Interesting Times by Keren Dibbens-Wyatt

Even as we are negotiating this strange time in our lives, we are aware that this pandemic is historically significant. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen posts on social media encouraging us and our children to chronicle our day-to-day experiences and emotions for posterity. I doubt though, that future historians are going to have much trouble finding material about this year. There is, perhaps, not much likelihood of a Samuel Pepys emerging or being noticed, when 24 hour news cycles will be there for perusal.

But those of us who make it to the other side will doubtless see that it is already affecting our world, not to mention our writing. Much as everything changed after 9/11, so too, 2020 is a year after which nothing will be the same, and that will include the lives and memories of our characters.

But it is not just Covid-19 that has rattled the world’s bones this year. Wildfires, storms and flooding had already done that, and in the USA, over the course of a few short years, they have moved from having an erudite black first family into a culture where not only can a reality star president fail to call out racism, but where a black teenage boy, Ahmaud Arbery, can be shot and killed for no reason whilst out jogging (God have mercy). This week, in Georgia, in the 21^st Century. It is heartbreaking, devastating, unthinkable, and very, very real.

Here in the UK, we have Brexit, and we have just celebrated the 75^th anniversary of VE Day, whilst simultaneously separating ourselves from our European allies, and making the care homes where our veterans live and die, a low priority. Eugenics is openly discussed (and thankfully, rightly vilified) on social media. But there are questions about whether it has a place in our government’s policies, given their recent appointments, talk of “herd immunity” and the hostile environments created for the Windrush generation, immigrants, migrant workers and the sick and disabled.

It seems our collective demons, especially here and in the States, are rising up to not only haunt us, but to demand we deal with them. There is a great deal of what Franciscan friar and teacher Richard Rohr calls “shadow work” to be done. We need to challenge ourselves on our own inherent and systemic racism, misogyny and ableism, all our prejudices, and perhaps most of all, take the time and trouble to learn from and listen to, those who have experienced these things first hand, and have ideas on how to change things (including ourselves).

Those of us who write about spiritual matters are not going to be able to leave these issues, nor environmental concerns, neatly to one side. They are demanding to be spoken about, grieved, repented of, and addressed. 

Grief, loneliness and trauma are also things that, as writers, we will need to be thinking about ministering to. There are a lot more people in emotional pain who need the wisdom and consolation of the Holy Spirit. So many losses to grieve.

Some writers are talking of these changing needs as an “opportunity,” both for us and for evangelism. I wonder if that is a little crass. What there is, and has always been, is a calling to keep speaking of God’s love, and to continue to work it out in the various ways that we minister to people, even if we can only do that with our pens.

St Teresa of Avila (patron saint of writers) also lived in "interesting times," and was investigated by the Spanish Inquistion (which she was not expecting). She said:

“Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which He is to bless His people.”


Photo of statue of Teresa of Avila from Pixabay.

Keren Dibbens-Wyatt is a chronically ill writer and artist with a passion for poetry, mysticism, story and colour. Her writing features regularly on spiritual blogs and in literary journals. Her full-length publications include Garden of God’s Heart and Whale Song: Choosing Life with Jonah. She has a new book, Recital of Love, coming out with Paraclete Press in September 2020. Keren lives in South East England and is mainly housebound by her illness.