Sat/Sun 21-22 March

 This first weekend of lockdown has dragged on a bit, frankly. I thought I'd enjoy the chance to lie in but was wide awake at 6:30 on Saturday morning, my mind busy with thoughts of the wider world. This weekend we heard that it's likely we have at least three more weekends of staying home, and I think that is an optimistic view.

It is good to have the weekend routine feel markedly different to the weekdays. It's helpful for us all to continue to have a sense of 'work days' and 'non-work days.' So, we have had two main approaches to staying sane and at home this weekend!

Number 1: Physical Activity

Manu and I began Saturday morning by joining my sister's husband and daughter (he's a personal trainer) for his Boot Camp workout live on Facebook. It was a great HIIT workout, made even better by Manu proclaiming that she thinks I am the fittest person she knows, even fitter than her PE teacher! Notwithstanding the limitations of her acquaintances, this made my day. Big shout-out to Mark and Eden Joy for helping our Saturday start in such a fun way.

Manu clearly got quite amped up by our joint workout, because she then spent a further hour devising challenges for herself in the backyard. She created a chart, listing challenges from super easy through to 'nearly impossible' and gave herself points for completing them.

Clearly, it always pays to have various bits of kit lying around - the boxing bag (along with gloves three times the size of her hands), weights, a trampoline and a skateboard all made it into her challenge series!

Needing a challenge of our own, Tim and I both decided to complete 5km runs today. Given the fact that we can only take the dogs out for short walks (anything more and we risk a fine from €600-€30k fines, or 4 years imprisonment for a second offence) this was problematic. My solution was an audio book and endless loops around the backyard, up two flights of stairs through the house and back down! It took a while but I made it to 5km. I am starting to dream of a treadmill ...!

Number 2: Celebration

I believe wholeheartedly in the discipline of celebration. That is, choosing to celebrate the small things even when (especially when) it flies in the face of apparent reality. So, as well as celebrating a successful week of homeschool with pizza and a movie on Friday, today offered the perfect celebration opportunity: Mother's Day. Never mind that it is Mother's Day in the UK, not Spain, we embraced it!

The girls painted cards, wrote their sweet messages, and laid on a beautiful pancake brunch. Keziah is absolutely brilliant when it comes to creating these special moments, and never fails to write essays of tiny handwriting that melt your heart! Manu's missives, on the other hand, are unforgettably hilarious:

"So let us not dwell on what we can't do,

but on what we can do."

P.S. It's my quote but it could be different:

"I would if I could but I can't so I won't."

(Also mine.)

We laughed, we danced, we made and ate delicious food, we played games by the open fire. And, just to keep things real, we watched Netflix, separately in our own rooms. Because, you know, needs must ;-) 

Friday 20 March

It's already Day 5. We've had an entire working week confined to the house and it doesn't look likely to end soon. News from Italy is dire and I can only imagine that Spain will follow along similar lines. The original directive that spoke of a two week lockdown only ever seemed a starting point and I don't know anyone who thought this would be over within a fortnight. Schools are now giving 11 April as a possible end point, and I imagine that is being said for the sake of the kids.

So what to do? When days stretch into weeks and you are home with the same couple of people, leaving only briefly for groceries or dog-walking, and then only individually ... there is a great need to contain the days within some sort of structure. It makes me think of a canal, with its sections of waterway interspersed with locks that regulate the flow of water. Without a routine, we'd be in a river that has flooded its banks, water sloshing everywhere and no way to helpfully direct it!

Like any good Brit, my morning starts with tea! I love the fragrance of the tea leaves, the familiar rhythm of measuring them into the pot, adding boiling water, leaving it to stand. Such a simple joy.

 The tea comes with me back to the bedroom for what is, for me, the most delicious part of the day. While the house is quiet (come rain or shine, Tim is always on the balcony upstairs at this time) I relish the uninterrupted time to read, journal, reflect and pray. During the chaos of these days, this feels more vital than ever. In these morning moments, I remind myself the greater truth beyond the latest news updates; I ground myself in the unchanging and yet ever responsive reality of God. This is a time to reflect on how our unusual situation is affecting me, and a time to bring to mind people in other places who we care about.

Today I find myself thinking about a team mate who was visiting Morocco with her dad when Spain declared a State of Alarm. She will ride out the lockdown from there, while today her dad will travel 6 hours to Marrakech where he will try to get on a flight for Americans seeking repatriation. There is no guarantee he'll make it, so I add my prayer that he will.

