So here we are. Most of this was written on the first Monday of 2022, January 3.
Last Friday, New Year's Eve, I tested positive for Covid.
This was after a roller-coaster Christmas season. Without going into excessive detail, my lovely wife Polly ended up in the Highland Hospital emergency room with a raging gallbladder at 5:00am on December 21. While they were attending to the nefarious gallbladder, at about 8:30 that morning, they told Polly she was positive for Covid.
We were shocked. The doctor who told us was shocked. The RTS bus driver having stopped at South and Bellevue, was shocked. Birds flying overhead were shocked. "Shocked" ... yes, that is a good word to use. Not that we considered ourselves beyond infection. We were (are) both fully vaccinated and boosted. Polly wears a mask every day at work. Nary a symptom had raised its hoary head. No coughs. No fever. No nothing. The nausea Polly felt early Tuesday morning was entirely due to the gallstone plugging up her plumbing. Per protocol I was sent home from Highland Hospital, presumed Covid positive.
I wasn't.
I immediately began testing, probably more than needed (wait for it ... here comes the famous phrase), "out of an abundance of caution." I did this in order to know exactly if or when I might reveal myself as Covid positive. For 10 days from December 21 to December 31, twice a day, I tested negative. On December 31, at 8:15am, I tested negative. Negative faintly changed to positive at 12:30pm. I waited an hour and a half later and, sure enough, at 2:00pm on December 31, I was now not faintly, but clearly, Covid positive.
In the 10 days between December 21 to 31, we all lived separate lives in the Alexander home. Abby, our (vaccinated) daughter visiting from Tennessee, spent her time being bored in the basement. Polly spent her time being bored in our upstairs bedroom. Ethan, our (vaccinated) son spent his time being bored in his upstairs bedroom. Ethan's boredom only increased and was given an accompanying cough when he tested Covid positive on Christmas night. I spent my time either not being bored in my office at the church building apart from my family for most of the day or being bored apart from my family camping on the couch in the living room on the main floor of our house. We wore masks in the house. I slept in a mask on the couch to the sound of a box fan playing on YouTube. For the first time I can remember ... ever ... the Alexanders did not eat a meal together during the whole of the Christmas holiday. Abby went back to Tennessee on Wednesday morning, December 29 and ... still tests negative. ('atta girl!)
So here we are. Any lessons learned?
For reasons to be given below, even knowing what I know now, I do not regret our Christmas Eve Service. Knowing what I know now, I do regret Ethan's involvement. I regret all the singers, or leaders, on the platform that night who were not masked. Not only do I regret it, but I apologize for it.
On Friday, December 31, what seemed to me to be a regular occurrence of drainage and a slight cough turned out to be real Covid.
Just a little backstory. As a child my frequent snotty ailments proved a boon to the bank account of the pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist. As I got older, well up into my 40's, if it involved mucus, at least twice a year I was laid low for a week by whatever happened to be going around at the time. Although none would think this a superpower, I have an amazing capacity to secrete heaving waves of drainage. Just a personal quirk and until this moment I never thought about revealing it. I've had pneumonia (2x's), impacted sinuses, severe bronchitis (2x's) and probably every version of cold and/or flu in the eastern United States over the last half-century.
So, I guess you could say, "I'm prone."
This, as revealed on December 31, had at least one huge disadvantage. I'm pretty good at avoiding getting sick, or at least real sick, when it comes to all things phlegm. I keep a vaporizer running in my office from mid-November to April. I drink a lot of hot tea. I know when to lay off the caffeine. I'm also inoculated against paying much attention to sniffles and a scratchy throat. I personally reject giving in to sniffles and a scratchy throat, considering it a self-indulgent weakness. Did the soldiers at Valley Forge give in to the sniffles? How 'bout the hold-outs at Bastogne? They said "nuts" not only to the Germans shelling them, but to runny noses afflicting every man among them. And what about the steelworkers who built the Empire State Building in record time? Did they take a personal day because of a cough? No, they did not. Or Doug Williams Super Bowl MVP performance in 1988, the day after root-canal surgery? He did his job. Or Michael Jordan's flu game in the '97 NBA finals? A testimony to not whining and doing your job.
But I digress.
