Four years ago, the world shut down as a new and deadly virus spread around the globe. As people recall how difficult this was, I find myself remembering things I liked about that period.

Some of you will want to stop reading right here. How could I have fond memories of such a dark period? More than a million people died in the US; people are still dying!! Some people still haven’t recovered from the effects of isolation and the educational setbacks caused by schools pivoting to Zoom. It was a time of great divisions over what was true. Those fault lines have not gone away. If anything, they have gotten worse.

Indeed, the legacy of the COVID pandemic is stark.

Nonetheless, I keep thinking about the unexpectantly positive. Take bird song, for example. The world stopped rushing and, in that moment, it was silent. No traffic noise. No noise at all, really except for bird song. I even wrote about evidence that birds sang new songs during this time.

Nature thrived. With man out of the way, nature did what it does best, it rebounded and renewed itself.

People became curious and inventive. With vast expanses of extra time on their hands, people read books. They experimented with cooking. People baked bread and invented pesto from carrot greens and took all kinds of wonderful culinary excursions.

And in that space that was truly isolating, people also connected. They shared sourdough starters and recipes. They shared news about where you could buy items in short supply. They had conversations from their porches with neighbors they hadn’t had time to talk to before.

In our neighborhood, we put teddy bears in our windows to provide local children with a way to get out and hunt for bears. It was a small thing that engendered so much joy. I smile as I write this remembering.

I wish there was a way we could bring back some of that wonder without the death and destruction. Without fighting over masks and closures and politics.

It is possible to set aside a sabbath of sorts in which we focus on baking and breaking bread, listening to birds sing and breathing deeply.

Isn’t that what God intended from the very first? Didn’t he tell us that we should stop striving on the Sabbath. That we should be still and know that he is God. That there is a time to stop creating and say ‘enough’.

At the moment, my house is a wreck as we downsize. Boxes and piles of stuff are everywhere. The packing tape keeps going missing. Every day has become a 3-ring circus. So, maybe it is no surprise that I long for the slower pace of four-years ago.

I long for Sabbath.

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God

Hebrews 4:9