For the longest time, a morning workout has been part of my routine and now I need it more than ever. I use an online platform with hundreds of program options and this week I started one that was shot live. While my body needs the purposeful activity, I also need the positive and fun vibe that is so evident in the room as the cast workout. These workouts are keeping me positive and help me to feel that, rather than 'wasted time,' our days in confinement have intention and, if nothing else, I can stay fit!

 I shower and make sure Manu is getting ready for school. She is delighted to be able to attend school in her PJs! Her timetable runs from 9:30 to 4:30, so her morning is relaxed enough for her to read in bed before she gets up. This makes for a happier girl!

At 9 all four of us gather at the kitchen bench for breakfast and a family devotion. We use the brilliant book of modern liturgy called Every Moment Holy - I have been amazed this week how appropriate a liturgy for 'waiting in line' or 'experiencing road rage' has been for living in lockdown (they hadn't thought to write one for that eventuality!). We read a psalm each day and pray for those we know who are sick, or vulnerable.

Then it's time for the school run, which has been drastically reduced from 50 minutes to a quick hop from kitchen to bedroom!

Time for me to do some work and mornings I use for desk-work. This week I have been rearranging a training course that would have been starting in May - now moved to November - as well as doing some writing related to our organisation's response to the pandemic. I would normally have been doing some work on a personal study project but I have found it difficult to focus on that this week. I am grateful for a couple of calls with co-workers or young leaders based in other places - it's good to hear how they are doing and to keep focusing on ways to respond positively when circumstances are out of our control.

We all stop to share Manu's mid-morning break time - although honestly, we are simply the providers of snacks that she scoffs in between racing around on the patio with a soccer ball, or playing swingball. The poor kid is missing more opportunities to MOVE and these 20 minutes must not be wasted!

 Later, I am on lunch duty. I have never loved the obligation to cook every day that family life entails, but these days it feels grounding in ways that are good. Again, we gather from bedroom, den or garden for 20-30 minutes of chatter around the food. Away from computers, news feed and social media, these are the moments that feel the most normal, the most real in a surreal world.

In a normal week, I keep afternoons for spiritual direction. Wonderfully, these sessions can continue uninterrupted by the abnormal circumstances in which people find themselves. In fact, we are all even more in touch with our desire to be accompanied by someone who will listen well and help us to find God in all the crazy. Today I connect with a woman who lives alone; I can't imagine how isolating that must feel. Like all of us, she is grateful she has a dog so that she is permitted to go out for short walks.

Manu finishes school at 4:30 and, while she enlists her sister in running around with her, I take Bracken out for a walk. We can only go out one at a time and I find myself missing the chats that dog-walking usually makes possible.

It's Friday and our usual routine includes a Sabbath meal shared with friends. I love this bookend to the week and so we find a way to check in with one another from our 3 different homes. Although it's strange to be sharing this time online, instead of around a table laden with food, we lean into the familiar rhythm of our family-friendly liturgy. We share communion and can't stop ourselves from trying to sing our regular song, although we are all out of time and end up sliding into laughter. There are a few tears - we miss and are concerned for these special friends.

At 8pm the evening is punctuated by the sound of applause as neighbours come outside to express their support for the hard-working medical staff. It is a moment of connection and solidarity at a time when it is easy to feel cut off from the rest of the world. The neighbour whose house adjoins ours says hello from her balcony, thanking us for the bag of lemons Tim had hung on her door.

These are days for slow cooking: making dough from scratch, slicing ingredients over a glass of wine. By the time the applause has died down, the pizza is ready to come out of the oven. We carry the baking trays with us to the den, where the girls drape themselves over the floor and sofa in their usual weekend movie-night fashion. We have been saving Beauty & The Beast for tonight, a sort of reward for navigating the first week of homeschool for Manu (she's a big fan of Emma Watson, of Hermione fame).

And then it's time for a book, and bed. I have to stop myself from returning to social media at night, a surefire way to disrupt my sleep. We turn out the lights and prepare for another, all too similar day, tomorrow.

Thursday 19 March

It's Day 4 of lockdown and everything is slightly surreal. Within these four walls, one could believe that life continues almost unchanged. The daughter who said she would NEVER want to homeschool is getting on with online school in a more or less cheerful fashion. And the man who needs to get out of the house at least 6 days out of 7 in order to swim, hike or run is managing to find movement in gardening, and weight-training, and the odd stair-running challenge.