Up to this past Friday I thought I had developed, over a lifetime, a decent track record of knowing when to say "when" ... which for me was hardly ever. It had to be really, obviously, high-temperature, ashen-faced, near delirium for me to say, "I think I'll take a day." This worked for me. The huge problem is that, regarding Covid, my approach to sniffles and a scratchy throat negatively impacted others. As I write these words, I still feel zero pain, discomfort, temperature, upset stomach, headache ... nada. After Saturday and Sunday, today I feel not only rested but restless. I feel like it's a cold January day in Rochester, New York. I feel normal. I can pinpoint to within four hours last Friday when my Covid tests changed from negative to positive. This means I was negative and not infectious on the prior Sunday and Monday of the week. But that's a hollow thing to say and provides no comfort. It is always a hard lesson to learn that how I feel doesn't matter. My own confidence and certainty don't matter. How I feel, or how I think I feel, or how I feel about how I feel ... doesn't really matter. I had Covid and for all the world it felt like Friday.
Regarding the Candlelight Christmas Eve Service.
I am glad PCC celebrated our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. I do not regret it. I would do it again. Let me tell you why.
I believe, as a church, we need to be together. I believe we need to gather for worship. I believe, as a church, a prolonged reliance upon "digital gathering" degrades our fellowship. I believe "online worship" is a blessing particularly for those who cannot be present for whatever reason. I am glad we offer it and want it to be well done. Yet I also believe "digital gathering" cannot substitute for people being in the same room and seeing each other's eyes and hearing each other's voices and experiencing the holiness of intentional silence or the sound of robust singing or the proclamation of God's Word landing upon open hearts ... together. The very word "church" means the "called out assembly." God gathered them together at Mount Sinai. God gathered them together in the days of Nehemiah. God gathered them together on the Day of Pentecost. In houses and caves and open fields God has gathered His people for worship. I believe we cannot perpetually rely upon "digital gathering" without negatively impacting our fellowship as a local church.
I am glad for our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. It was, at the same time, a celebration of gathering together for worship. We did not gather for our Christmas Eve Candlelight Service in 2020. I believe it was the right decision at the time. A year has passed. Much has changed. Much is still changing. For my part, I am ready to cease living in perpetual reaction to Covid. That's a lesson I've learned, too. Living in constant reaction means allowing the other person, or the other circumstances, or some other entity, to set my agenda for me. I don't like that. I don't want to live that way. I want to set my own agenda. I want to be pro-active. Planning for the Christmas Eve Candlelight Service began in September. The Service was planned to be intentionally Scriptural, Congregational and Traditional. The Service was planned to be a celebration. It was all of that and I'm glad we did it. Raising our candles as we bellowed our "Joy To The World" was also spiritually uplifting.
Finally, a word of caution about living beyond mere reaction to Covid. My observation is that over the last two years the evil one has leveraged for himself a great deal of self-righteousness from Covid. The self-righteousness, as I have experienced it, comes in two virulent strains.
Strain #1: Feeling morally superior because one has obeyed the laws of the land, trusted the science, become informed, fully vaccinated, boosted, masked and a strong witness for all of the aforementioned. Anyone who sees any of the aforementioned differently is, frankly, "less than." They don't measure up. Not only are they willfully ignorant, but they're also maliciously dangerous. They - those people - are the problem, and they are the only real problem. If they would just go away and take their stupidity with them. God protect us from them.
Strain #2: Feeling morally superior because one has obeyed the will of God rather than the dictates of man. To paraphrase and conflate Peter from Acts 4 and 5, 'Whether it is right in your eyes to obey the changing mandates of the intrusive government ... we must obey God rather than man." Anyone else who sees it differently is part of the spineless, 'sheeple' flock of gutless Christians. They - those people - are the real reason Christianity and the church and the culture at large continue to crater. They are faithless. God protect us from them.
I am ready for both strains of self-righteousness to die a death of aggressive neglect. I believe virulent self-righteousness is a much greater threat to the spiritual health of the church than any variant of physical Covid. If you think the Omicron variant is highly transmissible, then consider the infectious possibilities of pride, fear, contempt, gossip ... despair, apathy, indifference, fatigue.
To the degree possible, I want us to move towards regularly gathering for worship. "To the degree possible" recognizes we don't live in a perfect world where everything can be neatly planned and executed. We live in a messy world where plans are often changed and then changed again. It can all be very frustrating. Perfection, a stress-free environment, a risk-free environment: you'll have to wait for heaven. Until then, "to the degree possible" means I hope we can find the best ways for us to meet together for worship on a regular basis.
I believe the strains of "them" and "they" need to be lovingly, graciously overwhelmed by the actions of "us" and "we" ... together.