Reflections on the Pandemic Journey

Part 1: Marking the end of the Pilgrimage, written around May 8, 2023 

In the spring of 2020, I was taking my last seminary class while completing my parish internship as preparation for ordained ministry. That class, taught by my friend Faryn, was on "Decolonizing Holy Land Tourism," and involved a spring break trip to Israel and Palestine.

We met each week on Zoom from our respective homes around the world as Faryn helped us connect with each other, the complex history of that land, the tragic history of Zionist settler-colonialism, and theoretical and theological notions of pilgrimage. We watched from afar, tentatively, as the SARS-coV-2 virus began to spread, our anxiety about how it might impact our travel steadily increasing with each passing week. In late February/early March, that trip was the first thing to be canceled, the decision made by the closure of the border to Palestine. As we continued to grapple with the larger theological and historical questions (and asked some retrospectively naive ones, like would we be interested in rescheduling our trip for August?), the course became a container in which to process the terrifying transformation of our world. I found myself asking, What if we approached pandemic as a pilgrimage? The result was a collaged map and associated audio tour, which captured many of the images, fears, and motifs of that moment in time while attempting to make meaning of it all. I submitted it as my final project of seminary, and then graduated, on Zoom, while enjoying a nice takeout meal at my parents' house, where I had relocated at the start of the pandemic.

My plan had been to burn this paper artifact at the end of the pandemic, an end which kept moving further and further from sight. The images and tour would stay preserved on YouTube, but I imagined a ritual of release in burning the paper. But when was this pandemic over? When I got my first vaccine? No. Was it the first time I flew after March 2020? No, that wasn't it. Or the first time I traveled back to California, where I had originally been planning to go for graduation, and where I went in December 2021 for the first in-person group event I attended since the pandemic started? That wasn't it either. The collage moved with me, when I left my parents' house for an apartment of my own. With painter's tape I tacked it to a wall, from which it would habitually fall. I kept putting it back up until a month or so ago, when I decided without much thought to roll it up and put it in a corner. Not yet tinder, but no longer the center of attention it had been.

Last week, the WHO declared the end of the global health emergency caused by COVID-19, which is to say, I think, that COVID is with us but is no longer the global threat it had been, which is to say, the pandemic is over. I find those words hard to write because after 3+ years, I've gotten used to living in a time of pandemic. Because I know, personally, more people who have had or have COVID in the past week than I did this week three years ago. But it is true, too, that the fear and the deadliness are not what they were, that we are living amidst something different and we must continue to adapt with that. Finally, it feels like time to burn this paper relic that has been my companion and guide these three years.

But first I must look back and reflect. If this pandemic is over, so is the pilgrimage. Where have I traveled? Where have I arrived? how have I been transformed? What new self has emerged?

Although some journeys are marked by major points of entry and exit - portals, airline flights - nothing is ever as clear cut as we want it to be. The coronavirus pandemic crept upon us, and its ending lacks the kind of celebration and finality we wish we could have. So we make a portal to mark this moment in time. Like a graduation, an ordination, starting a new job or ending one, moving to a new home, all transitions I experienced at least once over these years. In so many ways the before and after are exactly the same, and yet, something has changed.

Part 2: The Journey isn't Over, May 19, 2023

I didn't burn the collage yet. No one came to the bonfire where I planned to burn it, and I felt too painfully alone, more isolated than I felt three years ago when we were all afraid to get within six feet of each other, but kept showing up for each other on the computer screen. As someone without a strong geographically local community at the time, I couldn't feel bad about my limited local connections when nearly all connections were virtual and I did have plenty of those. I was starting to feel like I had local connections and community here, hence setting myself up for the pain of those folks not being available to me. I didn't want to - couldn't - end this pilgrimage there, in that pain of isolation. That is not the destination, not where I am going. I may be wearing my mask less and less but I am still on this pilgrimage because I actually have agency over where I am going. I get to set a destination, and not let the world determine it all for me, like it did when this pandemic pilgrimage began. So where do I want this journey to lead? To connection and commitment and trust, to deeper proximate relationships and partnerships.

In this week since I didn't burn the collage, I've been moving in that direction, intentionally and incidentally. I'm talking to my neighbors and continuing to show up for things, proximity and repetition and faithful risk-taking. There's this great beyond ahead of me, with no knowing at the moment what kind of funding my work will have going forward. I can't know the future, but I can set my compass toward how I want to show up at the cliffs of the unknown. Rooted in place, secure in myself, hands entwined with others.