It's true that I am cooking EVERY dang day and, never one for the mundane routine of domestic chores, I am somehow finding a sort of grounding in this repetition of preparing and sharing food in the middle of the day, when we are usually scattered. And yes, we have to take ID with us when we go out of the house, even to walk to dogs. And only one of us can go out at a time (we heard that people have been fined for having more than one person in a car, even). Yet, perched here on our hillside, we are in other ways quite separated from the realities in the town below.

Only when we go out for groceries does it become obvious how weird everything is. In the supermarket there are security personnel enforcing the approved distance between those shopping, and at the checkout there is tape on the floor to mark where to stand in the properly punctuated line. The store staff are masked and gloved, wearing an air of tension that betrays the way the last days have worn them down.

The streets are eerily quiet and feel like the set of some dystopian movie. It feels strange that the symptoms of hayfever have begin to kick in; surely such banal realities should be suspended at such a time? It's tempting to view the people who are out with suspicion: do they have a valid reason to be out of the house?

Back at home, siblings we don't usually hear from call us. Somehow this shared experience invites connection in a way that floods in Mozambique, or almost fatal accidents in South Africa never did. In spite of this imposed isolation,  ironically we feel more connected with some people than we did before. We are invited to join groups on Facebook and distant friends call or text to check in.

Somewhere in the middle of the twin realities of isolation and connection, and of familial normality and community chaos, we exist together as a family. We bake bread, we read books, we do workouts, we play games, we make love, we play music, we create gardens.

Wednesday 18 March

We decided an hour around the fire pit would be a good idea this evening, so we made popcorn and sat outside for a while. It was a really great way to enjoying being in the moment, rather than being too caught up in news reports and social media. We're more grateful than ever for outside spaces!

Then we joined in the daily applause for all the medical staff working so hard in the hospitals throughout Spain. This is a time of day to feel our connection to our neighbours, even though we are seeing so few of them!

Tuesday 17 March

 Day 2 and we are getting into some sort of rhythm, helped in large part by the fact that Manu continues to follow the school timetable (albeit dressed in her pyjamas). So at 9am we gather at the kitchen bench for breakfast (I am already so grateful for the couple of hours before that when the house is quiet and I can read, journal and workout in peace!). Then we share one of the beautiful liturgies from the book Every Moment Holy. This morning, hilariously and yet appropriately for four people stuck indoors together, I read the one 'for experiencing road rage.'

If my heart were more content in you, O Lord,
I would be less inclined to rage at others.
Let me gauge by the knot in my gut,
the poverty of my own understanding
of the grace I have received
from a God who, loving me,
chose rather to receive wounds
than to give them.
Take from me my self-righteousness,
and my ego-driven demands for respect.
Overthrow the tyranny of my anger, O Lord,
and in its place establish a better vision
of your throne, your kingdom, and your peace.

We are also reading through the psalms and today we pray for three people we know who are sick with Covid-19. At 9:30, Manu gets started with online school and Tim drives to the store to get groceries for a couple who are unwell and not able to leave the house. At their suggestion, he left the things inside their front gate without seeing them, which feels harsh but necessary.

Meanwhile, I get on with writing a piece for YWAM that was discussed at an online meeting of the communication team last night. While the writing goes quickly, it's hard to find the right tone for a time like this. I send it to my team-mates for their comments and, after a quick Zoom call, join the family for lunch. Even though we have absolutely everything we need right now, I find myself far more conscious than usual of how much food we are using, wondering how significant rationing of essentials might become. It's hard to convey this to the kids without freaking them out and, in any case, it would be a tad premature. Maybe I've read too many novels.

In the afternoon, Tim works on building a gate from some pallet wood he had in the shed. The dogs had got into the veggie and herb garden he and Keziah planted last week, digging up a row of chives. He creates a clever little gate to that part of the garden and I find it prettier and less annoying than I thought I would, and can imagine at some point adding a little arch for growing a vine or jasmine.

I don't normally relish walking the dogs in the rain, but today it feels good to get out of the house. I make sure I take my ID with me, as we've read that we shouldn't risk getting stopped without it. I exchange audio messages with my sister as I walk; she's in the UK and restrictions associated with the pandemic are beginning to affect her work.

After Manu finishes her school work, we connect with some friends to celebrate St Patrick's Day together. 

I had challenged the kids to dress in green and one of the boys had really gone to town - not only is he head-to-toe in green, but his face is green too!

It's sweet to catch up and exchange news of how we are all coping with being shut in at home, especially since one friend is home alone. I am not sure, right now, whether to see that as fabulous or terrifying.

