As we set sail into 2022, it is difficult not to be gripped by a world-weary sense of déjà vu. We seem to be in familiar waters. Having reached ‘Omicron’ are we simply heading around the calendar encountering new waves, even if we don’t call them Alpha#2, Beta#2…?
Since March 2020, there has been a constant urge to look to what comes after; to when-we-are-post-pandemic. That desire to return to ‘normal’ is palpable. Perhaps the clearest example of this ‘old normal’ is the holiday ‘in the sun’, the escape from ourselves, our daily routines, these cold climes. Yet, we know that air travel is especially damaging to the climate, that is unsustainable. We also know, that as we travel in one direction above the clouds, there are others, far below, who have embarked on dangerous journeys coming the other way, motivated not by a desire to escape but to arrive, to find a new and permanent home.
The world is a deeply unequal place – and that extends, of course, to the distribution of vaccines. We have not ‘escaped’ the pandemic through science and technology, through the vaccine roll-out, because in truth, there is no escape, not until vaccines are available to all. The succession of variants – tells us something very important. It is not complicated. The pandemic won’t ‘be over’ until it’s over everywhere. The failure to think and act globally is exactly what prevents us from moving beyond the current crisis of Covid-19. Something similar can be said of the refugee crisis and of ‘Fortress Europe’.
Covid 19 through 22… and counting? ‘Post-pandemic’ is not very useful language, for we are now literally in an Age of Covid. But that Age is not simply about a virus, in fact I suspect that is simply a symptom of the interconnected nature of the challenges facing our world, of the rapid environmental changes that are prompting the destruction of livelihoods, the resultant scarcity of food and water, and therefore the movements of people and the rise of conflicts.
The Time, the Age of Covid may come, in time, to be seen as a watershed and not just a succession of devastating waves; a time of unsettling, of questioning, of rethinking. It may be that the system of beliefs that we have inherited, that create, legitimate and maintain the world as we understand and experience it, shifts.
A year ago, at Joe Biden’s inauguration we heard powerful words from Amanda Gorman in her poem, ‘The Hill We Climb’:
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace
And the norms and notions
Of what just is
Isn’t always just-ice
These are words to hold onto, for in the midst of the climate emergency we hear a number of challenges to ‘the norms and notions of what just is’. Alongside the calls of BLM to racial justice, restorative and distributive, we increasingly hear the newly empowered voices of indigenous, ‘first nations’ and others calling from the ‘underside of history’. Calling out, pointing out, the distortions of familiar histories – for example, that Christopher Colombus ‘discovered’ (the already-populated) Americas – and giving their own accounts and accounting of European invasion and exploitation. These re-tellings also present visions for how the future could or should be and how we might relate to our common home, the earth.
The new year brings us the season of Epiphany, when Christians reflect on Christ coming as a light to the nations, a light that that reaches beyond the dark divisions of humanity, through the barriers and border-posts that are set up to distinguish between persons and peoples. It is a season with a radical vision for ‘the norms and notions’ that permeate society for it speaks to the universal, of and to all nations, all peoples. And it uses the imagery of water and light, which in their different ways bring waves of refreshment and wisdom to our experience as human beings; that speak of a renewed relationship, of the breaking into history of a vision of hope and renewal, in which we see ourselves afresh, alongside our sisters and brothers, as made in the image of God.
Epiphany challenges inherited ideas, the old norms, a return to what has been. It speaks instead of that which might be. We may all yearn to be ‘post-pandemic’, but it is possible that we will only arrive if we are renewed as a people, as those who sharing in the universal light of Christ, seek the common good as global neighbours, rather than prioritising protection from others; serving in the midst, in this our global present.
The Revd Dr Duncan Dormor. General Secretary, United Society Partners in the Gospel.
Now look back at 2021 here
Column Inches 