Have you got a routine yet?

I am not simply asking you if, when facing that new and invisible foe Covid-19, if you have organised yourself with washing hands, and wiping down surfaces, and ensuring you get the shopping you need, and doing some exercise most days (all socially distanced of course). Though such things will inevitably be very significant components of our lives, with our current reduced horizons, and we may find it helpful to some extent to routinize aspects of these activities.

But, even setting aside all that, our days may look different now and we may be filling them in ways that are not entirely familiar – new ways of working, new ways of relaxing. If you are still working (particularly if you are a key worker going into work) your routine may not look that different from how it did before the country went into lockdown, at least until you reach your weekend, but for many others the restrictions of lockdown lead to a potential ‘sameness’ of the days that present on one hand the risk of boredom yet on the other the challenging possibility of finally living, at least the organisational, and perhaps, if you have a spiritual practice or discipline, the ritual, aspects of the perfect day! Though for some of you it is just possible that such a thing may be an entirely alien notion, if you have previously glided from day to day, effortlessly introducing and adapting new routines at the appropriate moments and never feeling like you have days where you just can’t get going or just can’t get to doing what you feel you should or must!

Some of you might remember the 1993 film ‘Groundhog Day’ which starred Bill Murray as a TV weatherman who gets caught in a time loop, meaning he gets to repeat the same day ad nauseam (the day being the titular Groundhog Day, Feb 2^nd, which derives from a Pennsylvania Dutch superstition, predicting the end of winter depending on what weather/lighting a groundhog sees when coming out of its burrow on that day). I won’t recap the plot in detail but after many wild variations on living this one day, over and over, eventually our protagonist escapes the loop by getting the day ‘right’. In some respects this current existence reminds me of that (though of course any of us getting the minutiae of our daily living right will not, alas, reduce the impact of coronavirus on our nation or world). But I do wonder what getting a day under coronavirus lockdown ‘right’ might look like to you? And whether, if you get it right under these circumstances, there are disciplines you can transfer back to ‘normal’ life, when it finally reasserts itself.

I love the variety of my role as Minister, and of being parent to two lovely (though sometimes challenging) teenagers, and of all the various opportunities for leisure that still exist in the home (books, websites, DVDs, etc.), and that I can still go for a run and do my Tai Chi and my spiritual practices (meditation and some prayer) but I have always believed that having something of a routine for the day provided the ‘container’ into which to pour all that other stuff (and the other things we currently can’t do!). Believed it  – and yet still struggled to keep that routine – as there has always been a storm brewing in the form of an unmissable deadline, or an unexpected interruption, or simply my failure in the face of distraction.

Now, while that stuff has not gone away, there is much more scope for getting that ‘container’ a bit stronger and also ready for post-crisis living. Not rigid – having flexibility, when necessary, is a good thing – but strong enough for the structure to survive the impact of most challenges and, when it occasionally lapses or is demolished, sufficiently engrained that it is easily re-buildable.

May the routines and practices (spiritual or otherwise) that you build now help keep you and those you love safe, and may they, suitably adapted, serve you well when this crisis is past. Amen

[This formed Upper Chapel’s Wednesday lunchtime reflection on Weds 1st April 2020 and was originally distributed by email due to Chapel closure under Covid-19 restrictions.]