After the call, the girls retreat to Keziah's room to watch something together while Tim and I set up a HIIT circuit in the den. It doesn't take long but it's a great way to energise at the end of the day. We had been training for a half marathon together, which was due to take place on 19 April and, inevitably, has been cancelled. We'd been hopeful that even during the lockdown we would be able to head onto the hillside behind our house to run trails but that is clearly not going to be possible. So instead we run up and down the stairs in between squats and push ups. It's not much but it might just save our sanity!

Manu is grumpy and rude before supper and my heart sinks at what it might mean to stay home together for weeks. Then we feed her, and she is her usual chatty and bouncy self ... may all our mood swings be as simple to deal with as that one!

Monday 16 March

Monday 16 March (4:30am)

Scrolling through Facebook and the flood of Corona-related posts, I read one that made me particularly sad. Someone, somewhere in the world of ‘Christian missionaries,’ was wondering out loud how best to respond to having to stay at home, to avoiding others for the sake of slowing the contagion. So far, so normal. The sad part, the part that revealed a breathtakingly disintegrated view of the world, was the part that bemoaned the way that ‘the Devil would be winning’ so long as we can’t get out there and share the Gospel with people for a few weeks.

Please just give me a moment while I hold my head in my hands and rock gently with my eyes closed.

I won’t even bother to get into the obvious, that we are not engaged in a battle where ‘the Devil wins’ if, at times, we are compelled to live into the reality of our faith without simultaneously delivering a four-point message of salvation. We might want to remember that we do, in fact, know who’s won this cosmic and unevenly weighted tug-of-war between good and evil. And while we’re at it, we could take a moment to reflect on the rather exquisite fact that, while we all grumble about being confined to our homes, and face some very real fears about the shaking of the world as we know it, the people of God are marking the season of Lent. We are rehearsing the story of Jesus reconciling both us and all creation to his Father (and ours). This year, as every year, we are intended to get in touch with our need for salvation. Do you feel it?

Anyhow, all this came back to me at 2 o’clock in the morning and got me thinking about being Christian at a time like this, of all the invitations that will come to us in these days. It reminded me of something Zadie Smith wrote, describing the time she visited Tintern Abbey in Wales, that beautiful wreck of a place of worship originally built in the 1100s.

We parked, I opened a car door on to the vast silence of a valley. I may not have had ears but I had eyes. I wandered inside, which is outside, which is inside. I stood at the east window, feet on the green grass, eyes to the green hills, not contained by a non-building that has lost all its carved defences. Reduced to a Gothic skeleton, the abbey is penetrated by beauty from above and below, open to precisely those elements it had once hoped to frame for pious young men, as an object for their patient contemplation. It was already an ancient memory two hundred years ago, when Wordsworth came by. Thistles sprout between the stones. The rain comes in. Roofless, floorless, glassless, ‘green to the very door’ - now Tintern is forced to accept that holiness is everywhere in everything.

I wonder at this opening out of religious defences, this emptying from the containment of our small ways of thinking and speaking, so that everything is a lived experience of the life of God. Are we willing for our lives to be greened from the outside in? For the terrible beauty of this hauntingly messy world to be owned as part of who we are - it is, whether we see it or not. Could it be that something of who we are, these living epistles, will be more effectively incorporated into the world that surrounds us when our windows fall out and our doors fall off?

Zadie Smith turns our attention to Wordsworth, who wrote of his sensation on visiting Tintern: ‘That in this moment there is life and food/ For future years.’ Could it be that in our confinement during these days, in our inability to be anything but identified with our neighbours as we queue for food staples, or wait outside the pharmacy, there is something happening that can nourish both us and them? Are we willing to become broken bread, in our prayers, in our identification, in our inarticulate groaning for the redemption of all things?

I was listening recently to the wonderful podcast of Ruth Haley Barton. In her latest episode she had a conversation with Father Ronald Rolheiser, who spoke of the struggle to give away our moments of dying. That is, not only our physical deaths which can become sacred gifts to those we love, but also those moments of dying to our own ability to drive and control our lives.

Could it be that when we are least able to be our usual, action-oriented selves, we are able to be a gift in ways that we are not during those periods that seem to be the most productive? And could it be that we make room for a profound work of God when we enter into the surrender of letting go, relinquishing our usual efforts to ‘make something happen?’

In these uncommon days when we are more aware than usual of being limited, while also being so very connected with those around us, sharing this experience of disequilibrium, may we know the life of God’s Spirit at work in and through us like never before. Perhaps he will work to bring quiet confidence to our waiting, perhaps to help us enter into the groaning of creation, perhaps through acts of selfless kindness that surpass our own fears.

Yes, we need the merciful salvation of God. And no, it does not depend on us.