Texas
Lessons amid pandemic loss
Five years ago, COVID-19 turned the world upside down. On…
Surviving a pandemic
At COVID-19’s five-year anniversary, reflecting on the surprises and revelations.
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ABILENE, TEXAS — “Before the pandemic.”
“Since the pandemic.”
Those phrases mark time for us now the way “before the war” and “after the war” did for generations before us.
All of us, even journalists, learned some lessons in the process of surviving and covering a pandemic.
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Lessons about self-care, grief, isolation and the value of fellowship. Lessons about covering hard, controversial stories fairly and thoroughly. Lessons about reporting by phone or wearing a mask when we’d have preferred to be on the ground, in person. Lessons about our own paths to staying connected to our church families.
Journalists are people, too.
Two granddaughters born during the pandemic blessed me. I made keeping them safe but seeing them often my top priority.
Early on I resolved to stay in touch regularly with loved ones and fellowship as best I could with my family and friends through Zoom, FaceTime and text groups.
Each week I sang along all by myself with the online gathering of the University Church of Christ in Abilene, where I’ve worshiped for 33 years. I’ve always loved songs with an alto lead. My late great Corgi, Champ, never quite grasped why I was singing to my laptop. But he sat there every week, eyeing the communion cracker.
When the second shutdown came, I was as weary of it all as anyone. I had been vigilant about vaccinations and boosters and taking care of myself generally because I wanted to play with those babies! So in some ways I returned to life — traveling, eschewing masks, eating out with friends. But I resolved to stay out of crowds, which meant no in-person church and no basketball games. I was not thrilled about either.
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Others managed it all differently, but those were the decisions that made sense to me. And we were all living through a time that made precious little sense.
For months during my weekly “church on the patio,” as I called it, I posted a photo to my Facebook page with my communion elements, my laptop and Champ in his nearby chair. And I started taking sermon notes on my laptop to help me stay focused on the lesson, then I posted the sermon summary to my Facebook page. And people read my notes, faithfully, not because I’m a great summarizer but because our young minister, Bradley Steele, was preaching Spirit-led sermons in a difficult season.
Three years later, after gratefully returning to church in person, I’m still doing that. But now I take notes on my phone from my pew near the front, summarize as I go and hit post by the time Steele wraps up.
Cheryl Mann Bacon’s late friend and pet, Champ, watches while she worships online during the COVID-19 pandemic.
My Facebook friends are a pretty diverse lot, in part because of my work for The Christian Chronicle but also because of 39 years spent at Abilene Christian University. Friends, readers, former students and colleagues include conservatives, progressives, nones, faithful Church of Christ folks, Baptists, Methodists and Catholics among others, and quite a few from foreign countries.
And every week those sermon summaries draw responses from my wide variety of friends about how much they appreciate the chance to “hear” the Word from Steele. I’m frequently amused at how Steele’s lessons inspire those same Facebook friends — despite their vast differences theologically, politically and otherwise.
They don’t know each other, so they don’t know they’re supposed to disagree. Thus they’re more open to seeing things differently and congruently. They converse kindly, with no digs or insults — too often a rarity on Facebook, even or especially among Christians.
That’s a lesson we all should have learned — before the pandemic.
CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact [email protected].
