Letter from COVID-19 round two
sickies wickies and capital S Suffering
Not long ago, as I was running around, frantically printing scripts and doing laundry for one of the busiest week(end)s of my life, a tickle in my throat led me to decide that out of respect for the colleagues I was about to encounter at our annual Gathering of the Orders retreat, it would behoove me to take a COVID test. Luckily, we had a free one laying around. As I pulled it out of the packaging, Stella asked me over and over again what it was.
“It’s a COVID test, honey,” I said. “It will tell me if I’m sickie wickie.”
“Are you sickie wickie, mommy?”
“I hope not, baby.”
You see where this is going.
As the liquid traveled across the little meter, before it even got to the little “T” line, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. Somewhere deep inside me I knew. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before the test clearly indicated that I am, indeed, sickie wickie.
Missing my retreat with my colleagues, especially one where I had worship responsibilities, was a huge disappointment, certainly. Something higher stakes is on the table, though. You remember my bff whose Substack I recommended to you in the last Hyperfixation Station? They happen to be getting married on Sunday. I happen to be the officiant. My daughter happens to be the flower girl. It happens to be the thing I have looked forward to the most this year.
I called my spouse. He came home immediately. I hadn’t cried yet. He put Stella in bed for her nap then came to give me a hug, and that’s when the dam broke. I sobbed on my couch for an hour before I got up the courage to tell Fitz. It was better after I did, since I had someone who was equally devastated. We’ve spent the last three days bargaining with God and Jesus and the universe and our Tarot cards so that maybe I can test negative on Sunday and wear a mask and be present for the ceremony, which seems beyond unlikely. We’ve been figuring out which Bluetooth speaker would be most powerful so I can FaceTime into the ceremony and officiate from afar. We’ve been coping.
COVID round two didn’t hit me as hard as round one in August of 2022, but I wouldn’t say I’m sailing through it. Now, multiple days in, I’m able to sit at my computer, work on embroidery, and care for my toddler who can’t, by the way, attend daycare under the circumstances.
I often find when I go through my journals that I say that phrase “this doesn’t make me special” when something bad is happening to me. As if I need to qualify my suffering, even in my most private of writings, because what if someone thinks I do, in fact, think my suffering makes me special? What if my daughter reads my journals upon my death and thinks to herself, “My god, what a whiny little bitch my mom was.”
It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?
But I almost wrote that same phrase, just now. Because I know so many people for whom COVID has had far deeper and more dire consequences. I am far from the first person to experience this. But then, as I thought about what I could say instead, I wondered to myself, what if our suffering is what makes us special?
What if our suffering is not to be belittled and bullied into silence, but rather to be held up as a way for us to understand our lives?
I’ve hinted at my study of suffering in my graduate work. The biblical book of Job was my guiding framework and lens for this exploration, particularly the last four chapters (38-42), the place in the book where God answers Job’s cries throughout the book for God to appear and give an account of why Job is suffering. If you’re unfamiliar with the book, here are the cliff notes:
A righteous (“good”) man–Job–has his family, health, and wealth stripped from him. After sitting with him, Job’s friends begin to berate him for his apparent sinfulness that has led to such an earth-shattering outcome. Throughout the book, Job argues with his friends, insisting on his blamelessness, and calls for God to appear and accuse him if indeed he has done wrong. In chapter 38, God does indeed appear. God speaks in blustery, sometimes indecipherable language. Literally, the Hebrew text is very corrupted, i.e. unreliable.
Here is what I have written elsewhere about the Divine Speeches in Job 38-42:
When God responds, God uses the language of creation to describe in overwhelming terms how present God actually is in the pain that takes place in this world. “I broke forth my regulations for the boundaries of the earth, and I said, ‘You may come as far as here, but no further’” (Job 38:10-11). The language used in the divine speeches is violent, highlighting how painful existing in this world can be. The creation language gives a dimension of suffering to even the most beautiful part of this world. What God’s response to Job does for understanding the book is twofold. First, it affirms that the physical world is in fact, as Job has claimed, grounds for understanding. Second, it places Job’s experience within the larger schema of God’s world.
That is not to say that Job’s suffering has been invalidated. On the contrary, it is of utmost importance, both to Job and God… through the lens of Job’s story, validated suffering becomes a framework with which to look at our world and our relationships.
The Job newsletter has been on the backburner for a while. It’s been simmering but not prioritized. I can’t say that it was where I had any intention of this newsletter going this evening.
Does my suffering make me special?
I’m not sure. Perhaps. Perhaps not.
What I am sure of is that my suffering is a true and valid lens through which to view the world.
Am I suffering right now?
Yes.
Yes, I am.
I’m devastated.
Have I been more devastated in my life before? Have worse things happened to me?
Certainly, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Not in this moment.
There’s one more thing I learned from my study of suffering and the Divine Speeches in the book of Job.
I learned that God–if you fancy such a higher power to be part of your life in some way–desires for us to speak in the midst of our suffering. I told you about the tattoo, didn’t I? It says, “Job answered the Lord.” It’s the first verse of the last chapter. It follows God’s words. In the book of Job, at least the poetic part, the final word is given not to God, but to Job. Whatever you think the Divine Speeches in 38-42 might mean, we cannot deny that God elevated Job’s voice by giving him the last word.
That’s why I’m writing this Substack. That’s why I speak about suffering.
That’s why I am done writing “this doesn’t make me special” in my poems and my journals. Whether it makes me special or not is irrelevant: whatever “this” is, it is enough for me to speak about, to use a framework to understand myself, my world, and my relationship to others including the divine.
I hope you have a better week than me. But even if you don’t, I love you. I see you. I honor you.
And I encourage you to speak, whatever that looks like or means to you. Speak, and know that someone is listening. It might be God. It might be me. It might be your mom. I don’t know. But I do know that in the midst of our pain, one of the only things that will serve us is our words. It is a way to have agency in the chaos and uncertainty of all things.
Here’s how I finished my master’s work on Job:
We speak, we listen, we respond again. This is Job’s answer for suffering. Though we may curse the day of our birth and clamor for death, in the end, we cry out. When God answers, we listen. Then, like Job, we respond anew. We answer the Lord.
no hyperfixation station this round, dear ones, because I need some sleep.
xoxo,
d