Lockdown, Screens and God by Trevor Thorn.

 Image: Credit Pixabay

Lockdown, Screens and God.

 

I guess most of us who write have also been communicating with others on screen in patterns which have built up since Lockdown 1 (UK) or your national equivalent. At first, this seemed quite strange even though some previous experience on systems such as Skype may have, in some measure, prepared us for the onset of a far wider range of communication by various electronic platforms. For my wife and I this included the provision of Sunday worship and fellowship for a small group of three semi-rural parishes.  

 

On one morning recently, we drew closer and closer to the time we were due to start the service and only one person had joined us. During those few minutes, we almost inevitably referred to Jesus’ comment recorded in Matthew ch18 v20, ‘When two or three are gathered in my name…

 

After the service which was, as it happened, finally attended by 20 people, I fell to wondering how  this text should be understood in this ‘age of screen’.

 

That speculation gave rise to a poem.

 

When two or three of you, in my Name gather,

united by communicating screens,

my Spirit will be in your distanced settings,

inviting you to share in godly themes

of conversation, as you jointly witness,

one to another, although you are but few.

Let us together, dwell in truth, peace, justice, 

with love that freely flows ‘twixt me and you.

 

There you will build each other for my mission,

embracing the whole world – so racked with pain:

leaving your screens refreshed with inspiration

to tell out our Good News oft and again.

 

This, obviously, is my personal view and will not appeal to everyone; but I do think it poses a wider question for all of us. How will we choose to reflect God’s interaction with us and others as we have communicated or will communicate ‘in our distanced settings’? And how will we articulate our sense of God’s presence with us as we use those platforms to others?

 

If we write in any genre about the last year, we will need to think about incorporating the unexpectedness of many, many people finding themselves utilising the, until then, strange environment of Zoom, and other similar platforms. Will we see God at work in these systems? Very few authors will – so maybe that is a challenge to those of us who are blessed with belief.