Celebrating Holidays and Milestones and Moving On in the Midst of a Pandemic
For many students, the onset of spring heralds new beginnings and milestones to celebrate. For students of faith, the arrival of Holy Week is a time for spiritual renewal and religious celebration. For students expecting to graduate, commencement ceremonies provide an opportunity to celebrate all the hard work they have accomplished. Unfortunately, many of these time-honored traditions will be disrupted and delayed as communities around the nation hunker down to halt the spread of coronavirus infections. As a result, Easter and Passover celebrations at places of worship have been canceled, and the University of Montana, along with other universities, have chosen to cancel graduation ceremonies scheduled for the end of the spring semester. (There is talk of rescheduling graduation ceremonies for either September or October when conditions are deemed safe.) Instead of finding time to cherish new beginnings, we now find ourselves stuck in a state of almost unbearable limbo. In the days to come, other holidays and milestones lined up ahead in the calendar year — Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. —will have to be deferred and postponed to accommodate the new reality we live in.
Charles Blow, an op-ed writer for the New York Times, has lamented the loss of celebration and memorialization which we once took for granted. “One of the greatest casualties, voids, of the #COVID19crisis,” writes Blow, “is the relinquishing of ritual. Funerals, birthdays, weddings, graduations.” As our ability to mark certain rights of passage wains, the morale needed to weather this pandemic is starkly diminished. Mental health experts warn of the effects that depression can have on individuals and communities that are forced to quarantine. (We have addressed concerns relating to mental health in another blog post here.)
Albert Camus, the existentialist writer who opined on the disruptions caused by a pandemic in his book The Plague, wrote, “The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, ‘doing business.’" The ritualized habits of conducting “business” have now been replaced by the urgent need to slow the spread of a deadly disease in order to spare our neighbors and loved ones. For no amount of money could compensate for the loss of those who could potentially fall prey to this disease. What we value and how we make use of our time have been completely changed. How we honor our values and make use of our time is of the greatest importance.
In the spirit of reclaiming rights of passage and forms of celebration, many have taken to the Internet and social media to restore a sense of community. As Easter approaches, many congregations around the country plan to host virtual celebrations online. Likewise, the University of Montana has stepped forward to host online graduation celebrations. In recent days, tens of thousands of Missoulians have taken to howling outside every night at 8 p.m. to honor and celebrate essential workers, medical professionals, and first responders on the frontlines of this pandemic. The practice originated on Facebook with a group called HOWL for Missoula. These innovative forms of celebration and community building offer a useful alternative to the more face-to-face forms of interaction we are used to.
In addition to utilizing electronic forms of media, people stuck at home can strive to prioritize other more solitary and personalized rituals. Now is the time to celebrate the seemingly minor milestones in your life while you shelter in place — your child’s decision to eat broccoli for the first time, the completion of another week of homeschooling, a successful home workout or yoga session, another successful trip to the grocery store, the completion of a term paper which kept you up all night, face-timing with a friend or relative, the walk outside your home, the preparation of a tasty meal, the ending of a tv series which you binged for a week, conquering a new level on a video game you have been playing for weeks, the completion of a puzzle, winning a game of Monopoly with a roommate, finishing a book of poetry, adding entries in your diary, surviving a panic attack, making it through another day. Giving thanks for all the minor blessings and achievements helps to keep things in perspective while we wait for a return to normalcy.
As human beings, we are wired to want to celebrate and mark the passage of time with ritualized activities. We have been doing so for thousands of years. We are now denied the privilege of participating in these activities within the physical proximity of other people. But even though our lives have seemingly come to a halt, time still marches on. We would be wise to keep pace with the footsteps of time. When this pandemic ends, we would be remiss to find that time has marched on without us. So while we continue to remain at home and pray for the future of our communities and loved ones, let us move forward by honoring the passage of time and breaking ground on new memories and traditions that will sustain us in the uncertain times ahead.
