed and broken as they were when I left them at the tail end of 2014, spoke differently to me this time.
By opening up, my heart and my soul, slowly, the damage inflicted began to mend. Through dozens of aha prayers, half a dozen books of fellow younger-brother Christian wanderers, and lots of hugs, lots of tears, and lots of words from God, I changed.
I pressed into being known. Really known. No longer concerned about sharing my secrets and insecurities, the brothers and sisters in Christ I used to think would judge and lambast me now said “me too” or “that sounds really hard.” Empathy, Christ saturated and soaked compassion, was the manna of heaven I never knew I needed.
Jesus showed me what abiding in the vine might look like. Life would still be difficult, unrequited love would still sting like no tomorrow, and the kids I served everyday at work would still be as crazy as always.
But now I had people present to live life with. Not concerned with meeting or exceeding criteria of “victorious” Christian living, these people wanted to love Jesus and love others too, yet still hit tons of roadblocks. Their hunger to usher in the kingdom of heaven kept being sidetracked by the kingdom of hell.
And we could help each other sidestep the roadblocks, point to where the kingdom of heaven was already winning and the kingdom of hell was already losing.
All this has been well and good and absolutely instrumental in forming the man I am today. God is everything for me, even on days when He isn’t.
Yet I, just like everyone else, am hounded by distractions and demons of our contemporary moment, that work to isolate our hearts and souls from one another. My communities are formed, my list of brothers and sisters continues to grow, expand, and strengthen, but so too, the resistance to these very communities. The enemy works to compartmentalize and weaken the very fabric of what makes communities of God so powerful and healing in this broken and dark world.
Henri Nouwen says it like this:
Living the spiritual life means living life as one unified reality. The forces of darkness are the forces that split, divide, and set in opposition. The forces of light unite. Literally, the word “diabolic” means dividing. The demon divides; the Spirit unites.
People use social media for an average of three hours a day. Around 57% of businesses that use ‘social stories’ have found marketing on social media to be somewhat or very effective in promoting their brand. When surveying 11,000 people using the RescueTime app, the average amount of time spent on phones was 3.5 hours, with the users in the top 20 percentile averaging 4.5 hours.
At this point, I’m one voice of many asking everyone to rethink the amount of time spent leisurely on phones, on tablets, on Netflix. Hauntingly, I also researched screen use for entertainment only. Factor in tech use for business, for school, for perhaps business, school, and leisure all at once? We are all being diverted and sought after. Bought after, in fact. Data is being sold at alarming rates, and one area of the world, the Bay Area, is increasingly creeping in on our time. And by extension, our souls.
In his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, John Mark Comer cites Tristan Harris, ascribed the label as “the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience,” and how he left Google to start a nonprofit with “the sole goal of advocating for a Hippocratic oath for software designers, because right now everything is being intentionally designed for distraction and addiction. Because that’s where the money is.”
As the global world comes to a grinding halt with the coronavirus, as we are pleaded by our government officials (most of them, anyway) to stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to protect each other, the pull for the already near insatiable addiction to technology creeps ever more into our already ostracized souls. By quarantining our bodies, the enemy might work to quarantine, all the more, our spirits. Quarantine our hearts. Quarantine our souls.
So then, what can we do to resist that which would separate us? How can we remain united when we are ordered to stay apart? What ways can we draw closer to God, draw closer to ourselves, and draw closer to others when a few devices in our homes constantly tempt us to isolate and withdraw further in?
The following insights I have gathered will vary depending on your situation. Although we are all together in being affected by the ongoing virus, the affectations differ wildly. Some of us have all the time in the world, some of us have more time in some ways and less time in others, and others, the bravest of the brave souls in some level of essential service and work, are now being demanded to give way more of their time and energy than is ethical and fair for, bare minimum, the next month. Therefore, my call is for you to read the following and apply them in your own way, in your own timing, in your own sense of prompting from the Spirit. He is gentle and patient with us, and only longs for the absolute best of us during this dire time.
