Pivots and Possibilities
Another week of Sydney lockdown announced – and on behalf of the parish team I especially wish school students and teachers the best for the days of online learning ahead next week. Here’s to their pivoting. What? What’s that mean? Well, the large online platform called Linkedin that connects people across many vocational pathways suggested during 2020 that pivot was the new word of the year! Obviously it’s a word that’s been around for a long time but in the changed circumstances of the pandemic, just about all is us were called on to pivot, in the sense of shifting around the way we did things.
One of the champion pivoters in the previous parish where I lived, was a man in his mid 80’s who learned how to access and use websites during 2020. I so much admired his humble openness to taking new steps. And he’d send me periodic text messages to say he was enjoying keeping connected through the parish website etc. But even more significantly in his version of pivoting, he said that doing these things was encouraging him to check in on others more often, to connect well with them, see how they were going and follow up on their story. That Linkedin platform also suggested that some of the runner-up words applied in new ways in the world’s lockdown times have been; pause, shift, re-imagine, lean into. You might think of other words and phrases describing how history, in addition to the world’s sadness and loss of this time, might one day speak about this era of the pandemic. I wonder if one of Albert Einstein’s quotes might play out as a result of this period of history. Apparently when Einstein was asked about a certain problem he replied: “In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity”. Hmmm. What do you reckon?
From our faith tradition, there are various reflections we could make concerning this time of 2020-2021, which introduced the strange word ‘COVID-19’ into our language. One reflection might be from the common word used in our faith; repentance. Repentance is a translation of the Greek word metanoia. And it literally means to change your mind/heart; to change direction. In essence it’s not about guilt and shame. John the Baptist called people to a change of mind and heart. Repentance in that context meant turning around and moving differently. It’s a call to think and act differently.
So rather than seeing COVID and lockdowns as a time of waiting to go back, I wonder if our pivoting can gift us with some helpful metanoia; with some next new thinking; some moving differently, in the way we view our relationship with each other and the world. Enough for now, but probably plenty of scope for us to take such reflections further.
With friendship – Paul