First, let’s increase focus on attempting and maintaining different spiritual practices, particularly ones we neglected because we didn’t have the time for them OR ones we still haven’t tried because we always found ways to distract ourselves from them. For me, I always avoid fasting. I don’t know about you, but I love food. Not so much the prepping or the cooking or the cleaning. But the eating? I’m very much a pro at that. But under specific prompting of my church and the Spirit as well, I’ve found withdrawing food intake has allowed me an increased focus on other things I really hunger for: connection to God, connection to others, and connection to myself. During fasting, I’ve written a fair bit more, and I’ve also reached out and called many close family members or friends who by distraction and busyness I forgot were family too. But what is that spiritual practice for you? There are many different ways Christ followers for centuries have increased union with God, with themselves, and with others. Which one do you now have time and space to implement? Which one might particularly help you resist anxiety and stress as the nonstop news cycle and aimless social media scrolling only numbs or sometimes increases anxiety and stress? Which one do you think God is tugging at your heart to give the old college try?
Second, let’s increase focus on voice-to-voice communication with our loved ones. This seems to be something many are already doing intuitively, in particular, because physical communication and contact are heavily frowned upon (essentially outlawed) and we as a specie are very social in nature, even the super introverts themselves (INFP, Enneagram 4w5 here). This is definitely an opportunity to deepen already meaningful relationships, yet may also be a space to spark other relationships you’ve had that have lately become dormant. Odd as it may sound, I have scrolled through the contacts on my phone and, when weather has permitted, have slowly meandered through my neighborhood (at a six feet clap from others, always) and called many I know well but not too well. Many who I have spoken to many times, and also many more who I have barely spoken to. With the cease of activity for so many of us, what would it look like for us to reach out to those who are still running the rat race mid corona craze? What kind of seed might you plant of hope and encouragement through a missed call and a heartfelt voicemail? The moment is ripe for an expansion of relationship and connection. Let’s take advantage of it while it is still here.
Third, let’s focus on edifying media and content consumption, not distracting or numbing wastes of media. This will of course vary according to your interests and hobbies, and will be up to you to determine whether something is edifying or distracting. Here’s a few insights or questions you might ask to determine which it is: is this video or show I’m watching filling my soul, not confusing it? Is this video game increasing community or driving me away from it? Is this social media scrolling making me feel good about myself or bad about myself? So often we consume media with a neutral outlook. We think “I’m bored, what’s on Netflix/YouTube/Instagram/Xbox?” What if, instead, we thought, “I want to be edified and encouraged. What show brings me hope? Which YouTube channel is teaching me something new? What social media content is… helpful? (sorry guys, I still just hate it as a concept. Speaking bluntly and also to myself; get off of it as much as possible UNLESS you are actually communicating with others. /rant) Which game might I play with buddies and friends that will make me laugh and bring joy rather than bring irritation and rage? Really quick here as well; this is also a heck of a time to start reading. In particular, reading more than any of the other screened activities I mentioned before. Here I am now convicting myself. I’ve only finished one book thus far. Looks like I need to give a reading call to Brennan Manning or Thomas Merton, maybe both.
Which brings us to, finally and most importantly, an increased focus on loving God so that you can love yourself better so that you can love others better. What’s amazed me during this whole world fiasco is what God has spoken to me about actually loving myself. A relational dynamic was strained right in the midst of this apocalyptic moment, and so as the world’s reactions to COVID-19 increased, I still sulked and focused on my own “miserable” state. But, through an increase in prayer and fasting, several meaningful and enjoyable phone calls, rewatches of the movie Interstellar and Inception, and an openness to God’s invitation of more of His love, I am learning to love myself better. By so doing, I am learning how I can love others better and keep my soul connected, not isolated. Keep my heart whole, not fractured. Keep my mind focused, not scattered. Keep my entire “self” connected, not quarantined and distanced.
The only certainty we have about the epidemic is uncertainty. We aren’t sure whether hospitals will become fully over capacitated. We don’t know how small businesses will recover from months of inactivity. We don’t know whether grandma or grandpa will contract it, we don’t know whether mom or dad will contract it. We don’t know if our friend will contract it. We don’t know if we will contract it.
But amidst these confusing and scary times, what we are certain of is God’s unending, wild, lavish, and freely given love toward us. So then, if we focus on God, focus on each other, focus on ourselves in healthy ways, we will wait out this storm we aren’t sure will end soon. We are sure, though, that it will end.
And that after it ends, God’s unending, wild, and freely given love will still be available. Therefore, our bodies might be quarantined from one another, but we must keep our souls united. We might not be able to touch one another through our hands, but we certainly can touch each other through our hearts.
Stay safe out there, please keep washing your hands, maybe even try a seven foot rule to play it even more safe. But also, and most importantly, stay united, rooted, and grounded to the God that created all things and in whom all things hold together.